DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/04/2010
The Aquino III “working visit” to the US lasted for eight days. The daily reports of his hotdogs and hamburgers, photo ops of his walking in front of landmarks, and one or two gatherings with US-based Filipinos streamed into Manila’s front pages everyday that week. What is clear is that the PR machinery was working; but was Aquino III really working at all?
Three items highlighted that trip: (1) the US dole out agency, Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC), and its so-called $434 million grant (spread over five years) “for Aquino III’s compliance with anti-corruption standards;” (2) his seven minutes of glory chatting with Obama; and (3) the so-called $2.8 billion “investments” he claims to have brought home.
That the five-year MCC grant was released due to Aquino III’s anti-corruption credentials is an outright lie. This dole out has been flowing since 2003, going primarily to Mindanao projects where the US runs “conflict resolution” and “better governance” programs through the MCC, the US Agency for International Development (USAid), and groups such as the US Institute for Peace (USIP) led by J. Robinson West as Chairman, who is also head of PFC Energy (the US’ largest energy advisor).
If anything, this only reveals the pincer moves toward Uncle Sam’s goal: The capture of the oil, natural gas, and other resources of Mindanao through “peace” with the MILF and the establishment of a BangsaMoro Juridical Entity which Aquino III has given a positive spin lately.
Meanwhile, the promise of $2.8 billion in investments by a country that is now on the brink of financial and economic collapse is only fool’s gold, and Aquino III is bandying it about as if he had birds in hand. Well, his little birdies should have told him that the US’ promises to the Philippines have all been broken from the day it held sway over this Malay nation that was the first to succeed in an anti-colonial revolution, only to be betrayed when it was sold for $20 million.
Over the century that has passed, the US has already siphoned gold and other riches from the Philippine archipelago; utilized its strategic sea passages and harbors for imperial dominance and used our people as cannon fodder for the Second World War; aside from aborting the nation’s efforts toward industrialization through the Quirino, Garcia, and Marcos governments.
As we cringe at how Philippine media echoed the crowing of the Aquino III begging entourage, I am particularly incensed at one radio tandem that enthused over the reported $1-billion investment an American softdrink firm is supposed to make for “strengthening marketing execution and enhancing system logistics and delivery capabilities in order to better serve its expanding customer and consumer base” in the Philippines — which can only mean the proliferation of more diabetics in the Philippines!
Why, confusion even attended this announcement as Gloria Arroyo also boasted of a $1-billion investment in August of 2009. So the only thing new in this is the “press release.” And that’s why the soft drink company and Ricky Carandang stumbled over themselves to assure that it’s a new $1 billion coming.
It has often been said that “beggars cannot be choosers;” and that promises and illusions tide over the hunger by helping someone escape his dire realities. These are probably the reasons mendicancy, dependency, and escapism have become Aquino III’s answer to the national economic crisis, given the importance his government has placed on the begging-cum-propaganda mission.
Yet that’s what Filipinos have done decade after decade — waiting for manna from the Big Apple’s heaven while the rest of Asia started sailing away to become tiger economies in the 1980s and 1990s. This they’ve precisely done by shunning the beggar’s mindset while striving for self-reliance and economic development.
And as these are also the hallmarks of entrepreneurship, we ask: What if PeNoy never left for the US to gulp its hotdogs and burgers and just rolled up his sleeves to work on the nation’s farms and industries?
What if Aquino III sat down with the Philippine coconut industry and tapped the 330 million coconut trees for more than its crude oil, by adding nutra-ceuticals, pharmaceuticals, as well as industrial and ecological materials into the product mix, to multiply by five times the sector’s present $1-billion output?
What if Aquino III rolled up the hem of his pants and walked the rice paddies to figure out how to match China’s rice productivity of 6.6 tons per hectare and raise Philippine output from the present 3.8 tons?
What if Aquino III hunkers down with industrial and residential electricity consumers to formulate a plan to narrow the gap of electricity prices in the Philippines with that of our Asian neighbors to spur manufacturing and employment growth?
What if, instead of allowing Cesar Purisima to increase the national debt with bonds issued to his banker-masters, Aquino III sat down with groups such as the Freedom from Debt Coalition and worked on auditing the debt to cut down RP’s debt-servicing?
What if the country had an entrepreneurial instead of a mendicant political leadership? Wouldn’t that offer us a more dignified, promising, and progressive Philippines, especially for the next generation? Ah, but can a mendicant see beyond the crumbs laid out before him?
