Harmony or war

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / January 8, 2014 / Daily Tribune

First, a story about the good that a genuine global "community" can do which the NYT described as "…displaying unusual international harmony…": the Russian research ship Akademik Shokalskiy carrying multi-national scientists (ironically, "global warming" researchers), and tourists and journalists got trapped in 13-feet thick Antarctic ice last Dec. 27. First the Chinese icebreaker ship "snow Dragon" and then an Australian icebreaker ship rushed to the rescue and both were also trapped in the massive engulfing freeze up, but the Chinese ship had on board a helicopter which ferried the Shokalskiy's 52 passengers to safety. An US icebreaker ship is now also on its way to join the aid effort.

The story highlights a few important points: first, China's presence of the global stage is playing a positive role and this can only add to the international community's capabilities to enhance global harmony; secondly, no single nation can save mankind from the many gigantic universal challenges it faces from the overpowering natural forces of disruption and only combined human and technological resource can ensure adequate responses to them. If the spirit of the Shokalskiy rescue effort dominated the World's mind today then we can be assured of a peaceful and harmonious future for our children and generations to open the way for uninterrupted economic and human progress for all.

On the other side of the globe another event highlights the opposite track that humanity today can march on to. At exactly the time of the Shokalskiy drama was unfolding in the Antarctic the Prime Minster of Japan, Shinzo Abe, paid the first visit of any post-World War II Japanese premier to the Japanese war memorial called the Yasukuni Shrine commemorating several "Class A" war criminals including general and war time prime minister Hideki Tojo. This infuriated Japanese war victims China, South Korea, Taiwan and it elicited criticism even from the US. It should also infuriate Filipinos and their national leaders but it could not even ape its US master in this regard.

Prime Minister Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine aggravates the fact that the Japanese have never officially apologized for the invasion and cruelties they inflicted on their Asian neighbors, a fact that the US war factions have tolerated while it demanded the apology from Germany. The US has been tolerant of the Japanese militarist faction, to which Abe's family belongs, is that the US has always placed in reserve this militarist faction to serve as potential buffer to the rise of China and Russia. While the US has spread knowledge of German atrocities like the "Holocaust," the clear and incontrovertible atrocities by the Japanese such as the Nanjing Massacre has never been fully addressed.

The World has focused its attention on the response of China, one of the reactions highlighted by the international media is Chinese ambassador to London Liu Xiaoming's statement: "In the Harry Potter story, the dark wizard Voldemort dies hard because the seven horcruxes, which contain parts of his soul, have been destroyed. If militarism is like the haunting Voldemort of Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is a kind of horcrux, representing the darkest parts of that nation's (Japan's) soul." In Asia Times Senan Fox, Professor at Kanazawa University in Japan, writes: "Respected Asia scholar professor Jeff Kingston… in an interview with the BBC, that Abe's actions were a deliberate provocation of China aimed at goading Beijing... heighten the Japanese public's sense of threat, and consequently enhance support for the nationalistic leader's plans to revise his country's constitution."

Indeed, the provocations from the Japanese war faction and its sponsors in the US have been mounting — starting with the government purchase of the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands effectively nationalizing them, drawing in and provoking China's government. Adding to the provocations are propaganda and disinformation from China's detractors, such as the recent controversy of China's Air Defense Zone Plan (ADIZ). We have discovered through John Hofilena of Global Research that "China Informed Japan of ADIZ 2010" with official documents: " — minutes of the informal meeting between the PLA officers and Japanese government officials at the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies in Beijing on May 14 to 15, 2010 — show that China had already established its ADIZ... presented to the Japanese officials…" That's why China described Japan's recent objections as "hypocritical."

Remember too how the hundreds of "concrete blocks" supposedly set up by China in the Scarborough turned out to be anchors for US floating targets for their shooting exercises. "All wars start in the mind" as the Unesco preamble states, hence there are those who want to instill that war mentality now, and Shinzo Abe is one of them. China believes there may be war and Shinzo Abe is giving the reasons to affirm this; that's why China has to secure its front facing the sea.

(Watch "Japan militarizing?" with Chito Sta. Romana and Richard Javad Heydarian, GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Skycable Channel 213, www.gnntv-asia.com Sat., 8 p.m. and replay Sun., 8 a.m.; tune to 1098AM, Tues. to Fri. 5pm; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

2014: The worst of 2013

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / January 6, 2014 / Daily Tribune

The year 2013 ended with a really big bang — not from the noisy firecrackers that ushered in the New Year but from the shocking way by which the country's preeminent light and power utility which resulted in increased power rates yet again. Behind this move without a doubt is the labyrinthine law known as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).

