Putin seals US fate

Putin seals US fate

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 12-22-2014 MON)

 

The US is engaging Russia in a three-pronged attack: economic sanctions and currency assault; a massive information war; and political-military pressures on the Ukrainian front.  The latest eruption of the conflict is in the currency markets where US-led currency attacks on Russia caused a 60-percent fall of the ruble, whereupon the information war follows targeting President Vladimir Putin for regime change.

 

Some mainstream Philippine writers and members of the intelligentsia are acting like rah-rah cheerleaders for the US in lambasting Putin, the same way they did against Gaddafi and other victims of their principal’s regime change efforts.

 

A UP Professor, writing in the Diliman Book Club Facebook page, blamed the currency fall on oligarchs Putin allegedly installed.  The professor should have known better; it is Putin who’s been rolling back the power of the oligarchs installed by the West during the incumbency of its puppet, the wino Boris Yeltsin (chief of whom was Mikhail Khodorovsky, whose ante to take over Russian State assets was funded by Western financial mafiosos like George Soros and the Rothschilds).

 

Khodorovsky, like other oligarchs such as Boris Beresovsky, were later pursued by Putin’s anti-corruption campaign.  They were either jailed or went into exile in the West.

 

The Philippine Star’s Alex Magno gloated over the 60-percent fall of the Russian ruble and the prospects of turning this against Putin for a “color revolution.”  Magno, as usual, displayed total ignorance of the facts: Russia has $450 billion in forex reserves, which was reduced only to $415 billion in the current currency-attack-induced crisis; Russia has a current account surplus of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) compared to the US’ deficit of 2.5 percent of GDP; Russian government debt to GDP ratio is at 13.5 percent while the US’ is at 105 percent; and Russia has one of the largest gold hoards to back its currency while US gold cannot even be found in Fort Knox.

 

Certainly, Russia is undergoing a crisis--as Russia under Putin makes the decisive shift away from becoming part of a Western European civilization that has treated Russia as a Eurasian version of its hillbilly cousins from the Siberian boondocks while coveting the Russian Federation’s unimaginable oil, gas, and timber wealth.

 

In turn, Putin has made a tectonic shift to become part of the new “multipolar world,” in partnership with the real “rest of the world,” i.e. China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and many others now gravitating around the 21st Century real power--the economic alliance of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the geostrategic alliance of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), which India is joining.

 

China, through several of its information arms, such as the Global Times, has signaled its readiness to assist Russia in its momentary currency crisis.  Cheng Yijun of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing said, “If the Kremlin decides to seek assistance from Beijing, it’s very unlikely for the Xi leadership to turn it down... This would be a perfect opportunity to demonstrate China is a friend indeed, and also its big power status.”  But Russia has more than enough resources to deal with this US economic-currency attack--and is militarily even more prepared.

 

Russia in Yeltsin’s time (under Western economic planners Jeffrey Sachs et al.) was designed to be a raw materials provider to Western Europe, one that purchases all its needs from the West.  Back then, Russia exported oil and imported everything else, much like how the Philippines exports OFWs and imports even “patis.”

 

Now we read in Russian economic discussions the concept of “import substitution” where Russia will produce what it needs and generate jobs that way, and buy the rest from non-Western sources, such as fish from Chile (instead of Norway) and apples from China (instead of Poland), cars from South Korea and China (instead of Europe), etc.

 

Still, pro-Western zombies in the Philippines choose to tout a lot of nonsense.  They bemoan the impact of a Russian debt default, not saying that the impact will be on Western banks that have relied on Russian oil giants’ loans to rake in mega-profits, as what Alex Magno worried about in his last column.

 

Instead, geopolitical export Pepe Escobar warns that Putin can even unleash “black swans,” like postponing Russian corporate debt payments by a year and two, which would collapse Western banks a la Lehman Brothers in the Wall Street debacle of 2008.

 

The truth is US sanctions are hurting Europe as badly as Russia; the only problem is Europe is politically unable to reject such suicidal sanctions.

 

While Magno cites US tech firm Apple stopping its sales in Russia, he should be made aware that Daimler-Benz and many European companies are going to set up factories in Russia to skirt these sanctions.

 

So as the US and its neocons don’t give a hoot about the global economy, so long as they can trigger more wars to feed their military-industrial-finance behemoth, Putin, a.k.a. St. Vladimir, is also driving the stake through the beast’s heart.

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

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2014: Year of RP political chaos

2014: Year of RP political chaos

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 12-15-2014 MON)

 

Turmoil everywhere in 2014, from East Ukraine, the Middle East, all the way to Asia, has kept this column focused on global events.  Little understood by many Filipinos, though, the impact of such events in relation to the Philippines has been immense, like this deeply palpable effect on oil prices that many should thank countries fighting US hegemonism for.  Oil export-dependent Russia, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela are the real targets of this latest US-Saudi financial siege that aims to buckle these countries’ economic knees.  Filipinos are just short-term accidental winners in this phase of geopolitical struggles.

