Chutzpah

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/29/2013

Daily Tribune

The latest poverty statistics that came from no less than the BS Aquino government's own National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) and National Economic Development Authority shows just how the prevailing economic paradigm of liberalization and privatization has treacherously betrayed the vast majority of the Filipino people.
Over the past 10 years, poverty in the country has stayed at the level of around 28 percent despite perennial claims of "growth" and ad hoc poverty alleviation programs such as the multibillion peso conditional cash transfer doleouts. It's not just that the past and present governments have not made a dent on improving the economic life of the nation; it is the fact that the situation has gotten worse especially since 2005. At present, a recent survey of the Social Weather Stations even placed the self-rated poverty index at 52 percent of the population!

When apologists of the prevailing economic order try to explain away the dire situation vis-à-vis their incessant claims of "growth," they often point to such "jobless growth" as one that has yet to become really "inclusive," as if someday it will. One prominent female economist who has been portrayed as an authority on the matter since the time of Cory Aquino — who was herself a former Neda chief — said so. Yet one will never find any mention of specifics underlying such "non-inclusiveness" from them. Meanwhile, traditional politicians, together with "leftists" associated with the Establishment, such as Ralph Recto and Walden Bello, also speak of the "trickle-down effect" (a central construct of capitalist economics) as not yet happening; but again they point to no specific policies or acts that cause this, since all we read and hear are motherhood statements. Why?

The reason for their lack of specifics is that most of them, by their advocacy of the various economic and political policies institutionalized in the past two-and-a-half decades, have been part of the problem. So let us cut to the chase as we get to the root of our economic and poverty crises.

Two specific events happened in 2005 that had directly worsened the economic plight of the people: 1) the expanded value-added tax (eVAT), which extended coverage of VAT to power, fuel, water, as well as professional and toll fees, amounting to over P100 billion annually or around P900 billion the past eight years and 2) the Performance Based Regulation (PBR) scheme formulated by the Energy Regulatory Commission as the rate base for electric utilities that raised their profit cap from the erstwhile 12 percent (under the RoRB or Return-on-Rate Base formula) to up to 17 percent now.

The latter packed a particularly lethal punch, given the many deformities of the onerous 2001 Electric Power Industry Reform Act, which I summarize from my past articles: "The IPPs (independent power producers), Meralco (Meralco Manila Electric Rail and Light Co.) and industrial consumers, as well as socialized rates, systems losses, missionary routes, seniors' discount, are subsidized by residential consumers; under Epira and PBR, consumers pay VAT. In the midst of national disenchantment generated by government's own poverty numbers, the imperial BS Aquino simply pooh-poohed the data and snubbed the Neda chief in his recent trip to Brunei.

Some oligarchs, who have actually ruled the roost behind politicians since the time of Cory Aquino, felt obliged to react too. One report that headlined his call to "Allow private sector to actively help end poverty" quoted him as saying, "The imperative is inclusive, not exclusionary, growth. Business and government need to work together to identify areas that offer the higher levels of employment and income to our people — agriculture and tourism, for instance."

What chutzpah! My reaction to all of them is "Why not begin by aligning our power rates with the average of Asia?" The whole world knows the Philippines has the highest power cost in Asia and this in no small way has been one of the major causes of FDIs (foreign direct investments) — where the Philippines is behind even Cambodia and Myanmar — being turned off from our country, hence, stunting any jobs creation. How can the economy be inclusive when a growing majority of our people and our few remaining fledgling industries are being excluded from the modern productive mainstream by unaffordable power rates?

Similarly, policy makers need to find a way to bring down the rates for water, where the Philippines is alternately second or third highest in Asia; same with the need to reduce the cost of food transported from the provinces to the cities. Indeed, there are many other things to be done for our economy to become truly inclusive and jobs generating, but let's start by slaying the biggest monster of them all — our nation's murderous power rates.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Manila's Resurrection?"; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Manila's greatness

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/24/2013

Daily Tribune

Acomprehensive overview of modern world history would never be complete without the City of Manila. From the middle of the Second Millennia, from the Galleon Trade to last major city to fall in Japan's Second World War Empire, Manila has figured among the center of world focus. Recently, however, Manila is being remembered mainly for the tragic Luneta Hong Kong tourists' massacre and as one of the dirtiest cities in the world. I personally experienced the latter when I stepped off the LRT (Light Rail Transit) station at Carriedo and walked down its steps, which are being made the home and toilet of many of the homeless poor of the city. At night and wherever lighted, Manila's streets are a garish carnival of tasteless low standing street lamps that blind (if not, completely turn-off) motorists instead of lighting the way.

