DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/25/2005
With the latest hikes Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s power rates now surpasses even Japan’s, according to the PhilExport News and Features of the Confederation of Filipino Exporters’ on the Internet last April 22. The rates, it argues, has “undermined their ability to fight back competition in the global market…” Meralco apologists are now blaming Napocor for these horrendous new increases, but the truth is more complex: Napocor is just catching up with the Lopezes’ IPP rates since 2001.
The PPA (now known as GRAM or generation rate adjustment mechanism) that Napocor didn’t charge in 2001, because Gloria was hiding her criminal acquiescence to it, will now be charged with interest to pay the IPPs (Independent Power Producers). Many people, including some nincompoop radio commentators, insist Napocor is at fault. Stupid! It goes all the way back to Ramos, and then now GMA and Edsa Dos.
The impact of the latest round of power rate increases, coupled with rising transport fares, water rates and commodities prices due to the new VAT to be passed, will devastate middle class lifestyles =while the masa will pushed towards even more primitive existence. Many more children will give up education. What thoughtless, heartless and soulless regime is this of GMA that can countenance this hardship on the nation. Any radical response to fight the regime is now absolutely justified!
Gloria Arroyo will make mollifying moves, but nothing enough to mitigate the damage. For all these she has earned the hate of the people. She survives by the support of the foreign and local oligarchs behind her in Edsa Dos, and tries to reinforce that support by showing how determined she can be to hurt the people for the oligarchs and demand of the Bicam the higher 12% VAT instead. That’s not going to save her, that’ll just kill the economy faster.
Only OFW remittances and an astounding $ 1.5-B in “hot money” is floating the economy. The “hot money” seems to be coming on in conjunction with a psywar to support VAT approval; threatening to leave the country with every news of possible disapproval; but “hot money” is like two birds on a tree and not a bird in hand. You’ll never have it. Celebrating “investments” from China is premature, they are long term project and do not bring infusion of huge cash, like the North Rail which will be in equipment and facilities or mining exploration.
Recently, the 7-11 chain declared a P 2.5-M loss, minimal but significant as a first. McDonald’s Shaw closed. In the same area a Kenny Roger’s closed. With new power rate hikes, how much impact will it be on the retail chains? The exporters have spoke, expect the other sectors to cry out soon. The new taxes won’t help either, if there’s anyone still stupid enough to believe that. They’ll be for debt repayment, and that won’t go to consumer pockets: a double whammy for Filipinos.
The unjust foreign and national debt remains the biggest monkey on our back and SC Reynaldo Puno, certainly for pogi points as Davide’s retiring, asked why the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant debt could not be repudiated. My brilliant forensic-economist friend Hero Vaswani e-mailed us:
“Mentong,… an associate justice of the SC talking about the BNPP debt. He mentions the fact that under U.S. statutes bankruptcy proceedings are an option. This is available for individuals, companies and even towns and states… Not many people know that the private banks that held the debt had already sold the debts on the secondary market for a deep discount. However the country debtor did not benefit in the debt reduction program. This was consolidated under the Brady debt workout.
“ ….it was primarily the outside dollar funds of the Philippine elite that bought the deep discount debt paper. They bought at .30 cents to the dollar but they were able to use this as collateral to get in pesos the full face value at the prevailing exchange rate. …This whole vulture buy out was organized by the local hit men led by Paeng Buenaventura who was one of the representatives of the foreign creditors during the debt crisis in 1984. Gabriel Singson was another hit men of note together with Cuisia. John Gokongwei was one of the largest vulture fund buyer …
“Most of the debt paper related to the BNPP has already been sold at deep discount and were already used as collateral to fund projects here … That was the first real estate boom in the late eighties and early nineties….(BNPP’ closure) caused the energy crisis in the early nineties … That set the stage for the IPP's. and Ramos liberalization of the financial markets (capital account) cause the bubble. We are paying for all that inside dealing and corruption today.