 

Moreover, this column has missed commenting on the Philippine scene for weeks on end because the domestic political situation at this stage is a confused mess.  The political waters have been terribly muddled by a year of confused, contradictory, and illusory anti-corruption campaigns by BS Aquino that smacked of selective, partisan justice and injustice, as well as prosecution and persecution.  Still, high public expectations are raised for more corruption revelations against all (including administration) politicians, with the political storms somehow leveling the playing field for a much needed diversity of presidential aspirants--or so we think.

 

I am in a special quandary over the splintering of the anti-Gloria Arroyo coalition that helped define the past decade.  That decade of struggle molded much of my political ideology today: Edsa Tres and the struggle of the masses against the manipulation, exploitation, and oppression of the oligarchy and its US partner; the unmasking of the Yellows’ hypocrisy and corruption; the restoration of the central role of the State in promoting the general welfare against the power of the privileged few; and the preservation of the nation’s interest against the onslaught of predatory free-trade and globalization programs.

 

While issues and policy questions matter most, and personalities rank a very far second (if at all), personalities still embody issues and policies, which sometimes political personalities do not completely appreciate themselves.  Thus, when VP Jejomar Binay was under siege, I thought it mattered immensely that he translate the imbroglio into policy debate, which was why I wrote, “Polarize: Binay’s only way.”  But that didn’t happen and Binay even visited Aquino.  The debate with Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV could have also been an opportunity, but this, too, has not come about.  At one point business tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan was even broached as a potential VP to Binay; that certainly swamped the Edsa Tres ideal.

 

I also note President-Mayor Joseph Estrada’s inclusion in the last “presidentiables” survey, which placed him fourth, despite his non-interest.  Erap still embodies many of the ideals that led voters to give him the 1998 presidency, which also led to his unconstitutional 2001 ouster.  The ideals: fierce nationalism (prompting US plots against him); moral honesty (earning the ire of religious hypocrites); a deep sense of fairness that opposed “sovereign guarantees” to Big Business (alienating foreign and local oligarchs); and political-military decisiveness that vanquished the Moro Islamic Liberation Front at Abubakar (but irking the group’s US backers).

 

A key ally of Edsa Tres was the Bagong Katipunero (BK), now known as Magdalo, and its leader Sen. Trillanes, who spent over seven years in detention in opposing the unconstitutional Arroyo presidency.  The BK or Magdalo was a movement of no less than 300 young officers; and many are still in the service.  Certainly, the Magdalo has risen to prominence (having two party-list representatives) with the impetus from fighting alongside Estrada; but for which they have also sacrificed and worked very hard (building a card carrying membership of over 300,000 to date).

 

Internal struggles in the anti-Arroyo movement surfaced during the Manila Peninsula incident.  Several major opposition factions saw divergent final strategies to wrest power after the 2007 elections trounced Arroyo’s legitimacy.  Realignments ensued in the 2010 elections that saw Erap coming from behind, almost winning.  The oligarchs, true to form, favored BS Aquino; hence, the untouchability of their growing mono/oligopolies (particularly in power) today.  But one can argue that Smartmatic-PCOS (and US-controlled Dominion Voting Systems) actually “won” the elections.  There began the 60-30-10 manipulation in 2013 to put one senatorial puppet on top and primed for 2016.

 

It’s a wonder why candidates are jockeying for the presidency when the Smartmatic-PCOS problem has not been resolved at all. Is it sane and logical to take the Commission on Elections and its so-called preparations seriously while this problem festers?

 

The Philippines should go back to manual voting and then electronic transmission of precinct counts.  A host of countries, notably Germany, have either gone back to manual voting and counting, or, like Australia, have stuck to the manual system.  Hopefully, 2015 will be a year of domestic political crystallization--starting with a return to manual voting and a convergence of revolutionary ideals.

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

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The plunder 'elite'

The plunder ‘elite’

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 10-14-2013 MON)

 

For three decades now we have heard and read how establishment institutions, from school books to Western media, such as Time/CNN, to local mainstream and the addled social media, have portrayed how “plundering” Ferdinand Marcos was.  But the desire of BS Aquino, expressed through House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, to expand presidential discretion over, for instance, the disposition of government’s share of revenues from the Malampaya natural gas facility reveals just who has the real plundering mindset.  And it’s none other than the jaundiced, Yellow Edsa I power elite led by the likes of the Aquino family and cronies such as Belmonte.

 

Marcos’ earmarking of the Malampaya Fund to energy-related projects at the project’s inception defined a clear sense of priority, propriety, and foresight.  It indicated the clear understanding of the Philippines’ need for continued dedication to indigenous energy source development and protecting the revenues from the Malampaya project from diversion to anything other than that goal.  Decades after Marcos set up the energy development programs to create a self-sufficient energy base for the country, we have been witness to a progressive dismantling of that energy self-sufficiency program and, now, the imminent threat of dissipating one of the last sources of funds dedicated to it.