When the current administration of the City of Manila that started in 2007 removed various "tourist spots" for alleged immoralities, including the very well-patronized Boardwalk shops, the new mayor did not foresee the adverse impact on employment. Today, unemployment is the major problem of the citizens of Manila, where the urban poor communities are world-renowned. This in turn had had a very serious deleterious impact on the revenues of the city, probably equaling the impact of the loss from graft and corruption in the Manila mayor's office. Although vehemently denied by city hall officials, the City of Manila's budget deficit today stands at P3.5 billion, as published in various newspapers based on a CoA (Commission on Audit) report. The city is indeed in dire straits.

The CoA Web site contains the 2011 annual report on the Manila city government. Under its Significant Findings and Recommendations No. 18 report, it says: "The funds withheld for the BIR, GSIS, Pag-IBIG and PhilHealth in the amounts of P237.826 million, P97.664 million, P0.172 million and P20.794 million, respectively, were not remitted on time," while item No. 12 reports that "the city's available cash of P1.006 billion" including the remittances "is insufficient to cover liabilities" amounting to P3.553 billion.

The business and jobs losses in the city have obviously contributed in a major way to the massive decline in its revenues leading to this deficit — a deficit that the present city government has offered no solution to, except to lie through the skin of its teeth by denying the CoA report. What shameless chutzpah indeed.
The other major hemorrhage of revenues, of course, is graft and corruption. Retired Gen. Bobby Calinisan, once an aide to the incumbent city mayor, left the latter's entourage long ago to denounce the sleaze rampant in city hall. The hemorrhage is as yet unquantifiable without official investigation; but from the reports of whistle-blowers, the huge market and parking fee collections have allegedly been diverted to private pockets of the official family for years.

Being with the Yellow administration coalition protects the present city officials and this is why, if Manileños are wise, they should consider seriously every effort to change the present administration not only to restore business and jobs, but also to find solutions to the deficit and get to the bottom of the anomalies plaguing their beloved city.
Former President Joseph Estrada threw his hat into the ring in the hotly-contested mayoralty race after two dozen councilors and the vice mayor of Manila pleaded with him to lead the ticket against the feared and domineering Alfredo Lim.

Lim, known as the "Dirty Harry" in local law enforcement circles for a string of alleged "liquidations," is also said to have sprung a son from a "drug pushing" case and winning at a lottery he was investigating, among many issues — not to mention his infamous role in the botched handling of the Luneta hostage crisis in 2010.
But what is important in the current duel of the two elder Philippine politicians is not the increasingly agitated incumbent mayor but the former President who is preparing for the restoration of Manila's glory with the same vision he had for the country. Though thwarted by vested interests in the Edsa II coup of 2001, he hopes to prove himself this time in the nation's capital.

Estrada's visionary plans for Manila have been prepared by top notch professionals, such as former National Treasurer Liling Briones who presented a clear-cut plan to resolve Manila's budget deficit posthaste; an economic and livelihood plan led by a UN consultant that includes the replanting of mangrove trees (bakawan) to revive Manila Bay's shores, boosting tourism as a jobs multiplier, impact housing projects in the urban poor centers, the transfer of the Pandacan oil depots (remember the recent Texas chemical plant explosions), among many others, in an inch-and-a-half working plan already ready for implementation as soon as Estrada takes charge.

But I have one worry, the precinct count optical scan machines are already proven to be a cheating machinery and I can only hope Estrada's watchers are ready for it. Otherwise, Manila's greatness will never again see the light of day.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "A Vision for Manila" with Prof. Liling Briones of Kaakbay; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Set up or frame up?

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/22/2013

Daily Tribune

The arrest of the alleged second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing ushered in a celebratory bonanza for the US mainstream media (MSM). "We got him," they trumpeted; "Prayers and jubilation," one headline declared with pictures of crowds massing in apparent thanksgiving. Like the aftermath of the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden where motorcades that were launched to celebrate this were emblazoned in US media, the Philippine MSM apishly follows it with headlines such as "Terror is over," as if it was a terror event in the Philippines.

