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Saturday, January 22, 2011
Meralco and ERC: Traitors
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Friday, January 21, 2011
The SDA and the Cha-cha bailarinas
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/21/2011
Congress wants to do the Cha-cha (Charter change) again. But beyond the timing, semantics, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s histrionics lies the real simple reason for the hype over this new dance session. Money, or the country’s alleged lack of it, as well as the claimed need to attract foreign money by opening up to foreigners ownership of land and other businesses previously limited to Filipino nationals--supposedly for investment in social, governmental, and physical infrastructure, form the oft-repeated mantra by the likes of Enrile, Escudero, Santiago or Evardone, Haresco, Romualdo, Remulla, and Gonzales. What many of them seem to forget is that this is nothing but a reversal of the nation’s stellar Filipinization victories in the past such as the “Retail Trade Nationalization Law” and the vigorous campaign to end “Parity Rights.”
Senate President Enrile says he is strongly for amending the economic provisions of the Charter, particularly on changing the provision on the percentage of foreign investments in local projects, saying: “How can we have a meaningful investment policy if we are giving protection only to the rich? Only they are allowed to have 60 percent share in mining, agriculture, aquaculture, and transportation. Everything is 60 percent.” Well, he’s dead wrong.
On the other hand, administration ally Sen. Francis Escudero, in saying that Charter change should be initiated within the first two years of Aquino III when PeNoy’s “trust” rating is still high, simply states that it isn’t the validity of any argument for Cha-cha that matters but the manipulative opportunity to bank on the people’s trust for something they may not approve. But honestly, won’t this trust wear off, especially given that more MRT-LRT, toll, power and water rate hikes loom in the horizon?
The argument that Cha-cha is necessary to increase the “percentage of foreign investments in local projects,” i.e. to attract foreign moneys in, collapses in the face of headlines that have persistently appeared in the financial and business pages of Philippine newspapers: “SDA funds parked in BSP vault reach P1.22 trillion.”
The SDA is the Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) consisting of bank reserve requirements, investments, and such instruments set up in 1998 to serve as a “toolkit” of the BSP to manage the country’s financial environment. P1.22 trillion is almost $28 billion, an amount that exceeds all the funding requirements for PeNoy’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects for all of the next six years. The National Economic Development Authority (Neda) estimates the 10 PPP projects for 2011 to be worth only P170 billion, and Budget Secretary Abad himself said that government was only “looking forward to generating P180 billion to P200 billion worth of PPP undertakings“ this year.
The real motivation for Cha-cha in changing the economic provisions has been in the shadows for the past two decades. This motive is expressed coyly in the words of Party-list Rep. Teodorico Haresco (from a group deceptively named, Kasangga). In arguing for Cha-cha, Haresco pointed out that “ China , which zealously guards its sovereignty, grants investors a 99-year lease on land, which is tantamount to total ownership.”
So the real reason behind this persistent revival of Cha-cha is nothing but the economic sell-out of the entitlements of Filipino citizenship and the affirmative, preferential treatment of Filipinos in their ownership of the national patrimony. The thing with these legislators (most of whom own huge properties such as Splendido and the like) is, with the removal of existing limitations on foreign ownership, the first to taste the bonanza would be these super rich landowners as land prices go up with the expected windfall of foreign funds.
That there is more than sufficient internal capital to fund any economic recovery is incontrovertible after reading about the buck-passing of the BSP and the local banking cabal. For instance, last September 03, 2010, it was reported that “Banks (were) urged to fund infra projects… (using their deposits) with the special deposit account facility of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas… (adding that banks) can use some of these idle funds to help finance the government’s infrastructure projects.” Meanwhile, last November 17, 2010, the “BSP (in turn, was) urged to lower interest rates on (the SDA) facility… to move against the tide and reduce interest rates.” Congress should be looking into this before opening the flood gates of the country to more foreign ownership of land, businesses (including media), and our lives.