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The war for truth rages on
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/01/2010
The administration is on a continuing PR blitz to extract very ounce of propaganda gain it can from the recent US trip of Aquino III. After the so-called $434-million five-year Millennium Challenge Corp. “grant” (of roughly $87 million per year) — explained in our previous column as a “mirage” when stacked against our annual $17.8-billion debt service, which Aquino III isn’t squeaking about — now comes the so-called $2.4 billion in “investments” as pabaon.
Ado Paglinawan, one of the organizers of the “Solidarity for Sovereignty” movement exposing the Hocus-PCOS in the last elections, who has frequent tit-for-tat exchanges with US-based Yellows on the Internet, deftly answered a certain Mon Ram’s crowing about Aquino III’s alleged “huge investments” with this letter:
“Dear Mon,
“Of course, you know better than being swept your feet by this toy president.
“This is what a blogger among us, not I, once called ‘political masturbation.’
“You see, I worked for the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC for seven years under Ambassador Pelaez.
“Before Cory Aquino came to the US and Eddie Ramos after her (I was in charge of press protocol for these three visits), the whole Embassy, especially the economic and trade sections, was busy padding up hallelujahs in millions of dollars, even if they were still on paper or under negotiation or were already on the roll. The entire Philippine diplomatic mission in the US, including those in the UN, gets organized and makes a ‘praise list’ to play on public perceptions.
“Remember the multilateral aid initiative under Ambassador Elliot Richardson that was inspired and proposed by Ambassador Pelaez to serve as a mini-Marshall plan for the Philippines after being ‘ravaged’ by Marcos rule? That was billed at $3 billion (when the exchange was still P20:$1) from 19 countries and multilateral institutions.
“Know what? Less than half of it was used by the Philippines. Reason? We did not have the absorptive capacity to use all of it. $100 million of that money donated by the Sultan of Brunei, intended to build a state-of-the-art satellite receiving station in Barotac Nuevo in Iloilo, was even diverted by Cory Aquino to fuel the government’s budgetary requirements for salaries. Had that facility been built, we could have better prepared for ‘Ondoy.’
“The only thing that really made sense was the $800 million the Philippine Embassy lobbied through (the US) Congress, capitalizing on Cory’s home-run speech… But this was because the Americans themselves managed the project using Korean contractors in building the airport complex, the seaport and related infrastructure, the four-lane circumferential road around the Sarangani Bay, and financing for farmers and fishermen’s cooperatives in South Cotabato and Sarangani provinces. None of that money was lost to corruption, diversion or incompetence. Try visiting General Santos City and see what I mean. The second visit of Cory Aquino and the first visit of Eddie Ramos were basically fruitless.
“This is to say that PeNoy has nothing whatsoever to do with this $2.4-billion talking point that he is barking about in terms of US investments. He just read this from his teleprompter. In fact, I question this hot air because who would invest in a country where tourists are being mowed down by the police? (The millennium fund, of course, is also not his but in fairness, Gloria Arroyo’s legacy, even if that is hard for me to admit. The release of the fund is just happening during the toy president’s watch.)
“These billions that PeNoy is crowing about (are) merely a praise report to supplant: (1) his incompetent appointments; (2) his family’s Hacienda Luisita land-grabbing; and (3) the Rizal Park hostage-taking where the PNP’s ‘friendly’ fire massacred in cold blood innocent Chinese tourists.
“As PeNoy returns to the Philippines, he is still without any brownie point and his lackadaisical 100 days is about to end. I have not even verified yet if Enrico Puno and Tony ‘Boy’ Cojuangco are meeting him at the airport to give him a reality check. LOL!”
Frankly, I have long given up on such online debates with US-based Yellows. In fact, I’ve already opted out of the Worldwide Filipino Association forum led by a certain Cesar Torres who claims to have a thousand subscribers, most of whom are either Yellows or mere hecklers not interested in the truth.
The “Mon Ram” that Ado had his tit-for-tat with is just one of a number of confirmed Yellows. We can’t even tell if they’re for real or just part of a PR team hired to constantly prop up the Yellow argument.
During the last election campaign where debates on the Web got intensely acrimonious as tons of disinformation were being dished out, I challenged a certain Perry Diaz for a real square-off via an open and media-covered debate in Manila. After a long period of heehawing, Diaz accepted it only if it were held in Hawaii, which is really saying that he didn’t care enough to come home to his native land, which he supposedly cares so much for, to exhaustively ferret out the truth.
Well, it seems many of these US-based Fil-Am bloggers are only there to show off their sites to State Department people to gain points for their citizenship.