While the spotlights were super bright on the police chase and as stolen snapshots of the arrested 19-year-old second suspect appeared in front pages, shadows cast on the protagonists' backgrounds raise many questions.
The US alternative media have focused on many telltale signs of a possible "false flag" operation. The Web definition of false flag is "a terrorist act committed by one group for the express purpose of discrediting another group, which is framed for it."
The US MSM are already dragging along the uncritical and unquestioning among their media audiences to conclude that the Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were actually the culprits in last week's bombing.

But what the MSM and government spokesmen are not raising questions about — which is the focus of the alternative media — is that recorded closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage depicted the presence of private security contractors on the scene dressed similarly and carrying similar black backpacks as the Tsarnaevs.
One CCTV snapshot shows two of the private security contractors standing around 12 feet away from where the "pressure cooker" bomb exploded and were seen leaving just before the bomb went off (see more of the story and pictures at globalresearch.org). Yet, there is no CCTV video or screenshot of the Tsarnaev brothers close to the blast. Are US authorities still in the process of "producing" them?

Meanwhile, the private security (or mercenary) contractor identified by alternative media by the company logo on some of the operatives, which looked like the Phantom comic hero skull logo, is Craft International, owned by bemedalled American hero and top SEAL sniper (with a 160 kills), Chris Kyle, who was also killed by a former fellow Marine. Well, problem solved, as Craft's motto "Violence does solve problems" says.
The moment I saw pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers on TV as the bombing suspects, I immediately wondered why they would walk around without disguises if they were planning to plant a bomb in the areas well known to be covered by CCTV.

Later, TV audiences were told of an arrest and a picture was shown apparently of the older Tsarnaev face down, legs crossed, and hands up in the air as police are known to instruct suspects to do; but not long after, it was announced that the older Tsarnaev brother was dead. Gory pictures of the dead Tamerlan Tsarnaev are now on the Internet, with a huge gash on his side, which some accounts say is from being run over by a vehicle.
Then there was the killing of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police officer, the circumstances around which are still unclear up to this time — which is also the case with the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the boat.

The Boston operations of the police are now expectedly being lionized as "heroic," but the lockdown of 400,000 people for several days for the marathon manhunt of one suspect who ends up being arrested on the tip of a private citizen, and not the sledgehammer or shotgun approach, does not sound to me like an efficient, effective, and highly skilled police force.
The massive use of heavy mobile equipment, helicopters, and countless screaming and flashing police cars looked more like a movie production than a police operation.

Maybe the actual intent, as theorized by millions Tweeting on the Internet, is "mind conditioning" for all the legislation and budget sought for the various security, intelligence, and military "War on Terror" apparatuses of the US government, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) abetting terror plots to fuel this.
As James Corbett (of Corbett Reports' "How the FBI Fosters, Funds and Equips American Terrorists") said, "After decades of conditioning, the public automatically equates such terrorism with Muslim radicals … (Yet) the evidence shows that every major terror plot on American soil in the past 10 years has been fostered, funded and equipped by one organization: The FBI."

Of course, by now our studious readers should know — with the proper research — that the Tsarnaev brothers were already in the FBI's radar years ago, with the mother and an aunt saying that the brothers were "handled" by the FBI for years.

So, were they patsies, set up, framed, then murdered; or were they maimed physically and psychologically to do the bidding of those who would have many uses for "terror stories"? Just asking.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Liling Briones, Kaakbay, and Estrada's Plan to Restore Manila's Greatness"; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Rising hope

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/17/2013

Daily Tribune

On all fronts, the prospect for global and national betterment is on the rise. Various developments engender rising hopes, but the most fundamental of these has been the growing awareness of people of the house of mirrors they have been herded through all these years by the circus and show masters that rule their lives. These circus masters are the ruling powers everywhere in the world conspiring to keep nations and people captive with misinformation and disinformation in order to maintain control and dictate their destinies. But one by one the myths that have deceived the peoples are falling.