The law created a mechanism whereby electricity is traded as a commodity. Named the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), this later proved to be the perfect cover for power price manipulation by giving various independent power producers (IPPs) the wherewithal to price power up to P65 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), even when the same is produced by the National Power Corp. at a cost of around P5/kWh and even when small emergency home generators could generate power at half of WESM's cost.

Compelled by public demand, government sought to cut that ceiling to P32/kWh from P65/kWh. The Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA) in turn threatened power "shortages."

Clearly, that naked blackmail should be the best argument to take away the power sector from these profit-hungry private companies.
So what are the Filipinos to do now? Those IPPs will never give up the most profitable business in the world without a fight; that's for sure.
For a decade and a half this space has consistently exposed power piracy in its many forms. But the task has been made most difficult by some of the Epira's media apologists, who only serve to muddle the issue.

Randy David of the Inquirer, for instance, wrote: "This is an issue beyond the control of the President. Indeed it is. This falls under the jurisdiction of one of the regulatory boards (the Energy Regulatory Commission or ERC) specifically mandated by law to administer public utilities. Such boards are autonomous within their jurisdictions…"

That is certainly not the case according to law professor Raffy Tuvera, who wrote: "All quasi judicial and administrative bodies like the ERC are under the control of the president. They're not independent bodies like the constitutional commissions. Their decisions can be overturned by the President."
The 12th Congress passed the Epira after House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte's office released a P500,000 per solon payola in order for Gloria Arroyo to sign it into law on June 8, 2001 as a trade-off for a World Bank $800-million "standby loan."

If a corrupt Congress and Palace occupant can pass Epira into law, certainly, a "daang matuwid" president can repeal it through a Congress that he coaxed to oust a Supreme Court chief justice.

BATASnatin online law library states: "HOW LAWS ARE REPEALED: 1. Expressly — by direct act of Congress. 2. Impliedly — occurring inconsistencies on… between a prior and a subsequent law."

And since Epira is inconsistent with the Constitution, BS Aquino can most definitely have it repealed or amended. The problem is he won't.
To date, many commentators have joined in criticizing the ERC. Even Manila Times foreigner-writer Ben Kritz described the agency as a victim of "regulatory capture," i.e. controlled by the power companies it is supposed to regulate. Although correct, the assessment is "so yesterday" as the truth is we have an entire government that is captured by the powerful vested local Big Business interests, with the US-British financial mafia as patrons. Not only is the ERC captive, but the National Economic Development Authority, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the whole of government.

Governmental capture is nothing new. That was, and is, the whole mission of the US and its Western allies. In his book, The Grand Chessboard (1997), Zbigniew Brzezinski stated in Chapter 1: "Hegemony of a New Type … The American global system emphasizes the technique of co-optation (as in the case of defeated rivals — Germany, Japan and lately even Russia (and in 1910, the Philippines) to a much greater extent than the earlier imperial systems did. It likewise relies heavily on the indirect exercise of influence on dependent foreign elites."
In contrast, Asian and Latin American countries that have progressed economically, such as Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, etc., first threw off US control of their governments and military institutions.

The future is the past: 2014 will be 2013; only worse than ever before. The GDP, or gross domestic pain, will be much worse. The power price gouging issue will be judged in favor of the power oligarchs and their voracious profit seeking. The so-called Disbursement Acceleration Program, the mother of all "pork barrel," will pass the Supreme Court, confirming finally our thesis that the original "Million Man March" of 80,000 Yellow petite bourgeois with a smattering of Leftists was engineered by Malacañang PR, thus exposing the "stars" of the anti-pork campaign, namely, Peachy Bretaña, Manny Lopez, Inday Varona, Junep Ocampo et al., as patsies, dupes, or colluding with the oligarchs' media and BS Aquino.

There is no change in the Philippines unless the past ends. US colonialism and its many vestiges should be vanquished by a movement that seeks to revive the unfinished Philippine Revolution of 1896, to mark a new future for our land beginning in 2014.

(Watch HTL and guests on Talk News TV, GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

2014: New Year, New Start

First of all, I'd like to extend my belated greetings to everyone who has patronized this blog. It's going to be four years since this blog was set-up (Oh how time flies). Originally a website for Herman Tiu Laurel's columns, this blog has also included opinion articles from other writers including Rod Kapunan who writes for Manila Standard. You can also submit your article here. Just email me at generalkuno@gmail.com and I'll look into it. Submissions should have a minimum of at least 800 words and a short introduction for the reader's convenience.

Also, I'd like to extend my apologies for failing to post many columns since I've been either too busy or too lazy, especially last year. School and activism sure take up a lot of time from someone, so I hope the readers here would understand the situation I'm going through.

Well, that's all for now.

-admin