As for the argument that foreigners can’t cart away the land, these Cha-cha instigators should first review the experience of Zimbabwe and other countries where natives were eventually dispossessed of all their land rights that they had to launch their own revolutions to reclaim these. As for the rest, all other arguments for Cha-cha are either minor accompaniments or outright distractions, such as “constructive resignation” Justice Reynato Puno’s lament about the Constitution’s imperfections and the need for constant amendments--because following his logic dictates that we must have a permanent Cha-cha every so often. The US Constitution, for one, has only been amended over 27 times in the last 201 years.
Certainly, of the four Philippine Constitutions since the First Republic , the worst has been the Cory Constitution. But if amendments are needed, let them be carried out by particular propositions submitted directly to the people for ratification; not the kind of “shotgun” or bailarinas’ Cha-cha of the elite corrupt nomenklatura.
Having divulged the long-kept secret that a P1.22-trillion or $28-billion SDA is lying idle in the BSP vaults which the government and the banking cabal refuse to utilize in order to maintain easy income from high interest rates while kowtowing to the impositions of the foreign financial mafia, we have exposed the total paucity of the argument for Cha-cha to remove limitations on the onslaught of foreign predators. We have also exposed the self-interest of the landowning class to multiply their wealth even if this ultimately robs a majority of Filipinos the opportunity to own a piece of land in their own country.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/21/2011
Congress wants to do the Cha-cha (Charter change) again. But beyond the timing, semantics, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s histrionics lies the real simple reason for the hype over this new dance session. Money, or the country’s alleged lack of it, as well as the claimed need to attract foreign money by opening up to foreigners ownership of land and other businesses previously limited to Filipino nationals--supposedly for investment in social, governmental, and physical infrastructure, form the oft-repeated mantra by the likes of Enrile, Escudero, Santiago or Evardone, Haresco, Romualdo, Remulla, and Gonzales. What many of them seem to forget is that this is nothing but a reversal of the nation’s stellar Filipinization victories in the past such as the “Retail Trade Nationalization Law” and the vigorous campaign to end “Parity Rights.”
Senate President Enrile says he is strongly for amending the economic provisions of the Charter, particularly on changing the provision on the percentage of foreign investments in local projects, saying: “How can we have a meaningful investment policy if we are giving protection only to the rich? Only they are allowed to have 60 percent share in mining, agriculture, aquaculture, and transportation. Everything is 60 percent.” Well, he’s dead wrong.
On the other hand, administration ally Sen. Francis Escudero, in saying that Charter change should be initiated within the first two years of Aquino III when PeNoy’s “trust” rating is still high, simply states that it isn’t the validity of any argument for Cha-cha that matters but the manipulative opportunity to bank on the people’s trust for something they may not approve. But honestly, won’t this trust wear off, especially given that more MRT-LRT, toll, power and water rate hikes loom in the horizon?
The argument that Cha-cha is necessary to increase the “percentage of foreign investments in local projects,” i.e. to attract foreign moneys in, collapses in the face of headlines that have persistently appeared in the financial and business pages of Philippine newspapers: “SDA funds parked in BSP vault reach P1.22 trillion.”
The SDA is the Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) consisting of bank reserve requirements, investments, and such instruments set up in 1998 to serve as a “toolkit” of the BSP to manage the country’s financial environment. P1.22 trillion is almost $28 billion, an amount that exceeds all the funding requirements for PeNoy’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects for all of the next six years. The National Economic Development Authority (Neda) estimates the 10 PPP projects for 2011 to be worth only P170 billion, and Budget Secretary Abad himself said that government was only “looking forward to generating P180 billion to P200 billion worth of PPP undertakings“ this year.
The real motivation for Cha-cha in changing the economic provisions has been in the shadows for the past two decades. This motive is expressed coyly in the words of Party-list Rep. Teodorico Haresco (from a group deceptively named, Kasangga). In arguing for Cha-cha, Haresco pointed out that “ China , which zealously guards its sovereignty, grants investors a 99-year lease on land, which is tantamount to total ownership.”