“… NAPOCOR is also going to be the recipient of ADB GUARANTEES TO INSURE THAT IPP'S GET PAID. That will also lower their interest rates. This is related to the transfer of custodial services to the transnational banks of the issuance of sovereign and corporate debt papers. … Our domestic banking system is technically insolvent. Almost all the income from the increase in government debt was meant to re-capitalize the domestic banking system.
“The multilateral institutions know the precedent set by Argentina is detrimental to their very existence. Here in the Philippines they are making sure we remain stuck to those illegitimate (Napocor) contracts. Also, increasing taxes to cover the budget deficit and increasing the cost of electricity and water and other government services to insure privatization. All these resting on the interest rate differential to make foreign capital invest in local sovereign and corporate bonds. The result is the complete destruction of the Philippine state.”
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri. 6-7pm)
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Reflection on Glo's last throes
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/27/2005
Plato had this to say about no being involved in politics, which many people deem as dirty and distasteful: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato doesn’t know Philippine politics, for even if good men wanted to be engaged to improve the politicians breed the system defeats him and invariably eats him up. Yet even the wisest urge, as Einstein does “It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.”
Philippine politics is dominated by the sordid characters of the likes of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who has made lying and cheating the stock in trade of her politics. The Knight-in-Shining Armor, FPJ, to slay the medusa-like President Evil Gloria (have you seen the poster? I hope to put it up on the Sulo website if FDC gives permission) but was instead slain in the dark forest of Comelec deceit and perfidy. Philippine elections and parliamentary conduct is dominated by money-power, as Lincoln called it, and principles even become a weakness.
There was no shortage of treachery too, as Trojan Horses brought to the genuine opposition’s fold wrought confusion and damage. There was Angara, then there was that man who said at the end of the election campaign and the cheating made apparent in Mindanao and Cebu. “A candidate who cannot prevent cheating does not deserve to win…” Yet, now this Trojan Horse is preaching high and mightily against Gloria’s cheating that the Gloria-Garci tapes clearly evidence, calls for Filipino to “Be Not Afraid” when he was the among the first to concede to the cheater in 2004.
You know whom I am speaking of here? He was the centurion of Erap who quickly signed away his pledge to the commander-in-chief right after Edsa Dos. I promised not to mention his name to some opposition stalwarts who do not want to give the Gloria’s propagandists ammunition to say the opposition is divided again. But that was the ploy too in the 2004 elections, the Trojan Horse played coy with the real principled candidate FPJ, gave enough indications that a last minute unity was indeed possible, and then finally stabbed FPJ and the opposition in the back.
For a few pieces of silver and a deal on a criminal case this not-so-brave centurion turned his back on a chance to liberate his political benefactor who needed only an opposition win in order to get justice. Now this coward’s PR strategists dare portray him as the “unifier” of the opposition, as his handlers got some newspapers like the Philippine Star and Bulgar to proclaim. Yet some erstwhile FPJ supporters and UNO politicians went to his shindig, maybe they believe as one saying goes: "To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles."
Plato and Einstein saw the imperative of all citizens to be engaged in politics or else the greater ordinary Filipino citizen would be governed by inferiors like Gloria, the Trojan Horses, and worse (as it is getting worse) by the likes of porno-tabloid publisher Pichay, demonstrably-corrupt Chavit Singson, salvager-mayor Duterte ad nausea. Happily, the Filipino citizen is indeed getting involved wittingly or unwittingly by way of the popular demand to hold and own “Hello Garci” tapes and CDs, ring tones, car horn tunes, transcripts downloaded from the Internet, etc.
Former Senator Rene Saguisag proposed to elevate the public’s involvement in the politics against Glo’s cheating and lying by calling for a “tax boycott” in response to Gloria’s verbal boycott of the “Hello Garci” imbroglio. The mother of all Gloria taxes is coming, the 10% VAT on power and fuel products will be on us this July. Can we pay our electricity bills less the 10% tax and deposit it instead in escrow until Gloria speaks on the tape? I hear that the oil companies themselves, out of pure concern for expected falling sales, will also hold a protest over the 10% VAT on fuel.
