RP’s newest PPP: Penal Prison for Profit

(This did not appear in the Tribune as scheduled for today, and future articles, reflections from me will no longer appear in Tribune as its real owners have finally, using a ridiculous excuse, pushed me to leave it and start a new blog to bring truth out. Tribune is funded by Binay as is obvious from its headlines and front page stories, also by Manny Pangilinan and his ilk among the financial predators fleecing this entire nation. It's a good time to move on for me and start up new drives to expose the sordid truth about this decaying society - hoping that in knowing it may someday be freed. - htl)

 

RP's newest PPP: Penal Prison for Profit

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 08-26-2015 WED)

 

Here's an item from the British news publication The Independent: "An American judge known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom manner was jailed for 28 years for conspiring with private prisons to hand young offenders maximum sentences in return for kickbacks amounting to millions of dollars.  Mark Ciavarella Jr. was ordered to pay $1.2 million (£770,000) in restitution after he was found to be a 'figurehead' in the conspiracy that saw thousands of children unjustly punished in the name of profit in the case that became known as 'kids for cash.'"

 

Now pan your attention to this Philippine news item on a diversified conglomerate and some construction giants "seeking to prequalify to join the auction of the P50.2-billion contract to construct and operate a new prison facility that will soon rise within Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.  (They are said to be) interested in the regional prison PPP project just as they vied and won PPP projects to construct schools and hospital infrastructure."

 

It's just a matter of time that this privatized Philippine privatization will spawn the likes of Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. feeding the privatized prison systems for their personal profit.

 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had to overturned 4,000 convictions issued by that Luzerne County judge in over five years of court work for violating the constitutional rights of his juvenile victims--denying them the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea to ensure a fast and furious conviction rate.

 

With the kind of abusive judicial culture in the Philippines, I shudder to think of the consequences here.

 

The privatization scourge has been spreading around the world while the global oligarchy's reign expands and intensifies with the globalization and financialization of economics.  The latest to fall victim to the privatization swindle is Greece as the entire nation was gypped in connivance with its corrupt liberal democratic government into transferring "bankster" (banker ganster) debts of private banks resulting from the 2008 Financial Crisis into public debts.  This was what happened in 1986 when Cory Aquino pledged before the US Congress to pay all, even unjust, debts of all previous administrations.

 

Like the Philippines post-Edsa 1986, the Greek nation today is seeing its state-owned power, water, transportation, infrastructure, and many other sectors for a penny to the dollar (or cent to the euro).  Greeks and Filipinos must understand that this privatization scheme goes to feed the bottomless pit of finance capital greed which produces nothing but worthless paper currencies and electronic credit that are backed up by nothing--just the political power of the world's financial class backed by US military might.  It's time to raise the pitchforks and set the guillotines if the working masses are to survive.

 

Tina Ebro, the ageless activist from our 1970s era, sent us these new analyses and report, "What lies beneath? A critical assessment of public private partnerships and their impact on sustainable development," evaluating experience of PPPs from Tanzania to Peru.  Overall the report finds that:

 

"PPPs are, in most cases, the most expensive method of financing, significantly increasing the cost to the public purse.

 

PPPs are typically very complex to negotiate and implement and all too often entail higher construction and transaction costs than public works.

 

PPPs are all too often a risky way of financing for public institutions.

 

The evidence of impact of PPPs on efficiency is very limited and weak.

 

PPPs face important challenges when it comes to reducing poverty and inequality, while avoiding negative impacts on the environment.

 

Implementing PPPs poses important capacity constraints to the public sector, and particularly in developing countries.

 

PPPs suffer from low transparency and limited public scrutiny, which undermines democratic accountability…

 

As this report is published, the post-2015 and the financing for development agendas are being negotiated.  PPPs are proposed as a key component of the financing for development agenda in response to pressing infrastructure needs.  However, it is crucial to take into account what has happened so far and examine whether PPPs will help the world's poorest countries to finance the roads, schools, hospitals, energy and other infrastructure facilities they need to grow and thrive.

 

We recommend a set of concrete actions that can have a crucial impact in this debate: Stop hiding the true costs of PPPs; be transparent and accountable; put development outcomes at the forefront; put developing countries in the driving seat…

 

You can find the specificities of these in the ​​full report: http://eurodad.org/whatliesbeneath"

 

The PPPs are the new monopoly by the global finance-capitalists hiding behind the local oligopoly for a few corporations now controlling Filipinos' lives.  It is replacing the monopoly of the State or genuine People's Government, which is the "wholesale buyer of the people for finance and services."

 

The oligarchic puppets' other moves, such as Bam Aquino's Philippine Competition Act, target only State Monopoly in order to coddle the Oligarchy's Corporate Oligopoly.

 

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