In the Philippines, the unmasking of some of the key deceptions of the past is gaining traction. One of the biggest lies has been the sanctity of Philippine elections and the "respectable" people who run it, such as the lithe and "sweet," Vatican-blessed Tita de Villa of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), her election watchdog.

The Tribune headlined the report that groups have accused the PPCRV of being a "poll fraud agent." This, of course, has taken a long time to become common knowledge, especially considering that this should have been the common sense conclusion back in 2004 when military officers refusing to participate in wide-scale electoral fraud for Gloria Arroyo (e.g., Colonels Ariel Querubin, Francisco Gudani, and Alexander Balutan) already blew the whistle and a year later NBI deputy director Sammy Ong and Isafp agent Vidal Doble produced hard evidence of this via the "Hello Garci" tapes.

Statistically speaking, the 2004 elections were also proven by the late IT expert Mano Alcuaz as well as progressive IT pioneer Obet Verzola to be a calculated cheating operation. Yet, throughout that election and the years that followed, PPCRV (with Tita de Villa as its head) remained quiet about it.
In the course of reviewing the PPCRV, De Villa's record, and the fraudulent 2004 polls, I stumbled across a Gloria Arroyo hack writing in the Inquirer disputing Mano Alcuaz's statistical studies on that electoral exercise. Under the title, "Ghost Stories on the 2004 Election Fraud," this writer even suggested that it was FPJ who cheated in 2004! Like De Villa, the recruited writer for another newspaper by a fellow journalist who now owns that newspaper — must also be exposed, but we will leave their names to the readers to decipher.

It's a pity that the Catholic Church and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) took so long to admit the truth about the PPCRV and De Villa, and, for that matter, the plain truth that Philippine elections have always been a sham; but we will no longer look a gift horse in the mouth, as we are thankful that the CBCP is now exposing the fraudulent Smartmatic and its PCOS machines.

On the global front, the focal danger to mankind — and that also means my countrymen in the Philippines and my own family, children, grandchildren and future generations — is the inhuman designs of the Western ruling elites, the US, Britain, Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and Israel, to restore their hegemony over the world at any cost — including thermonuclear war.

Thankfully, by their own perverted greed and twisted minds, the ruling elites (organized around the Bilderberg group, among other alliances) are also completely exposed, with their economic-military clout systematically cut down by the economic crises they themselves spawned on their home ground.
Such internal crises can only weaken the West in the coming years. One recent example is yesterday's Boston Marathon bombing where three reportedly died and scores were injured. Whoever is really behind it, one message is clear: US domestic stability will suffer greater dislocation in the years ahead.

What is important for my own family, nation and region called Asia is that the US "pivot" or refocusing of its military resources may truly be more acoustics than reality. As John Feffer writes in Asia Times, "the promised bump up of US capabilities in the region will probably, because of US budget cuts, turn out to be a reduction. Panetta predicted that sequestration would leave the United States with the smallest ground forces since 1940, a fleet of fewer than 230 ships, and the smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the US Air Force … The Pentagon has nevertheless insisted that the pivot is happening and recently sent a new class of combat ships to Singapore as proof. But if you believe that the 'Pacific pivot' will mean a larger US footprint in the region, think again."

In the meantime, China is increasing its military budget while North Korea is perfecting its missiles. Even though this space is not rooting for China or North Korea, we are rooting for equalizing the balance of military power so that no power can claim a decisive advantage — for in this balance of power, Asia and the Philippines will find the gale forces cancel each other out, thus, calming the seas of our region.

Most unfortunately, the BS Aquino III regime is trying to give strategic advantage to the US yet again by offering our military bases, further exposing the current Palace occupant's absolute bankruptcy of vision for peace and prosperity for the region and the country.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Ratings upgrade: It's the eVAT stupid!"; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Geopolitical naiveté

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/15/2013

Daily Tribune

In our last column, "Saving paradise Earth," we quoted China's Xi Jinping setting the tone for his country's political-moral stand on the Korean Peninsula crisis: "No one country should be allowed to upset world peace."