It’s all over for Gloria but the vote-buying in Congress for support to end the jueteng hearings there (Pichay is supposedly distributing the mullah Pagcor is providing), a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable. The anti-Gloria marches are growing in strength as the June 24 Sto. Domingo rally showed, dispelling the theory of Gloria-apologists about “protest fatigue” or “people power fatigue”. The forces for change are consolidating for even larger actions. The regime sent in Eli Pamatong to join and obfuscate after Abat’s abortive rally failed to confuse, maybe Eddie Gil will emerge again.
The overwhelming bulk and main leaders at June 24 march were not politicians, just like the Citoyens of the French Revolution that brought down the Bastille. In all of this ferment I just wonder where our nationalist officer corps’ heart lies, they are also citizens after all. Will they stand by the AFP code of ethics: “…We shall have the moral courage to stand for what is right and persevere to make it difficult for friends, superiors, peers and comrades to do the wrong thing.” So much wrong is being inflicted on the people, and getting worse by the day. Are you just going to stand by and watch the suffering?
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri., 6-7pm)
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/27/2005
Plato had this to say about no being involved in politics, which many people deem as dirty and distasteful: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato doesn’t know Philippine politics, for even if good men wanted to be engaged to improve the politicians breed the system defeats him and invariably eats him up. Yet even the wisest urge, as Einstein does “It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.”
Philippine politics is dominated by the sordid characters of the likes of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who has made lying and cheating the stock in trade of her politics. The Knight-in-Shining Armor, FPJ, to slay the medusa-like President Evil Gloria (have you seen the poster? I hope to put it up on the Sulo website if FDC gives permission) but was instead slain in the dark forest of Comelec deceit and perfidy. Philippine elections and parliamentary conduct is dominated by money-power, as Lincoln called it, and principles even become a weakness.
There was no shortage of treachery too, as Trojan Horses brought to the genuine opposition’s fold wrought confusion and damage. There was Angara, then there was that man who said at the end of the election campaign and the cheating made apparent in Mindanao and Cebu. “A candidate who cannot prevent cheating does not deserve to win…” Yet, now this Trojan Horse is preaching high and mightily against Gloria’s cheating that the Gloria-Garci tapes clearly evidence, calls for Filipino to “Be Not Afraid” when he was the among the first to concede to the cheater in 2004.
You know whom I am speaking of here? He was the centurion of Erap who quickly signed away his pledge to the commander-in-chief right after Edsa Dos. I promised not to mention his name to some opposition stalwarts who do not want to give the Gloria’s propagandists ammunition to say the opposition is divided again. But that was the ploy too in the 2004 elections, the Trojan Horse played coy with the real principled candidate FPJ, gave enough indications that a last minute unity was indeed possible, and then finally stabbed FPJ and the opposition in the back.
For a few pieces of silver and a deal on a criminal case this not-so-brave centurion turned his back on a chance to liberate his political benefactor who needed only an opposition win in order to get justice. Now this coward’s PR strategists dare portray him as the “unifier” of the opposition, as his handlers got some newspapers like the Philippine Star and Bulgar to proclaim. Yet some erstwhile FPJ supporters and UNO politicians went to his shindig, maybe they believe as one saying goes: "To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles."
Plato and Einstein saw the imperative of all citizens to be engaged in politics or else the greater ordinary Filipino citizen would be governed by inferiors like Gloria, the Trojan Horses, and worse (as it is getting worse) by the likes of porno-tabloid publisher Pichay, demonstrably-corrupt Chavit Singson, salvager-mayor Duterte ad nausea. Happily, the Filipino citizen is indeed getting involved wittingly or unwittingly by way of the popular demand to hold and own “Hello Garci” tapes and CDs, ring tones, car horn tunes, transcripts downloaded from the Internet, etc.
Former Senator Rene Saguisag proposed to elevate the public’s involvement in the politics against Glo’s cheating and lying by calling for a “tax boycott” in response to Gloria’s verbal boycott of the “Hello Garci” imbroglio. The mother of all Gloria taxes is coming, the 10% VAT on power and fuel products will be on us this July. Can we pay our electricity bills less the 10% tax and deposit it instead in escrow until Gloria speaks on the tape? I hear that the oil companies themselves, out of pure concern for expected falling sales, will also hold a protest over the 10% VAT on fuel.