 

Is the idea of dissipating the Malampaya Fund really BS Aquino’s or is it simply Belmonte manipulating his little “tyke” from the Boston years of Ninoy Aquino’s exile?  The current House Speaker is the epitome of the greed that marks the Yellow decades of governance in this country.  In fact, if the public were to look for the root of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) schemes, it should call for the investigation of Belmonte and his coterie known as “the Quezon City mafia” that includes Executive Secretary Jojo Ochoa and a one-time treasury chief who is a master in packaging financial instruments to plunder government coffers.  Not surprisingly, Belmonte, in the name of BS Aquino, has now set his sights on frittering away the Malampaya Fund to “alleviate poverty and job creation.”

 

Just think about it: BS Aquino and his top House henchman have passed a national budget of over P2 trillion every year.  They have allocated over P100 billion for the anti-poverty Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program the past years and over P48 billion for 2014.  Yet one cannot see where the poverty and unemployment alleviation goes.  It’s so bad that even BS Aquino and Yellow crony Walden Bello had to admit that recently in the news article, “Global poverty down, Philippine poverty remains high,” given the National Statistics Coordination Board data that 27.9 percent live below the poverty line.  Worse, National Economic Development Authority chief Arsenio Balisacan, in “Unemployment rate inches up to 7.3% in July 2013,” even had to admit that the “September 2013 underemployment rate rose to 22.7 percent--the highest since July 2006.”

 

So why is Belmonte coming up with this scheme to divert the roughly P150-billion Malampaya Fund?  With three years left of the BS Aquino administration, this gang is showing its intent on cleaning out every fund it can lay its hands on, no matter the scandal that may ensue.  This proposal for opening the use of the Malampaya Fund to other than energy-related purposes will ensure its travel down the long drains of official greed and corruption.

 

While we are wary of any “ouster” moves against a government or president without a prepared alternative, I’m afraid we have to join the call as nothing may be left of the government treasury after BS Aquino and his Yellow cronies are through with it.

 

Although weakened by the sinking US dollar, the Yellow ruling class, being a collaboration of the US neocolonial overlords and their traditional financial-economic-political oligarchy, prevails because of divisiveness built into Philippine society--from obscurantist religious sects, a military indoctrinated against genuine nationalism, to the addled middle class and “social media,” etc.

 

Impoverished Filipinos now see through the Yellow Edsa I “democracy” and “growth” frauds.  Hope lies in the rise of reformist young officers, the militant nationalists, principled “rejectionists” of the Left, and the latent Edsa III forces (if revived in the face of oppression), among other reform movements.

 

But for genuine social reformers to win, weaving a thread of unity across the progressive nationalist elements is a precondition.  Only a meeting of minds of these anti-Yellow forces will suffice.

 

The time to stop and end the plundering elite around BS Aquino and the Yellows is now.  The opportunity to coalesce and win for genuine change is approaching with the anti-presidential pork crusade rising and the US continuing its downward spiral into social and political chaos that not even the resolution of its “shutdown” and its “debt ceiling” crises will stop.

 

(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., also on www.gnntv-asia.com, this week on “Gaddafi’s struggle: Lessons for RP”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)

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War-puppet regimes

War-puppet regimes.

(Herman Tiu Laurel/ DieHard III/ Tribune column for 7-2-2014 Wednesday)

 

I really want to refocus on several crucial domestic issues, such as the MELORS (Manual Election or Revolution) call from one of our readers. That is a battle cry for this country cheated by the PCOS Smartmatic machines in 2010 and 2013. The need is highlighted today by presidential election candidate runaway leader VP Binay’s warning of “high tech election fraud in 2016”. Indeed, countries like Germany, Netherlands andIreland have banned electronic or automated voting, many others have put them on hold or banned various aspects of it. Its two years to the next election, we have to begin the MELORS campaign now.

 

              However, something overshadows all the immediate domestic issues. The PCOS Smartmatic manipulations were possible because a power far greater that any local force caused the Smartmatic PCOS to be installed. When one really looks into it deeply one will see the U.S. hand. which controlled. The machines in the 2010 and 2013 elections were Smartmatic but the software was from Dominion Voting Systems, a Denver based company today enjoying a seeming monopoly of automated voting technologies after it bought U.S. companies Sequoia, Diebold, ES&S. Reporter Chris Flyod writing in Moscow Times described: “CIA-owned Voting Machines Ensure Bush Victory in 2004”.

 

              The “U.S. pivot” was first broached in 2009, during then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first trip to Asia. There followed three elections in the region reveal the U.S. hand in installing what would subsequently be the abuilding anti-China coalition with the U.S. In September 2009 a new Japanese Prime Minister was elected on the basis of a pledge to remove the U.S. Futenma base from island of Okinawa, nine months later PM Yukio Hatoyama resigns on the basis of his “failure” to deliver on that promise. Yoshihiko Noda succeeds Hatoyama in February 2011 and falls in December 2012 with only one memorable act – the nationalization of the Diaoyu or Senkaku islands.