Mike Billington of the LaRouche movement in an interview with Iran's Press TV had this to say: "There has been a concerted effort in the Western press… to falsify the warning coming from China … Xi Jinping… in a forum yesterday said no country should have the right to create a regional or even global crisis for their own self-interests … That was recorded in the New York Times this morning adding falsely the words in front of that speech that no 'Asian country' should have the right to do that."
Ingraining the term "manufacturing consent" in the minds of Filipinos is important as it describes the way the powerful use their controlled or heavily influenced media to create mindsets that accept lies as truths and even actions adverse to the audiences as good.

The US uses its massive global media domination to manufacture consent for one of the pillars of its very troubled economy today — the war industry. It lied about the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) of Saddam Hussein which no longer existed when half the world was made to accept these as the reason for invading Iraq. Likewise the false charge that Bin Laden engineered the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks in order to invade Afghanistan, as with the alleged threat of Libya's Gaddafi to wipe out Benghazi which was never true. Last year, it was the supposed genocide by Bashar al-Assad; but now it's turning out that the US-Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)-backed "rebels" are the real genocidal force in Syria — including against Christians.

The example of what The New York Times did in muddling President Xi Jinping's statement is important in showing the perfidy of the Western media. It's a daily, even hourly, mission for the MSM (mainstream media) of the West to pound lies and half-truths into the global audience's mind for its ruling class' geopolitical ends. One local MSM headlines "North Korea nuke test could test China's patience" as if official Chinese policy is on the brink of abandoning Pyongyang.
I go direct to the most reliable reflection of China's official position on the matter, Global Times, the non-government and semi-official news site that echoes the hard-line views of the decision-makers in China. Its response came under the editorial, "Geopolitics makes abandoning NK naïve."

To read North Korea motives, it is best to go to its pronouncements, as contained in a North Korean White Paper ("White Paper Reveals Danger of US-South Korea War Drills," April 8. Juch 102, Pyongyang).

The White Paper reviews the long history of US-South Korea military exercises that have numbered 18,000 war drills since the ceasefire in the 1950s and "in particular, the war drill Ulji Freedom Guardian (that) activated more than 400,000 to 500,000 troops, including the US aggression troops in South Korea, US reinforcement troops, the three services of the South Korean puppet army, those concerned of the South Korean 'government' institutions and local autonomous bodies … (showing) that the US and South Korea mobilize huge forces enough to conduct a total war in the north-targeted war exercises" that can be converted to actual invasion anytime.

How is the 60-year-old Korea crisis to be resolved? Tony Carlucci, a dedicated anti-imperialist writer, authored a piece in GlobalResearch ("Key to Peace in Korea: Remove US Presence") that can be summed up as such: The two Koreas have been trying to patch-up with their "rainbow diplomacy" over the decades but the US has perpetually sabotaged this by supporting anti-rainbow presidents like Lee Myung Bak, by staging provocations while keeping up the pressure on the "embargo" on North Korea that prevents it from trading minerals for essential fertilizers and fuel for heating and energy. Many belittle North Korea as a country that cannot even feed itself, but that is due to the embargo more than anything else, and its leadership has been resourceful enough to use whatever strength they have — their military potential — to strike back and wrangle those supplies.

Finally, here's the most crucial point that a Russia Today interview with American Brina Becker of the Anti-War Coalition highlights: "RT: Isn't it in America's interests to keep a 'dangerous' North Korea there on the Peninsula to have a reason for re-balancing to the Asia-Pacific region? BB: Well indeed. Ever since President Obama went to Australia and announced the so-called Asia Pivot, the US is loading up the Pacific with its aircraft, its nuclear-capable aircraft, and a large part of its Navy. Of course they need provocations, they need tension. It is good for business, it keeps the mega profits coming in into the military industrial complex but it gives the Pentagon the excuse, the pretext to do what it wants to do, which is basically to encircle China."

Naiveté can lead to thermonuclear holocaust in our region; this, as the US and Nato resume their re-colonization of the world.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Ratings upgrade: It's the eVAT stupid!"; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Saving paradise Earth

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/10/2013

Daily Tribune

With the family for a clan reunion in Sorsogon, we have hopped to many sights and resorts for the past three days, savoring the idyllic scenes of Tulong Gapo, Halabang Baybay, Pagol in Bacon, Sorsogon and staying a night each in three great places — the New Sea Breeze, the splendidly designed Sirangan and Fernando's (the last of which is distinguished by the venerable Duran couple's personal and homey management, including regaling hotel clients with historical anecdotes of their long and colorful lives around Sorsogon and its politics, as well as sojourns in Asia).