So the real reason behind this persistent revival of Cha-cha is nothing but the economic sell-out of the entitlements of Filipino citizenship and the affirmative, preferential treatment of Filipinos in their ownership of the national patrimony. The thing with these legislators (most of whom own huge properties such as Splendido and the like) is, with the removal of existing limitations on foreign ownership, the first to taste the bonanza would be these super rich landowners as land prices go up with the expected windfall of foreign funds.
That there is more than sufficient internal capital to fund any economic recovery is incontrovertible after reading about the buck-passing of the BSP and the local banking cabal. For instance, last September 03, 2010, it was reported that “Banks (were) urged to fund infra projects… (using their deposits) with the special deposit account facility of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas… (adding that banks) can use some of these idle funds to help finance the government’s infrastructure projects.” Meanwhile, last November 17, 2010, the “BSP (in turn, was) urged to lower interest rates on (the SDA) facility… to move against the tide and reduce interest rates.” Congress should be looking into this before opening the flood gates of the country to more foreign ownership of land, businesses (including media), and our lives.
As for the argument that foreigners can’t cart away the land, these Cha-cha instigators should first review the experience of Zimbabwe and other countries where natives were eventually dispossessed of all their land rights that they had to launch their own revolutions to reclaim these. As for the rest, all other arguments for Cha-cha are either minor accompaniments or outright distractions, such as “constructive resignation” Justice Reynato Puno’s lament about the Constitution’s imperfections and the need for constant amendments--because following his logic dictates that we must have a permanent Cha-cha every so often. The US Constitution, for one, has only been amended over 27 times in the last 201 years.
Certainly, of the four Philippine Constitutions since the First Republic , the worst has been the Cory Constitution. But if amendments are needed, let them be carried out by particular propositions submitted directly to the people for ratification; not the kind of “shotgun” or bailarinas’ Cha-cha of the elite corrupt nomenklatura.
Having divulged the long-kept secret that a P1.22-trillion or $28-billion SDA is lying idle in the BSP vaults which the government and the banking cabal refuse to utilize in order to maintain easy income from high interest rates while kowtowing to the impositions of the foreign financial mafia, we have exposed the total paucity of the argument for Cha-cha to remove limitations on the onslaught of foreign predators. We have also exposed the self-interest of the landowning class to multiply their wealth even if this ultimately robs a majority of Filipinos the opportunity to own a piece of land in their own country.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, January 17, 2011
'Let them eat Porsche'
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/17/2011
The Porsche episode in the still early presidential life of Aquino III reflects the culture deep within the heart of this Yellow President — hedonistic, materialistic, uncompassionate, insensitive, and essentially corrupt to the core.
The information reaching us brings up the last item in list of traits that we have written here, because the claim that Aquino III bought the second hand Porsche at a discount with his own money seems clearly to be a lie.
Furthermore, many other major goings-on in the Aquino III government is leading all eyes to that corruption factor — particularly, the major decision of the PCSO to transfer its offices and to turn over Quezon Institute along E. Rodriguez Ave. — that extremely valuable real estate property — to the major backer of the Yellows, the Ayalas. All these are being done while the government is approving massive rate increases in power, transportation, and other fees. Reminds us only too well of the times of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The remnants of the pro-Arroyo regime are in jubilation over Aquino III’s continuing failures in governance and moral ascendancy, with some saying that “Gloria is at least better in governance.” That is the myth that the pro-Arroyo apologists would like people to believe, and many dumb Filipinos might just swallow this out of frustration with Aquino III’s dismal performance.
The basic fact is still this: Throughout the nine-and-a-half years of Arroyo, the national debt increased beyond the combined borrowings of the previous three administrations; hunger and poverty reached their highest levels; and private sector and government corruption reached unprecedented heights (with P10 trillion going to local Big Business and God knows how much for Arroyo’s coterie). But then, Aquino’s Yellows have nothing to crow about as they are set to match, or even surpass, Arroyo’s nine-and-a-half year-record in a much shorter time.