We’re just glad the fight for truth is alive and well for some noted US-based Filipinos such as Ado Paglinawan, who are still bravely manning the ramparts.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/01/2010
The administration is on a continuing PR blitz to extract very ounce of propaganda gain it can from the recent US trip of Aquino III. After the so-called $434-million five-year Millennium Challenge Corp. “grant” (of roughly $87 million per year) — explained in our previous column as a “mirage” when stacked against our annual $17.8-billion debt service, which Aquino III isn’t squeaking about — now comes the so-called $2.4 billion in “investments” as pabaon.
Ado Paglinawan, one of the organizers of the “Solidarity for Sovereignty” movement exposing the Hocus-PCOS in the last elections, who has frequent tit-for-tat exchanges with US-based Yellows on the Internet, deftly answered a certain Mon Ram’s crowing about Aquino III’s alleged “huge investments” with this letter:
“Dear Mon,
“Of course, you know better than being swept your feet by this toy president.
“This is what a blogger among us, not I, once called ‘political masturbation.’
“You see, I worked for the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC for seven years under Ambassador Pelaez.
“Before Cory Aquino came to the US and Eddie Ramos after her (I was in charge of press protocol for these three visits), the whole Embassy, especially the economic and trade sections, was busy padding up hallelujahs in millions of dollars, even if they were still on paper or under negotiation or were already on the roll. The entire Philippine diplomatic mission in the US, including those in the UN, gets organized and makes a ‘praise list’ to play on public perceptions.
“Remember the multilateral aid initiative under Ambassador Elliot Richardson that was inspired and proposed by Ambassador Pelaez to serve as a mini-Marshall plan for the Philippines after being ‘ravaged’ by Marcos rule? That was billed at $3 billion (when the exchange was still P20:$1) from 19 countries and multilateral institutions.
“Know what? Less than half of it was used by the Philippines. Reason? We did not have the absorptive capacity to use all of it. $100 million of that money donated by the Sultan of Brunei, intended to build a state-of-the-art satellite receiving station in Barotac Nuevo in Iloilo, was even diverted by Cory Aquino to fuel the government’s budgetary requirements for salaries. Had that facility been built, we could have better prepared for ‘Ondoy.’
“The only thing that really made sense was the $800 million the Philippine Embassy lobbied through (the US) Congress, capitalizing on Cory’s home-run speech… But this was because the Americans themselves managed the project using Korean contractors in building the airport complex, the seaport and related infrastructure, the four-lane circumferential road around the Sarangani Bay, and financing for farmers and fishermen’s cooperatives in South Cotabato and Sarangani provinces. None of that money was lost to corruption, diversion or incompetence. Try visiting General Santos City and see what I mean. The second visit of Cory Aquino and the first visit of Eddie Ramos were basically fruitless.
“This is to say that PeNoy has nothing whatsoever to do with this $2.4-billion talking point that he is barking about in terms of US investments. He just read this from his teleprompter. In fact, I question this hot air because who would invest in a country where tourists are being mowed down by the police? (The millennium fund, of course, is also not his but in fairness, Gloria Arroyo’s legacy, even if that is hard for me to admit. The release of the fund is just happening during the toy president’s watch.)
“These billions that PeNoy is crowing about (are) merely a praise report to supplant: (1) his incompetent appointments; (2) his family’s Hacienda Luisita land-grabbing; and (3) the Rizal Park hostage-taking where the PNP’s ‘friendly’ fire massacred in cold blood innocent Chinese tourists.
“As PeNoy returns to the Philippines, he is still without any brownie point and his lackadaisical 100 days is about to end. I have not even verified yet if Enrico Puno and Tony ‘Boy’ Cojuangco are meeting him at the airport to give him a reality check. LOL!”
Frankly, I have long given up on such online debates with US-based Yellows. In fact, I’ve already opted out of the Worldwide Filipino Association forum led by a certain Cesar Torres who claims to have a thousand subscribers, most of whom are either Yellows or mere hecklers not interested in the truth.
The “Mon Ram” that Ado had his tit-for-tat with is just one of a number of confirmed Yellows. We can’t even tell if they’re for real or just part of a PR team hired to constantly prop up the Yellow argument.
During the last election campaign where debates on the Web got intensely acrimonious as tons of disinformation were being dished out, I challenged a certain Perry Diaz for a real square-off via an open and media-covered debate in Manila. After a long period of heehawing, Diaz accepted it only if it were held in Hawaii, which is really saying that he didn’t care enough to come home to his native land, which he supposedly cares so much for, to exhaustively ferret out the truth.