Now I am writing from Vitton and Woodland at two in the morning in the cool sea breeze, in Donsol of the famed butanding, which we missed seeing after three hours of searching at sea. Tonight we did witness fairy tale scenes of mangrove trees lit by fireflies down the long Donsol River that stretches all the way to Albay.
The earth is a paradise and every country has many of its own Sorsogons to show — even the now devastated Iraq or Libya and Afghanistan. Some travel blogs feature some of the most beautiful spots even in places such as North Korea; one site identifies five paradises — from mountain havens to rivers and lakes — which travel agencies would like to bring tourists to but cannot due to the 73 years state-of-war in the Korean Peninsula. The world may never get to see these North Korean paradises if the war of words between Pyongyang and the US over provocative UN sanctions and US-South Korea military exercises escalate into a "hot" war which the North threatens in response. US officialdom charges the North of "provocations," but who is really the provocateur in the Korean Peninsula, when it has always been the US that has drafted collaborators into its puppet government in the South right after World War II?

The most strategic close neighbor of North Korea, China, has offered to "reduce friction over hotspots" in the Korean situation, according to the Associated Press, which reports Chinese President Xi Jinping last Sunday as saying, "No one country should be allowed to upset world peace." That statement is a classic double-entendre that raises the question: What is that one country that upsets world peace?

One can argue that North Korea frequently upsets the equanimity of the South Korean government or of its former colonizer Japan; but North Korea can hardly upset the peace of the world when its nuclear arsenal likely numbers less than the fingers on one hand. The US, of course, is estimated to possess $8.52-trillion worth of nuclear missiles numbering 5,000 warheads today, deployed in all major continents of the world, and in nearly 1,000 military bases with nearly 400,000 troops in foreign lands.
US officials justify this foreign military presence as necessary to keep "world peace," but as American author of Rogue State (referring to the US) and Killing Hope (about "actions of America's unaccountable government… 'killing' these people's hope") William Blum writes, the US has invaded 40 countries and bombed many of these back into pre-industrial states.

Maybe what US officials really mean is that they intend to bring the "peace of the cemetery" to the countries they "make safe for democracy," which they never succeed at as the people fight back eventually.
The most notable example today of a country fighting back is Afghanistan, where Afghan soldiers trained by the US are killing their US trainers more frequently than ever in "insider attacks." Sadly, while an invaded country tries to recover like in Iraq and Syria, it is subjected to endless suicide and roadside bombings to create permanent chaos and social collapse.

The paradises I'm now at may be far from the conflict zones created by the US — unlike Olongapo which houses Subic base where the BS Aquino III government has given the US the go-signal to redeploy its forces albeit in disguised form or the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) where the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has promised to allow the US to set up its bases if the substate finally pushes through — but there is no place on earth safe from the fallout of a thermonuclear exchange.
Today we are learning that radiation after-effects from even seemingly benign underground nuclear tests in the Pacific atolls decades ago still affect residents of the area and eventually the entire world.

We have seen how seemingly conventional warfare already leaves radiation sickness transferred to the next generations — like the deformed children of Fallujah resulting from "depleted uranium" in ammunitions used. Iran, a target of the USrael (US-Israel) nuclear arsenal, has called for global nuclear disarmament — a call that we should all support. Already, the US has deployed its nuclear capable bombers in its military exercises with South Korea, forcing North Korea to ratchet up its bellicosity. In turn, the US in doing so is threatening not only the North but China and the whole region as well.

While North Korea knows it cannot really threaten the US, it is telling South Korea and Japan to talk to their "boss" to come to terms with it, as it can make both of them pay dearly for their subservience to the Paradise Destroyer — the US.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Maverick Candidates;" also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Socio-economic re-engineering

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/8/2013

Daily Tribune

As soon as the US-South Korea vs North Korea saber rattling dies down with a halt to provocative US-South Korea military exercises, and as the Fitch ratings upgrade brouhaha fades with more intelligent and realistic perspectives, Filipinos will wake up to the truth that there is no solution to the ever deepening crisis of the Philippines until we re-engineer Philippine society away from the Edsa I globalization and privatization paradigm imposed by the Yellows.
Wiser Filipinos will thus confirm with what this column has been saying, echoed recently by Ben D. Kritz, who wrote in The Manila Times: "The credit rating, strictly speaking, is a judgment of the country's risk of defaulting on a debt, and therefore has no logical relevance to any investment that is something other than a loan to the government…"