In our column a few weeks back, we paraphrased historian Arnold Toynbee’s saying that “society starts to decay when it loses its moral fiber and the elite turns parasitic, exploiting the masses…”
Aquino III and Arroyo are both mere political representations of the ruling class, i.e. the parasitic elite ruling families that sit atop the social edifice. In alliance with foreign powers, their rule got re-invigorated in the Edsa I elite counter-revolution against an economically modernizing semi-feudal state, and subsequent to that in Edsa II, where their neo-colonial exploitation accelerated further to stomp the rising populist surge under President Estrada.
Arroyo did her part for the ruling elite in maximizing privatization of power and other public utilities. Aquino III’s ascendancy, meanwhile, was engineered by the ruling powers through “Hocus PCOS” and is now maximizing the squeeze on the people’s capacity to pay by raising all the public service fees and rates massively.
Back to the Porsche: The insensitivity and uncompassionate character of Aquino III shone through like the glitter of the Porsche’s baked enamel. The timing and circumstances of this “purchase,” juxtaposed with Aquino III’s announced string of massive increases in costs for the public, is nothing but an unabashed display of extravagance.
It revealed his absolute lack of empathy with the sufferings of the ordinary folk, as he did during that news conference right after the hostage massacre where he smiled (or sneered) nonchalantly while the all-too-serious subject of the murders was being discussed. This Porsche episode sneers right down on the Filipinos’ faces that are all the more bowed by life’s increasing burdens. To add insult to injury, it is now widely held that the source of that luxury vehicle is a certain Manny Dimaculangan, Aquino III’s architect-friend and presidential foreign trips companion who also has contracts with government.
One can certainly agree with “Walang mahirap kung walang korap.” It partly explains why the ranks of the hungry and poor have grown again as we near the 200th day-milestone of the present government. But it must be said that the corruption endemic to the socio-political system is one which the Yellows instituted after Edsa I, and the situation cannot change until a new popular and national revolution, led by anti-elite and pro-People leaders, is begun.
By such leaders, I certainly do not refer to the NDF or Satur Ocampo, whose welcome for the “$7.5-million compensation for Marcos victims” is coupled with support for the perpetuation of US subversion of our nation’s cultural sovereignty. They also can never be such leaders because they only divide the people, diffuse the anti-imperialist consciousness of the population, and promote the US myth of defending democracies across the globe, while reducing the people’s struggle to an alms-begging exercise.
The revolution will come from a people enlightened by nationalism, in alliance with patriotic officers and soldiers who will rally around that National Economic and Political Development Program. This program, in turn, should be led by those who are dedicated to erasing the moral and economic corruption engendered by the ruling class, the foreign, colonial powers, and their controlled intelligentsia. Only then will the nation not be waylaid from the real enemy — the oligarchy.
The Monsods, for instance, who promote the myth of the credibility of the Feliciano Commission, simply distort the issues of Oakwood to distract the public’s attention away from the elite’s complicity in the corrupt Arroyo regime. Feliciano himself, too, is part of that corrupt system, evidenced by his role in the questionable $50-million lawyers’ fee as chair of the arbitration panel for the NAIA 3 controversy — a very privileged appointment courtesy of Gloria Arroyo again.
The nation should thus spit out the Porsche and ram it down the throats of the corrupt ruling elite instead!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Fight vs Power Elite Begins” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/17/2011
The Porsche episode in the still early presidential life of Aquino III reflects the culture deep within the heart of this Yellow President — hedonistic, materialistic, uncompassionate, insensitive, and essentially corrupt to the core.
The information reaching us brings up the last item in list of traits that we have written here, because the claim that Aquino III bought the second hand Porsche at a discount with his own money seems clearly to be a lie.
Furthermore, many other major goings-on in the Aquino III government is leading all eyes to that corruption factor — particularly, the major decision of the PCSO to transfer its offices and to turn over Quezon Institute along E. Rodriguez Ave. — that extremely valuable real estate property — to the major backer of the Yellows, the Ayalas. All these are being done while the government is approving massive rate increases in power, transportation, and other fees. Reminds us only too well of the times of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The remnants of the pro-Arroyo regime are in jubilation over Aquino III’s continuing failures in governance and moral ascendancy, with some saying that “Gloria is at least better in governance.” That is the myth that the pro-Arroyo apologists would like people to believe, and many dumb Filipinos might just swallow this out of frustration with Aquino III’s dismal performance.
