DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / March 3, 2014
While familiar with the arrogance of Western foreign business in the Philippines, I was still taken aback when the European Chamber of Commerce, through its president Michael Raeuber, denounced Manila’s imposition of its daytime truck ban as “economic sabotage.”
The people of the City of Manila have been made to suffer decades of costly traffic just to coddle one darling oligarch engaged in the import-export business with foreign firms, as well as their paid-for national government politicians, in maintaining the Port of Manila for 98 percent of Luzon’s cargo handling while leaving the Subic and Batangas ports to share the remainder.
Mayor Joseph Estrada has asserted the rights of Manilans and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) to do what should have been done decades ago — divert heavy truck traffic to the other two major Luzon ports.
Raeuber may be very vocal in the Philippines, which apparently puts up with any kind of insult from Westerners, but I wonder if he can do the same in Vietnam, Singapore, or Malaysia, where he’d probably get a whipping.
With a supine ruling class in the Philippines that sniffs the behind of its Western masters for the little crumbs it gets, Raeuber’s rants and insults are just a small price to pay (ditto for the elite’s mainstream media).
The arrogance of these foreign businessmen is verging on the intolerable as even their “planted” writers (business “con-suhol-tants”) in local media are belittling Filipinos to the extent of telling them down, like Peter Wallace of the Inquirer, that the Philippines “needs” these foreigners. The historical truth is, the Philippines has been constantly screwed by none other than the West.
Through his latest measure, Estrada has forced the national government to take cognizance of its duty to distribute more rationally and efficiently the port services for the growing trade requirements of the country, whereby the coddling of the port operator whom former National Economic Development Authority chief Romulo Neri described as charging “the highest port service rates in the world” must end.
Over and above such exploitative operation that extracts its pound of flesh from every Filipino is the salting of surplus earned from these port rates gouging to other countries in cahoots with other foreign companies for so-called investments in other ports.
However, not all foreigners are of Raeuber’s mind. Japan International Cooperation Agency, for instance, is actually helping the DoTC figure out a plan to decongest the overconcentration of foreign trade cargo services in the Port of Manila. Incentives are being considered for traders and truckers who use the other two major underutilized ports, where capacity utilization is only at 6 percent for Subic and 4 percent for Batangas.
It is unimaginable irresponsibility and stupidity that this situation has prevailed for so long, with corruption of government officials by those who benefit from such an arrangement usually the cause.
Why didn’t the DoTC think of this before — of radically lowering the port services rates in Subic and Batangas to give the Manila port operator a run for his money?
Mayor Joseph Estrada is now restoring the City of Manila into the sane, less-congested, oxygen-filled, orderly city that it once was. After he is through with his first three-year term, we should see some sunshine break through the dark smog of traffic and human congestion that it has become these past decades.
Last week, while riding the Light Rail Transit to Carriedo and coming down the steps to Rizal Avenue, I actually didn’t get the whiff of urine and excrement that I invariably experienced just a year ago. In other words, the LRT station landings are getting cleaned up.
Then, I walked through the middle of Carriedo without having to stumble over overlapping vendors’ stalls — really!
Also, tax revenues are up by 100 percent, mainly from business and real estate tax hikes, which ought to give their share.
Mayor Estrada has always said, “Walang tutulong sa Pilipino kundi kapwa Pilipino.” (No one will help the Filipino except for his fellow Filipino.)
Unfortunately, there are some “Filipinos” purporting to seek indispensable help, capital, or technology from foreigners for the country, such as the likes of “Boy Blue” del Rosario and Speaker Sonny Belmonte, who, like Peter Wallace, are calling for Charter change —purportedly to bring in much needed capital, even when a leading private bank (such as BdO) has stated categorically that “there is no lack of capital in the Philippines.”
We are, of course, aware of the fate of those countries that accepted “foreign aid” in exchange for Western “liberalization,” such as Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and now Ukraine, whose rump parliament is getting an International Monetary Fund man, a private central banker, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, to implement privatization, austerity, high taxes, and neo-Nazi fascism in compliance with Western diktats.
President-Mayor Joseph Estrada has had his own brush with Western interference. That was what got him ousted from his legitimate presidency — after he refused to accede to President Bill Clinton’s demand to withdraw Philippine military forces laying siege to Muslim terrorists in the South. But that’s another story that, I am informed, Estrada will tell in his memoirs.