 

              The alleged reasons for the Noda cabinet’s resignation were its “failure to improve the economy and its perceived lack of strong leadership”. So why did the Japanese Diet oust Hatoyama when he was the Japanese leader who dared to do what the Okinawan and Japanese desired – remove U.S. bases. The LDP’s Shinzo Abe, traditional U.S. political enforcers since WWII replaced Noda and championed the removal of the “peace provisions” of the Japanese Constitution and push the “collective defence” for Japan to deploy troops with allies in “defence” of each other. U.S. pressure and not Japanese electorates was behind Japan’s political changes.

 

              Last June 29 a Japanese man committed self-immolation on an elevated railroad girder in Shinjuko district, protesting Shinzo Abe’s “collective defence” and military expansionist plans. Our article “Two-faced U.S.-Aquino-Abe” reported Japanese survey showing as much as 70% of Japanese opposed to Abe’s sabre-rattling. “Abe-nomics” devalued the Yen, raised taxes and inflation but not consumption. Some Japanese are upset enough to commit fiery hara-kiri, yet Abe gets only praises form the West.  Meanwhile, in South Korea, a petition to manually recount the results of the 2012 elections that installed Park Geun-hye has circulated on the Internet.

 

              South Korea presidents have single term limit and hawkish. Rabid anti-North President Lee Myung-bak had to go in 2012. Major candidates to replace Lee were Moon Jae-in, human rights advocate, and former strongman Park Chung-hee’s daughter Park Guen-hye. South Korean voters manually stamp their votes followed by a machine count. As the petition for manual recount says, “The graphs representing the voter turnout and the votes earned for Mr. Moon and Ms. Park, measured over time, were consistently smooth to have occurred in real life,… Only the graphs implied by the Formula of Logistic Function can produce such a beautiful, smooth curves.” Shades of 60-30-10!

 

              U.S. covert operations in its formerly directly occupied countries are bequeathed “left behind” covert operators - those countries’ intelligence agencies. South Korea’s NIS (National Intelligence Service) is one such “left behind”. From various South Korea reports: “Since the Presidential elections…. debate has continued over suspected election interference…. The head Prosecutor has confirmed that from 2011 to December 2012, NIS employees of the Psychological Operations Group made 22 million tweets from 2270 Twitter accounts, tweets that were systematically posted …. linked to interference in the presidential election and politics … postings praising or blasting specific parties or lawmakers…”

 

              The Philippine Comelec’s removal of security measures from its Smartmatic PCOS machines, i.e.  removal of vote receipt to teacher’s digital signatures, last minute switching of 80,000 CF cards, and Dominion Voting System’s non-delivery of the source code in both the 2010 and 2013 elections, ensured installation of U.S. puppet leaders in Malacañang and the Senate. The few independent politicians who made it through are now being ousted for alleged “pork crimes”. These had to happen before the crucial Cha-cha that could change the Constitution and install a 2016 government that will be wholly controlled by the U.S. and ally with the collective Asian war faction.

 

(1098AM, SWAD 5-6pm Tues. to Fri.; GNN Talk New TV program, S “PCA versus Cocolisap”at. 8pm and Sun. 8am on Destiny Cable chn. 8 and SkyCable chn. 213 or www.gnntv-asia.com. or YouTube Talk News TV and add date; visit www.newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com) ###

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Two-faced US-Aquino-Abe

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Focusing real issues

Focusing real issues.

(Herman Tiu Laurel/ DieHard III/ Tribune column for 6-25-2014 Wednesday)

 

              The mainstream media (MSM) obsession and treatment of the “pork barrel” issue has really become a joke, focusing on the shallow drama of mug shots and Spartan living conditions of the first celebrity detainee while urgent issues like the rice price crisis are given passing glances. Politicians have been worse. Miriam Santiago shrieked that detention facilities should not be turned into a “private resort”. The lady is not lily white and may find herself someday in the same prison situation, denied ceiling to floor padding. BS Aquino too, when his time comes to stay in a cell he will certainly be denied his play station.

 

              What are the more urgent issues? One is Atty. Alan Paguia’s crusade to put “Hello Garci” back on the public’s agenda. The Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes says a statute of limitations has buried. Atty. Paguia has filed a second motion with the Comelec Legal Department to his first in 2007 which was never answered by the Comelec. The crimes in the “Hello Garci” case is incontrovertible because of  evidence provided by the recordings of the incriminating conversations between Commissioner Garcillano and then president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and the latters’ “I am sorry” TV confession. Public accountability in the country is farce until this case is resolved.

 

              Rice prices shot up this month and all Malacañang could say was the disingenuous line that the administration’s anti-smuggling campaign must be causing the price spike. It does not explain anything, instead it betrays the administration’s utter incompetence and lack of coordination. The fact is its caught unprepared and a shortage ensued. They should have prepared local production or legally imported supply to maintain the normal stock and price levels. It was a rice price spike that spelled the doom for Fidel V. Ramos’ “Philippines 2020” in 1997. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had a longer rice crisis,  2008 to 2010. Rice self-sufficiency and price affordability is the topmost priority of the nation.