Below are two reactions to our past columns on the matter; one is from Bobby Tangco of the University of the Philippines who quoted a paragraph from our column, "Moreover, what the country needs is socio-economic re-engineering to re-distribute population back to the provinces and small islands, forming small farm units powered by bio-digesters, wind and solar energy, for a nationally food and energy self-sufficient and sustainable economy."
Bobby's thoughts on my prescription: "Yes! This is what I would also suggest the non-armed revolutionaries do. Needed also is capital investment and honest (really honest) entrepreneurs who have no deep desire to live in another country upon retirement."

The other came from Gerry Natividad, erstwhile government adviser and consultant, now a gentleman farmer-aqua-culturist who has deepened brown skin to show for his praxis of his new philosophy:
"You are very correct about 'balik probinsiya.' I myself am no longer convinced the deliberate labor export program I proposed during the Cory administration will work for us in the next 20 years; though, right now, we are reaping the positive economic effects of billions of dollars remittances. Now our remittances have strengthened consumer buying power. The downside, only a few economic power blocks are capturing the swollen flood of dollars and pesos. Yet our manufacturing sector is in its death throes.

"Your socio-economic engineering should involve both human and financial resources. For decades our government has thrown trillions of pesos into rice and corn, yet we are a country that imports both. Not much has been done for our coconuts and marine reef resources. You know by now, that by government laying the organizational and financial infrastructure for setting up small processing plants and markets for coco water, skimmed milk, virgin oil, coco flour, etc., tens of millions of our coconut farmers and farm workers will be economically emancipated. But even right now, unpatriotic or unthinking agents of government are plotting against the coconut industry as they espouse the replacement of coconut by palm oil plantations.

"Having stayed over three years, off and on, in our fishponds in Anda, Pangasinan, I have realized the economic potential of making more productive our marginalized tidal flats, tens if not hundreds of thousands of hectares of them, all over the country, extensive reef systems that are covered by less than a meter of water during high tide. What needs to be done first is to have a massive mangrove replanting and management program. Mangrove complexes are the very nursery of the sea. All sorts of life thrive in them. Fish fries migrate there, to feed and live in a more protected and less hazardous (environment) before returning to the seas. In mangroves, several fish and crustacean species can be cultured, from bangus, saline tilapia, and high valued sea bass, groupers, sea urchins and cucumbers…

"But first things first, a well planned mangrove plantation is the first line of defense of coastal communities from sea surges and typhoons. Mangrove systems stabilize lands and cause soil accretion, while cleaning up the surrounding seas of jetsam and flotsam and the ever present man-made plastics … The beautiful thing here is it doesn't cost a fortune … In less than five years we will have beautiful mangrove plantations which will be ready to be used for sea farming and eco- tourism. We have enough mangrove stands that can produce the seedlings needed to start new mangrove systems. Fisher-family folks can be organized and employed by government to plant, care and expand the systems where they can be granted by government 25 year foreshore leases (yes that's how long the leases are) so they can participate in the program long term … Hope flows eternal for our country."

There are basic and common sense laws to learn from the history of floundering societies successfully re-engineering a comeback: China after 500 years; Vietnam and Cambodia after US-inflicted devastation; Cuba over the US embargo; Iran after each US sanction, etc.

The keys factors begin with the social re-engineering ideology and program, which our country's intelligentsia shows it possesses; next is political leadership, with both popular and military support; and, finally, winning political power to implement such ideology and program.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Maverick Candidates;" also visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Bubble upgrade

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/1/2013

Daily Tribune

One Easter headline ("Early Easter gift for RP") blared in the wake of the recent Fitch Ratings upgrade of the country from BB+ to BBB- "investment grade" status. That means interest rates for future Philippine borrowings will be lower as the likelihood of a debt default, with more supposed investments coming in, becomes lessened even more.