The basic fact is still this: Throughout the nine-and-a-half years of Arroyo, the national debt increased beyond the combined borrowings of the previous three administrations; hunger and poverty reached their highest levels; and private sector and government corruption reached unprecedented heights (with P10 trillion going to local Big Business and God knows how much for Arroyo’s coterie). But then, Aquino’s Yellows have nothing to crow about as they are set to match, or even surpass, Arroyo’s nine-and-a-half year-record in a much shorter time.
In our column a few weeks back, we paraphrased historian Arnold Toynbee’s saying that “society starts to decay when it loses its moral fiber and the elite turns parasitic, exploiting the masses…”
Aquino III and Arroyo are both mere political representations of the ruling class, i.e. the parasitic elite ruling families that sit atop the social edifice. In alliance with foreign powers, their rule got re-invigorated in the Edsa I elite counter-revolution against an economically modernizing semi-feudal state, and subsequent to that in Edsa II, where their neo-colonial exploitation accelerated further to stomp the rising populist surge under President Estrada.
Arroyo did her part for the ruling elite in maximizing privatization of power and other public utilities. Aquino III’s ascendancy, meanwhile, was engineered by the ruling powers through “Hocus PCOS” and is now maximizing the squeeze on the people’s capacity to pay by raising all the public service fees and rates massively.
Back to the Porsche: The insensitivity and uncompassionate character of Aquino III shone through like the glitter of the Porsche’s baked enamel. The timing and circumstances of this “purchase,” juxtaposed with Aquino III’s announced string of massive increases in costs for the public, is nothing but an unabashed display of extravagance.
It revealed his absolute lack of empathy with the sufferings of the ordinary folk, as he did during that news conference right after the hostage massacre where he smiled (or sneered) nonchalantly while the all-too-serious subject of the murders was being discussed. This Porsche episode sneers right down on the Filipinos’ faces that are all the more bowed by life’s increasing burdens. To add insult to injury, it is now widely held that the source of that luxury vehicle is a certain Manny Dimaculangan, Aquino III’s architect-friend and presidential foreign trips companion who also has contracts with government.
One can certainly agree with “Walang mahirap kung walang korap.” It partly explains why the ranks of the hungry and poor have grown again as we near the 200th day-milestone of the present government. But it must be said that the corruption endemic to the socio-political system is one which the Yellows instituted after Edsa I, and the situation cannot change until a new popular and national revolution, led by anti-elite and pro-People leaders, is begun.
By such leaders, I certainly do not refer to the NDF or Satur Ocampo, whose welcome for the “$7.5-million compensation for Marcos victims” is coupled with support for the perpetuation of US subversion of our nation’s cultural sovereignty. They also can never be such leaders because they only divide the people, diffuse the anti-imperialist consciousness of the population, and promote the US myth of defending democracies across the globe, while reducing the people’s struggle to an alms-begging exercise.
The revolution will come from a people enlightened by nationalism, in alliance with patriotic officers and soldiers who will rally around that National Economic and Political Development Program. This program, in turn, should be led by those who are dedicated to erasing the moral and economic corruption engendered by the ruling class, the foreign, colonial powers, and their controlled intelligentsia. Only then will the nation not be waylaid from the real enemy — the oligarchy.
The Monsods, for instance, who promote the myth of the credibility of the Feliciano Commission, simply distort the issues of Oakwood to distract the public’s attention away from the elite’s complicity in the corrupt Arroyo regime. Feliciano himself, too, is part of that corrupt system, evidenced by his role in the questionable $50-million lawyers’ fee as chair of the arbitration panel for the NAIA 3 controversy — a very privileged appointment courtesy of Gloria Arroyo again.
The nation should thus spit out the Porsche and ram it down the throats of the corrupt ruling elite instead!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Fight vs Power Elite Begins” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
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