 

              Garlic prices shot up fourfold last week. Supermarket shelves are empty of it. Some attribute it to price manipulation by traders. The government again claimed that its intensified monitoring of garlic smuggling may be the reason. That stinks. If government planned a crackdown on smuggled garlic they should also have expected a tightening of supply and took action to increase production in anticipation. Given the high unemployment figures in the agricultural sector a “two birds with one stone” solution should have been foreseen in the garlic situation, expand land areas dedicated to growing garlic and mobilization of idle farm family hands to grow and process the harvest.

 

              Anticipating and avoiding crises like the rice and garlic supply slumps is a fundamental government mission, BS Aquino should have focused on such tasks Day One of his administration in 2010. Medium term planning and day-to-day coordination among the numerous government agencies, and orchestrating legislative support is esential. But BS Aquino concentrated on morality plays, his “no wang-wang” and “tuwid na daan”, instead of getting his cabinet to roll up sleeves and pants’ legs, get into the rice paddies, dig irrigation canals and till vegetable patches with the farmers. Now, the country today is in deep trouble with shortages of the most basic staples.

 

              Agricultural problems require two to three years to solve, in agricultural time has run out on BS Aquino. Among the many crises there is one area where immediate decisions can bring immediate improvement – the fruitless and self-defeating foreign policy direction BS Aquino government has been dragged into on the South China Sea dispute with China. For three years the Philippines has taken an adversarial, no-dialogue, litigious stance which has not gained a single new islet of territory for the country but instead has lost/atoll after islands/stools to punitive occupations of disputed sea formations by China.

 

              The litigious policy with China has proven a totally bankrupt. It is based on the equally bankrupt thesis that the U.S. will honor its “ironclad” promise to back the Philippines. Philippine intransigence allowed China the excuse to occupy and develop the most strategic Mabini or Johnson Reef which pro-U.S. Filipino politician Roilo Golez said is a “game changer”. That neutralizes whatever strategic gain the U.S. hoped for in the EDCA with the Philippines. Aquino can change all these, by a stroke of a pen appointing a new, independent minded Foreign Affairs secretary Aquino can start productive dialogue and earns billions in joint development projects with China.

 

              The idealistic “pork barrel” narrative has become a soap opera. After eleven months, it still is news - but not headline news. The MSM and the ruling powers clearly want it to be the central news to prevent the nation from focusing on the real problems and solutions. The real, alternative media should persist in bringing the real issues to the fore. (1098AM, DWAD 5-6pm Tues. to Fri.; GNN Talk New TV program on June 14, Sat. 8pm and Sun. 8am on Destiny Cable chn. 8 and SkyCable chn. 213 or www.gnntv-asia.com. or YouTube Talk News TV and add date; visit www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com) ###

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Stiglitz: 'Pivot away from containment'

 

Stiglitz: ‘Pivot away from containment’

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 12-10-2014 WED)

 

Not a month passes by that no earthshaking developments arise from the East.  Just this week, in an article for Vanity Fair slated for January 2015, entitled “The Chinese Century,” renowned former top US International Monetary Fund economist Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote, “When the history of 2014 is written, it will take note of a large fact that has received little attention: 2014 was the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largest economic power.  China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever.  In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history.”

 

The 2,681-word article goes through the millennia of shifts of economic power from one society to another and describes the painful, often bloody, struggles accompanying the changes; but it concludes this way: “We (the US) should take this moment, as China becomes the world’s largest economy, to ‘pivot’ our foreign policy away from containment.  The economic interests of China and the US are intricately intertwined… We will have to cooperate,... the most important thing America can do to maintain the value of its soft power is to address its own systemic deficiencies--economic and political practices that are… to put the matter baldly… skewed toward the rich and powerful.  A new global political and economic order is emerging … if we respond... in the wrong way, we risk a backlash that will result in either a dysfunctional global system or a global order that is distinctly not what we would have wanted.”

 

Filipinos who love America, sometimes even more than they could love their own country, should ponder on Stiglitz’s advice.  Stiglitz is saying that the US needs to save itself first, as we ourselves see with the crises of economics and finance, race and its military-industrial complex’s runaway global war monkey business. Filipinos who love America can help save America by echoing to their friends there to heed Stiglitz and allow our World a century of respite from global tension and war.

 

Across the globe, in China, the president of the largest economy in the World today spoke to his nation’s “central foreign affairs” body on precisely that principle.

 

Xinhuanet reported that at the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs, Xi Jinping “stressed the importance of ‘holding high the banner of peace, development and win-win cooperation, pursuing China’s overall domestic and international interests and its development and security priorities in a balanced way, focusing on the overriding goal of peaceful development and national renewal, upholding China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, fostering a more enabling international environment for peaceful development and maintaining and sustaining the important period of strategic opportunity for China’s development.’”

 

China’s “two centenary goals” to be achieved by 2049, the hundredth year of the 1949 Chinese Revolution are: doubling the 2010 GDP and per capita income and finishing the building of a society of initial prosperity in all respects, and the Chinese dream of the great renewal of the Chinese nation.