Well, it seems many of these US-based Fil-Am bloggers are only there to show off their sites to State Department people to gain points for their citizenship.
We’re just glad the fight for truth is alive and well for some noted US-based Filipinos such as Ado Paglinawan, who are still bravely manning the ramparts.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Friday, September 24, 2010
Aquino III: The face of cruelty
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/24/2010
Behind the quaint portraiture of Aquino III’s supposed modesty and frugality; behind that tired “wang-wang” spiel to the most recent juxtaposition of his “measly” P25-million US trip to Gloria Arroyo’s P1-billion junkets last year, lies a face that the three-headed miscommunications hydra is so desperately trying to hide from the public. That face, with its characteristic smirk and misplaced grin, dreadfully bespeaks a cruel, dehumanizing, and heartless government dead-set on fully implementing a so-called “legacy” that has brought this nation to ruin.
Such legacy, summed up in three decades of economic and political policy “reform” measures a.k.a. “neo-liberalism,” has put in place the following “deforms:”
1) Liberalization of the economy and the absolute rule of the market — which means total control of society by Wall Street, i.e. the Philippine Stock Exchange in local terms, as well as by Big Business in general; the removal of tariffs; and “trickle down” economics, or letting the big guys get all the goods while letting the crumbs trickle down ever so slowly (which has not even happened at all);
2) Cutting public expenditure for social services (such as education and health care, maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply, etc.) — reducing, if not eliminating, government’s role and increasing private corporatist control over these;
3) Deregulation — reducing government supervision and control of anything that may diminish corporate profits, including protecting the environment and ensuring food and job security, as well as public safety;
4) Privatization — selling state-owned enterprises, goods and services (including banks, key industries, railroads, toll ways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water) to private investors;
5) Eliminating the concept of “The Public Good” — replacing it with so-called “individual” or “corporate responsibility,” leaving the small and powerless to fend for themselves, then branding them as “lazy” for their joblessness and poverty;
6) Globalization under the rule of the Gatt-WTO — embodied in the policy that the West imposed on the rest of world through the United Nations’ various trade organizations.
The Philippines, which the past governments of Fidel Ramos and Gloria Arroyo had proudly declared to be the most globalized in the region, now has the highest electricity cost in Asia (and among the highest in the world), and the same in terms of water, port services, and toll fees — public services that were started to be privatized during Cory Aquino’s watch, after the so-called “People Power” of 1986.
Last week, upon prodding from Serge Osmeña III (the power industry’s Senate avatar) among others, Aquino III’s Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) withdrew the senior citizens’ exemption from the 12 percent value-added tax on electricity and water. Despite this just being one of the few token humanitarian concessions given to one of society’s most vulnerable sectors — the elderly who rely on measly retirement benefits of contracting real value — the BIR chief still hurriedly withdrew it without any qualms.
One of Aquino III’s spokesmen, Edwin Lacierda, then countered: “The Aquino administration is willing to sacrifice its overwhelming popularity in exchange (for) implementing revenue generation measures,” thus vividly replicating Judas sacrificing Christ for 30 pieces of silver!
I am using the term Aquino III and not PeNoy because I want there to be no mistake that I am writing any of these in jest. The cruelty and inhumanity of this administration is but an escalation of the previous Arroyo regime’s ills. From its progressing impoverishment of the nation; its diminution of every government capability to support public welfare; to its systematic devaluation of the people’s citizenship in a Republic for overseas and corporate slavery — all these are vintage Aquinorroyo.
The last is even worse as the fate of our citizens has been consigned to the International Monetary Fund-World Bank and mega corporations while these are merely kept alive by our sovereign guarantees, as well as tax money, to amortize over generations all our unjust debts (such as the P950-billion universal charge in electricity and the growing P140-billion public-private partnership projects).
Kim Henares must be proud of this dehumanization of our countrymen while she cavorts with her beloved hubby in their nice convertibles and grand motor bikes (as one lifestyle magazine showed).
I hope the 90 million Filipinos, especially those fooled into voting for this “good man” now being revealed as an ogre, will learn from their repeated mistakes from the time of Edsa I and Cory Aquino. Some, like Teddy Locsin on Karambola, are beginning to admit their grievous sin in the continuing perfidy of proclaiming the Aquinos and other Yellows as a bunch of saints.