However good that press release sounds, it is just the proverbial banker lending you his umbrella when the sun shines then demanding it back the minute it rains.
I say this because the country does not have to borrow anymore due to the surplus cash in the system as evidenced by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' lowering of interest rates on the P1.7-trillion SDA or special deposit account to 2.5 percent as well as the continuing fall in the country's long-term debt papers.
Besides, what is there to gloat about when this "investment grade" status has been paid for dearly by the people since 2004 with OFW remittances, high taxes, the starving of public services and infrastructure, and the concentration of wealth to the financial elite through privatization and high utility rates?

Frankly, the international financial oligarchy is now desperate to find borrowers given that the global economy is in a deflationary mode with the decrease in the general prices of goods and services within a given economy. As financial consultant A. Gary Shilling writes in Bloomberg, this decline is due to the highly deflationary "deleveraging" of the world's giant financial institutions and the Western financial system since 2007, or their way of paying off excessive debt taken on in the past decades.

Any sign of deleveraging is a red flag to investors who require growth — growth that is not likely in the decade ahead as the global economy continues to be muddled in a crisis of over-production or excess supply over demand of products, which leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods, thus, increasing unemployment worldwide.
Aside from this, Shilling identifies other deflationary forces — the savings-consumption rate of the biggest market in the world, the US, being down to 2.2 percent (from the 3.7 percent annual increases from 1982 to 2000); falling fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 percent in most industrialized countries; and the aging population and reduction of working-age people in most countries.

"Excess supply is the root cause of deflation," Shilling emphasizes. He adds that there is now also "increasing protectionism" as a recent survey of 3,000 business executives in 25 countries made by GE Electric found 71 percent wanting government to protect "domestic innovation," as trade liberalization is being "largely abandoned" in favor of bilateral deals. Further, competitive devaluations (that spell a currency war) are another threat that Shilling identifies.
Despite regular pumping up of world employment expectations, the jobs crisis persists. Lay-offs in 2012 alone included: Hewlett-Packard, 27,000 or 7.7 percent; American Airlines, 14,000 or 17.7 percent; Lockheed Martin, 10,000 or 8.1 percent; IBM Germany, 8,000; Caterpillar Belgium, 1,400 ad nausea.
On March 22, 2013, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 1,422 mass layoffs involving 135,468 workers, of which 20 percent were from the manufacturing sector. Meanwhile, the factory of the world, China, continues to churn out massive quantities of low-priced consumer products while raw materials inventories pile-up, slowly depressing global commodities prices.

One of the most apparent signs of the troubles of deleveraging lately is Cyprus where the combined effect of the global deleveraging collapsed its banking system, causing people's savings to be sequestered by the European Central Bank.
What investments can new money inflows enter into in the Philippines? Manufacturing? Agriculture? Services? Real estate and construction development? Exports? The last sector will not meet export growth targets of 10 or, as in the last year, 11 percent year-on-year for some time as the appreciating peso works against export competitiveness.

The real estate sector is nearing saturation point and the question now is when the bubble will burst. Agriculture is being drowned by imports of rice, garlic, onions, fish and even fish sauce. Manufacturing is being killed by the highest power cost in Asia.
What the ratings upgrade and new debt/investments through the PPP (public-private partnerships) will be ushering in is the exorbitantly profitable power sector targeting Mindanao this decade; the expansion of water and public transport like the MRT/LRT privatization; and more tollways.

As in the past, the Philippine Stock Exchange and the Philippine Dealings and Exchange System (the latter for government debt) will see booms and busts, but unemployment will continue to increase as the economy suffers unabatedly through high extractions from privatized public utility firms.
Government will continue to incur high debt and the BSP and the Department of Finance will again pressure for new taxes for the sake of ratings upgrades. State, financial and investment corporations will begin the cycle of overleveraging until the inevitable burst of the bubble.
The only real and promising financial and economic alternative that is not being considered: Paying off all debt as well as reviving manufacturing and agriculture through import re-substitution to put wages back into people's pockets for them to spend on domestic goods.

Moreover, what the country needs is socio-economic re-engineering to re-distribute population back to the provinces and small islands, forming small farm units powered by bio-digesters, wind, and solar energy, for a nationally food and energy self-sufficient and sustainable economy.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com, this week's topic: "Bubble Upgrade;" also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)