 

In his speech Xi said, “Among many other things we should also realize that the general trend of prosperity and stability in the Asia-Pacific region will not change … We should continue to follow the independent foreign policy of peace … While we pursue peaceful development, we will never relinquish our legitimate rights and interests, or allow China’s core interests to be undermined.  We should uphold… the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence ... We should continue to follow the win-win strategy of opening-up and a win-win approach in every aspect of our external relations such as political, economic, security and cultural fields … We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s message to the world…”

 

China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence are: Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; Mutual non-aggression; Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and Peaceful co-existence.  Upholding the first principle’s underlying basis can be used to overcome disputes concerning it, and there are many efforts toward this.  On Dec. 13, Saturday, the Ateneo Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies is holding a round table discussion with historian and US-China expert Dr. John Delury on “Expressing Joint Responsibility between Philippines and China for Maintaining Stability in the Region.”

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

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P347-billion added debt burden

P347-billion added debt burden

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-07-2014 MON)

 

National government debt increased year-on-year in May by P347 billion or 6.57 percent.  Gloria Arroyo left the country a P4.9-trillion debt.  BS Aquino’s now stands at P5.6 trillion.

 

This debt is unnecessary in light of the huge amounts wasted in the so-called BS Aquino Disbursement Acceleration Program cum presidential “pork barrel” (BADAP) or on Congress’ wastage of P35 billion last year passing only one law postponing the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

 

This is especially so considering the country’s over $20 billion in foreign exchange surplus or its Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) of P1.7 trillion ($ 40 billion) costing 2.5 percent to keep idle, or BS Aquino’s June 2012 boast of lending $1 billion to help keep the Eurozone afloat.

 

Taking all that into account, does it still make sense for the Philippines to continue growing its debt principal and interest?  No!

 

The Philippines continues to borrow ONLY because of subservience to the US-led Western financial-political mafia.  As domestic banks get 70 percent of such borrowings, so too are local banks exploiting the people in this unnecessary debt.

 

The global banking mafia has had, and continues to make, many impositions deleterious to the country, one of which is the invasion of foreign capital into our rural banks, which will result in control by these global “too-big-to-fail” banks that had brought about regular financial collapses such as the 2008 financial meltdown.

 

The only alternative to this cycle of financial looting is People’s or National Banking, which is part of the broader monetary system in its many forms, from cooperative banks to nationalized or government dominated banks, to the modern evolution called “crypto-currencies.”

 

This is the banking system of the main economic tigers of Asia, namely, China, Vietnam, Singapore, etc.  The people create the wealth and the surplus and savings out of it are lent to projects that benefit the people in a perpetual cycle of enriching people’s communities instead of private bankers.

 

There is no opposition from the Philippine establishment, i.e. the present ruling class of corrupt politicians and financial mafias (or banks) with interlocking ownership by mega-corporations, because the present financial-political-economic system benefits only them and excludes the people (the middle class and the masses).

 

BADAP and legislative “pork” are just the share of the system’s political cronies to keep the present system going.  Hence, there will eventually be a resurrection of BADAP and “pork” if the present system is to survive, which the powers-that-be are determined to do--unless, there is genuine change or revolution.

 

Revolution (peaceful desirably) is possible only if the ideological foundation of the prevailing system is undermined, by bringing to light values of right and wrong in matters such as ownership of the nation’s common wealth (land, capital-financial system, public utilities) or of public vs private ownership and control of such resources.

 

Without such public ownership or control (especially of the financial system), a government dedicated to the peoples’ welfare will never have the wherewithal to serve them.  Instead, a government controlled by private wealth will only protect private wealth and grow more private wealth--exactly the situation we have today.

 

Congressional “pork” was allegedly diverted to the personal coffers of Janet Lim-Napoles and various politicians.  But BADAP, now revealed, was used by BS Aquino to rid the Supreme Court (SC) of Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was an obstacle to the Aquino-Cojuangco clan’s desire of obtaining a P10-billion (instead of P490-million) government compensation for the distribution to farmers of Hacienda Luisita.

 

Unable to skirt clear constitutional separation-of-powers provisions, the current SC struck down BADAP but gave BS Aquino an escape hatch, mindful of his possible retaliation on the high court’s own “pork,” the Judiciary Development Fund.

 

The Makati Business Club’s “Coalition Against Corruption” made a call to abolish the P25-billion congressional “pork barrel,” but “pork” goes all the way down to the city council level.  Moreover, “pork” is public funds meant for public good, too.

 

But what about the P5.67-trillion debt, 70 percent of which goes to domestic banks and 30 percent to foreign banks?  Where do these banks get the money to lend government from which they charge taxpayers interest?

 

Renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith says, “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”

 

Positive Money cites from England, “Where does money come from?  In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits.  But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood.  The principal way in which they are created is through commercial banks making loans: whenever a bank makes a loan, it creates a deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.”

 

The loans banks issue (including to governments) create bank assets, from which they can loan money out again, ad infinitum.  We are taxed to pay the interest to them.