(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Manila: Sunshine in the city”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
While familiar with the arrogance of Western foreign business in the Philippines, I was still taken aback when the European Chamber of Commerce, through its president Michael Raeuber, denounced Manila’s imposition of its daytime truck ban as “economic sabotage.”
The people of the City of Manila have been made to suffer decades of costly traffic just to coddle one darling oligarch engaged in the import-export business with foreign firms, as well as their paid-for national government politicians, in maintaining the Port of Manila for 98 percent of Luzon’s cargo handling while leaving the Subic and Batangas ports to share the remainder.
Mayor Joseph Estrada has asserted the rights of Manilans and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) to do what should have been done decades ago — divert heavy truck traffic to the other two major Luzon ports.
Raeuber may be very vocal in the Philippines, which apparently puts up with any kind of insult from Westerners, but I wonder if he can do the same in Vietnam, Singapore, or Malaysia, where he’d probably get a whipping.
With a supine ruling class in the Philippines that sniffs the behind of its Western masters for the little crumbs it gets, Raeuber’s rants and insults are just a small price to pay (ditto for the elite’s mainstream media).
The arrogance of these foreign businessmen is verging on the intolerable as even their “planted” writers (business “con-suhol-tants”) in local media are belittling Filipinos to the extent of telling them down, like Peter Wallace of the Inquirer, that the Philippines “needs” these foreigners. The historical truth is, the Philippines has been constantly screwed by none other than the West.
Through his latest measure, Estrada has forced the national government to take cognizance of its duty to distribute more rationally and efficiently the port services for the growing trade requirements of the country, whereby the coddling of the port operator whom former National Economic Development Authority chief Romulo Neri described as charging “the highest port service rates in the world” must end.
Over and above such exploitative operation that extracts its pound of flesh from every Filipino is the salting of surplus earned from these port rates gouging to other countries in cahoots with other foreign companies for so-called investments in other ports.
However, not all foreigners are of Raeuber’s mind. Japan International Cooperation Agency, for instance, is actually helping the DoTC figure out a plan to decongest the overconcentration of foreign trade cargo services in the Port of Manila. Incentives are being considered for traders and truckers who use the other two major underutilized ports, where capacity utilization is only at 6 percent for Subic and 4 percent for Batangas.
It is unimaginable irresponsibility and stupidity that this situation has prevailed for so long, with corruption of government officials by those who benefit from such an arrangement usually the cause.
Why didn’t the DoTC think of this before — of radically lowering the port services rates in Subic and Batangas to give the Manila port operator a run for his money?
Mayor Joseph Estrada is now restoring the City of Manila into the sane, less-congested, oxygen-filled, orderly city that it once was. After he is through with his first three-year term, we should see some sunshine break through the dark smog of traffic and human congestion that it has become these past decades.
Last week, while riding the Light Rail Transit to Carriedo and coming down the steps to Rizal Avenue, I actually didn’t get the whiff of urine and excrement that I invariably experienced just a year ago. In other words, the LRT station landings are getting cleaned up.
Then, I walked through the middle of Carriedo without having to stumble over overlapping vendors’ stalls — really!
Also, tax revenues are up by 100 percent, mainly from business and real estate tax hikes, which ought to give their share.
Mayor Estrada has always said, “Walang tutulong sa Pilipino kundi kapwa Pilipino.” (No one will help the Filipino except for his fellow Filipino.)
Unfortunately, there are some “Filipinos” purporting to seek indispensable help, capital, or technology from foreigners for the country, such as the likes of “Boy Blue” del Rosario and Speaker Sonny Belmonte, who, like Peter Wallace, are calling for Charter change —purportedly to bring in much needed capital, even when a leading private bank (such as BdO) has stated categorically that “there is no lack of capital in the Philippines.”
We are, of course, aware of the fate of those countries that accepted “foreign aid” in exchange for Western “liberalization,” such as Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and now Ukraine, whose rump parliament is getting an International Monetary Fund man, a private central banker, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, to implement privatization, austerity, high taxes, and neo-Nazi fascism in compliance with Western diktats.
President-Mayor Joseph Estrada has had his own brush with Western interference. That was what got him ousted from his legitimate presidency — after he refused to accede to President Bill Clinton’s demand to withdraw Philippine military forces laying siege to Muslim terrorists in the South. But that’s another story that, I am informed, Estrada will tell in his memoirs.
(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Manila: Sunshine in the city”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
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