I cannot go beyond writing and raging about these since I am already a known dissident, but those who are yet unrevealed should take action to stop this cruel social and economic violence committed by these ogres against Philippine society. If something isn’t done soon, there will be no redeemable nation by the end of the term of this “last Aquino,” who will by then have succeeded to drag the entire country down with his sorry self.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8+ to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/24/2010
Behind the quaint portraiture of Aquino III’s supposed modesty and frugality; behind that tired “wang-wang” spiel to the most recent juxtaposition of his “measly” P25-million US trip to Gloria Arroyo’s P1-billion junkets last year, lies a face that the three-headed miscommunications hydra is so desperately trying to hide from the public. That face, with its characteristic smirk and misplaced grin, dreadfully bespeaks a cruel, dehumanizing, and heartless government dead-set on fully implementing a so-called “legacy” that has brought this nation to ruin.
Such legacy, summed up in three decades of economic and political policy “reform” measures a.k.a. “neo-liberalism,” has put in place the following “deforms:”
1) Liberalization of the economy and the absolute rule of the market — which means total control of society by Wall Street, i.e. the Philippine Stock Exchange in local terms, as well as by Big Business in general; the removal of tariffs; and “trickle down” economics, or letting the big guys get all the goods while letting the crumbs trickle down ever so slowly (which has not even happened at all);
2) Cutting public expenditure for social services (such as education and health care, maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply, etc.) — reducing, if not eliminating, government’s role and increasing private corporatist control over these;
3) Deregulation — reducing government supervision and control of anything that may diminish corporate profits, including protecting the environment and ensuring food and job security, as well as public safety;
4) Privatization — selling state-owned enterprises, goods and services (including banks, key industries, railroads, toll ways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water) to private investors;
5) Eliminating the concept of “The Public Good” — replacing it with so-called “individual” or “corporate responsibility,” leaving the small and powerless to fend for themselves, then branding them as “lazy” for their joblessness and poverty;
6) Globalization under the rule of the Gatt-WTO — embodied in the policy that the West imposed on the rest of world through the United Nations’ various trade organizations.
The Philippines, which the past governments of Fidel Ramos and Gloria Arroyo had proudly declared to be the most globalized in the region, now has the highest electricity cost in Asia (and among the highest in the world), and the same in terms of water, port services, and toll fees — public services that were started to be privatized during Cory Aquino’s watch, after the so-called “People Power” of 1986.
Last week, upon prodding from Serge Osmeña III (the power industry’s Senate avatar) among others, Aquino III’s Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) withdrew the senior citizens’ exemption from the 12 percent value-added tax on electricity and water. Despite this just being one of the few token humanitarian concessions given to one of society’s most vulnerable sectors — the elderly who rely on measly retirement benefits of contracting real value — the BIR chief still hurriedly withdrew it without any qualms.
One of Aquino III’s spokesmen, Edwin Lacierda, then countered: “The Aquino administration is willing to sacrifice its overwhelming popularity in exchange (for) implementing revenue generation measures,” thus vividly replicating Judas sacrificing Christ for 30 pieces of silver!
I am using the term Aquino III and not PeNoy because I want there to be no mistake that I am writing any of these in jest. The cruelty and inhumanity of this administration is but an escalation of the previous Arroyo regime’s ills. From its progressing impoverishment of the nation; its diminution of every government capability to support public welfare; to its systematic devaluation of the people’s citizenship in a Republic for overseas and corporate slavery — all these are vintage Aquinorroyo.
The last is even worse as the fate of our citizens has been consigned to the International Monetary Fund-World Bank and mega corporations while these are merely kept alive by our sovereign guarantees, as well as tax money, to amortize over generations all our unjust debts (such as the P950-billion universal charge in electricity and the growing P140-billion public-private partnership projects).
Kim Henares must be proud of this dehumanization of our countrymen while she cavorts with her beloved hubby in their nice convertibles and grand motor bikes (as one lifestyle magazine showed).
I hope the 90 million Filipinos, especially those fooled into voting for this “good man” now being revealed as an ogre, will learn from their repeated mistakes from the time of Edsa I and Cory Aquino. Some, like Teddy Locsin on Karambola, are beginning to admit their grievous sin in the continuing perfidy of proclaiming the Aquinos and other Yellows as a bunch of saints.
I cannot go beyond writing and raging about these since I am already a known dissident, but those who are yet unrevealed should take action to stop this cruel social and economic violence committed by these ogres against Philippine society. If something isn’t done soon, there will be no redeemable nation by the end of the term of this “last Aquino,” who will by then have succeeded to drag the entire country down with his sorry self.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8+ to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
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