 

Why don’t the people earn the interest by being the bankers themselves--through publicly-owned People’s or National Banks?

 

Napoles and company are certainly no match for the Ponzi schemes of the private banking mafia.

 

(Watch GNN 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 “New PCA vs Cocolisap”; tune in to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Responses to China-RP alliance

Responses to China-RP alliance

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 12-08-2014 MON)

 

It was at the Diliman Book Club Yuletide get-together last Saturday that I learned of more unexpected reactions to our Wednesday article, which posited that an RP-China alliance would open better prospects for the Philippines’ prosperity than maintaining its foreign policy status quo with the US today.

 

Earlier, former congressman Willy Villarama had emailed me back the said article indicating that he had BCC’ed it to his email directory.  Several other responses by email reflected a general interest in the proposition.  But it was China analyst Chito Sta. Romana who gave me a surprise at the Diliman Book Club gathering.

 

Chito told me and the others around one table that he was surprised to find the article “China: A better ally” on the Facebook page of Roilo Golez and his group with a note, according to Chito, “Let’s get it straight from Herman Tiu Laurel.”  Roilo Golez is, of course, one of the staunchest anti-China and pro-US proponents alongside Rafael Alunan, Loida Nicolas-Lewis, Rodel Rodis et al. who’ve tried to organize mass rallies against China the past two years but which have never gone beyond a hundred or so participants.

 

I was intrigued by the news.  I wondered if it was a tactic to scare the anti-China crowd further with the “Yellow peril” and “the communists are coming” bogeys.

 

I will take the Golez inclusion of my article last week positively and assume it is in the interest of having an honest discussion on what the Philippines’ foreign policy direction should be as nations traverse the crossroads of the 21st Century.  Chito, however, had an advice for me: China, he said, champions the “non-aligned movement” and declares itself “non-aligned.”  What China looks forward to, he said, is “partnerships.” “Besides,” Chito added, “China may not want the Philippines as an ally.”

 

I didn’t interpose any disagreement to Chito’s advice; indeed, China is known for its advocacy of the Non-Aligned Movement since the time of Premier Zhou Enlai in the 60s.

 

The line between “alliance” and “partnership” is quite thin, but the semantics is important and Chito is right to be careful in using the term.  “Alliance” in the global and geopolitical context has come to assume an almost automatic political-military connotation, as we have seen in the controversy erupting in Japan when its premier Shinzo Abe forced the reinterpretation of that country’s Peace Constitution to allow Japan to engage in defense of “alliance” states.

 

As China eschews military alliance, in May 2014 Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Asian countries against “unhelpful military alliances,” which the US has been reinforcing in the region.

 

At the turn of the 20th Century, treaty defense obligations to smaller allied countries imposed by military alliances with major powers dragged Germany, France, England, Russia, and the US, often against the better judgment of leaders, into mankind’s first true world war.  But China is not averse to all kinds of alliances and, in fact, today it champions economic alliances of politically non-aligned nations such as BRICS, the economic alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa for “a new economic order.”  The same is true for its spearheading the recent FTAAP, the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, with 21 member-states, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to enhance ties with Central Asian states and Russia.

 

Chito Sta. Romana suggests a more gradual process of establishing a new policy direction with regard to relations with China.  Instead of an alliance with any country, the Philippines, he says, should declare an “independent foreign policy” unallied to either China or the US.  To my mind this is enough to constitute a “revolution” in our hundred-year-old policy of subservience to Uncle Sam.  This is the same view expressed by De La Salle University International Relations academic Dr. Elaine Tolentino on my GNN cable TV show last Saturday.

 

However, I believe we should go one step further to ensure a peaceful world environment for the peaceful development of all: The Philippines is a citizen of Humanity which faces the great risk of World War III today in all parts of the globe where the US is supplying hundreds of tanks and planes, such as in Ukraine and the Baltic states bordering Russia--this, amid the backdrop of Resolution 758 practically authorizing Kiev to attack East Ukraine (http://www.globalresearch.ca/reckless-congress-declares-war-on-russia/5418287), as well as the US “pivot to Asia” and its pursuit of the “Air-Sea Battle” and ”Offshore Control” doctrines against China, ad nausea.

 

It is the obligation of all nations, including the Philippines, to contain the hegemonic aggressiveness of the US by promoting a global “balance-of-powers.”

 

The Philippines must not only break free of the US but engage in building that “multipolar world.”  Aside from benefitting from the economic boon, it should end the domination of a singular superpower imposing its arbitrary idea of peace on humanity and, to paraphrase President Xi in his speech to a Central Foreign Affairs meeting, work toward an “enabling international environment for peaceful development.”

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Fil-Am 'patriots'

Fil-Am ‘patriots’

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-24-2013 WED)

 

Filipino-American (Fil-Am) anti-China crusaders Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Rodel Rodis have been at the forefront of a year-long campaign to rouse the global Filipino community against what they call China’s “invasion” of Philippine territory.  From a failed boycott of Chinese goods last year and the assembly of US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG) to purportedly clean up the Philippines while endorsing a list of its favored candidates for the recent 2013 senatorial polls, to the recent convening of the West Philippine Sea Coalition (WPSC) with US Naval Academy graduate Roilo Golez and FVR man Rafael Alunan, there is indeed no shortage of “patriotic” rhetoric from their end.  But here are a few questions:

 

Have these crusaders said anything on the Malampaya natural gas project, where Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron-Texaco, operating in UNDISPUTED Philippine territory, have been extracting natural gas for export and for the natural gas-fired power plants feeding the dominant power distributor at rates pegged to high petroleum prices?  While the Philippines supposedly has a 10-percent share in Malampaya, it’s a pittance compared to what sovereign countries get: Bolivia, up to 82 percent; Ecuador, up to 99 percent--for oil priced above $23.  Yet even that 10 percent is misleading, as the consortium’s investment and taxes are charged to the country’s 10-percent stake.  Have we heard a pip from them on this blatant and grossly abusive Anglo-US plunder of our natural gas?

 

Worse, the US, Britain, and their local partners--principally the oligarchs (Ayalas, Lopezes et al.) and the corrupt political class--have not only inflicted that grossly iniquitous deal, our country was even forced to use much of its paltry Malampaya revenues for foreign military purchases.

 

On Sept. 2011, Budget Secretary Butch Abad said that $117 million of royalties from the gas facility will go to funding purchases of search-and-rescue and patrol helicopters--not for national emergencies but--“to guard Malampaya” (i.e. US and British interests).  Moreover, he admitted that about $10 million of the royalties was spent on refurbishing the Hamilton-class Navy frigates purchased from the US.

 

The $4.5-billion Malampaya project holds 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 65 million barrels of condensates.  Shell and Chevron are estimated to earn $250 billion in 25 years.

 

Then, there’s this other question that is crying out for answers from these “hyper-patriotic” fogies: What’s their take on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) recently finagling from BS Aquino III’s negotiating panel 75 percent of all the wealth under the MILF’s supposed BangsaMoro substate--territories which include the vast, oil-rich Sulu Sea?

 

Behind the MILF and this so-called peace deal is the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) led by J. Robinson West, also the head of the world’s largest oil consulting firm, PFC Energy.  Among West’s clients is (surprise, surprise) Chevron-Texaco.  They are sure to exclaim, “It’s three for us (the US-MILF tandem) and one for you (98 million Filipinos)!”

 

Going by the Anglo-US record in the Middle East where only a few sectarian Sunni leaders are fattened, we can never expect ordinary Muslim Filipinos sharing in the oil and gas wealth.  Instead, they will be kept in medieval states of poverty while the MILF collaborators make hay.

 

Next, have we heard any patriotic pronouncements from these anti-Chinese “patriots” on the wholesale oil- and land-grabbing of Britain and Malaysia of the Philippines’ very own North Borneo (Sabah), most especially the ongoing murder and abuse of our fellow Filipinos there?

 

Despite this administration’s treasonous actions, the entire Filipino nation has been against the continuing alienation of that oil-rich area from its historic and sovereign motherland, and its original reigning sultanate--the Sultanate of Sulu.  Evidence of Filipinos’ overwhelming opposition to the continued separation of North Borneo from the Philippine archipelago is the way they have given their support to the Royal Sultanate Forces’ attempt to resettle in the Taosugs’ traditional homeland.

 

As far as I can remember, nothing has ever been heard from these Fil-Am “patriots” on this historic issue that is of primordial importance to the sovereignty and integrity of this nation.

 

And so we ask: What gains have accrued to the Philippines from the activities of these Fil-Ams and their local cohorts?  One of the moves that these “patriots” have praised is the elevation of the South China Sea territorial disputes to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos).

 

Assuming the Philippines gets its way in the Itlos, will that change the final equation in any way?  The only sure result is greater intransigence from the People’s Republic of China, where physical conflict would be the next step.  Any escalation would only make sense if the US joins the fray.  And will the Philippines gain anything from that?

 

From historical and present realities, it is a foregone conclusion that only the Philippines will be the final loser as it had been in World War II, where both the US and even Japan eventually won the war, with the Philippines continuing to wallow in devastation up to this day.

 

Anas Almasri, writing this year in Invest In Web site, says, “Chinese FDI (foreign direct investments) to the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nation) countries soared by 150 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year, the highest growth in the bloc’s top ten sources of FDI … Chinese direct investment to the Southeast Asian nations were enough to surpass that of the US… due to the US FDI itself decreasing by more than half in 2011.”

 

Militarily, Australian Peter Hartcher, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in May this year comments, “We rely on the US at our peril,” as he noted how the 10 US aircraft carriers are already being negated by China’s hypersonic anti-missiles.

 

Meanwhile, as writer Bernie Lopez writes in one major daily that China has warned Manila that the presence of US bases in the Philippines will compel it to aim missiles at these facilities, Filipino economist Pancho Lara decries, “We are missing on the billions of investment funds of China.”

 

(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., this week on “OFWs await RP-Taiwan conciliation”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)