It’s all over for Gloria but the vote-buying in Congress for support to end the jueteng hearings there (Pichay is supposedly distributing the mullah Pagcor is providing), a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable. The anti-Gloria marches are growing in strength as the June 24 Sto. Domingo rally showed, dispelling the theory of Gloria-apologists about “protest fatigue” or “people power fatigue”. The forces for change are consolidating for even larger actions. The regime sent in Eli Pamatong to join and obfuscate after Abat’s abortive rally failed to confuse, maybe Eddie Gil will emerge again.
The overwhelming bulk and main leaders at June 24 march were not politicians, just like the Citoyens of the French Revolution that brought down the Bastille. In all of this ferment I just wonder where our nationalist officer corps’ heart lies, they are also citizens after all. Will they stand by the AFP code of ethics: “…We shall have the moral courage to stand for what is right and persevere to make it difficult for friends, superiors, peers and comrades to do the wrong thing.” So much wrong is being inflicted on the people, and getting worse by the day. Are you just going to stand by and watch the suffering?
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri., 6-7pm)
Thoughts outside the box
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/4/2005
The thinking inside the box, or conventional wisdom of today, is Pope John Paul II or Karol Wojtyla is an exceptional and great religious leader. What would he be like if one steps outside the box:
Karol Wojtyla is as good as any human being can be, but not great as Western and Roman Catholic Church propaganda makes him. All this drama over his last moments is great catharsis to reinforce the psychological hold of the Church over its flock, good for it; but not necessarily good for Mankind. Karol Wojtyla was a conservative and preached against the political liberation of the poor. He interfered to diminish the sovereignty of states and if they tried to kill him it is because of this. He failed to deliver on a major Church theme during his watch – the Jubillee’s debt forgiveness for the poor nations.
Wojtyla worked with the CIA to break open Poland and Eastern Europe, which strengthened the old European oligarchy's power over Eurasian politics. In the Philippines he allowed Sin to play politics and restore the oligarchy with Edsa Uno. The Roman Catholic Church has always been the Church of the oligarchy and will continue to be, and that is why where this Church is dominant in Third World countries the domestic economies are exploited for a few foreign and local interests. Most religions are too political, but Buddhism is not and many in the West have turned to it for honest faith.
The Catholic Church under Wojtyla restored a great degree of worldly powers but lost a lot of moral powers. He did not have the moral courage to resolve the hypocrisy of priestly celibacy that created the scandals of priests in sex. Yet, there are pictures on the Internet of Wotyla with a woman and a child enjoying an outing privately like a family. He campaigned against population planning, which I agree with, but used the distorted moral arguments that fail to address the real issue – population and poverty is foremost a problem of distribution and control of economic resources of the earth. Wojtyla could not argue this way for he would have to go against Western and national oligarchies upon which the Vatican depends for resources.
Wojtyla was a potentate who refused to retire even when demonstrably incapacitated. Arguing reminiscent of Davide’s convoluted “constructive resignation”, Wojtyla or his hangers-on said that his incapacity served as inspiration for the suffering people. Crass Vatican politics will choose its next political leader, there is much talk that the world may be seeing the last of them. There many are priests, nuns and bishops I like and admire, but institutionalized religion is a bureaucracy with vested interests like all the others.
Here’s a beautiful piece outside the box, from Hero Vaswani: “ ….understand why interest rates were so low during the period of fixed rates of exchange and capital controls (of the 50s). There was no macroeconomic fundamentals then as now for the domestic national economy. However with liberalization , privatization and deregulation you have actually made the macroeconomic fundamentals of this country a slave to the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, through the Federal Reserve and the U.S. treasury. In effect the Philippines remains a colony of the U.S.
“Rationale for interest rates is risk and real income. Income after inflation. However here in the Philippines it is impossible to have demand side inflation as our problem has always been ‘cost push’. BOP crisis resulting in devaluation. In peso terms we have already paid out debts many times over. Look at the explosion of debt since 1997 till 2004 and you have devaluation as the major source. Hence today since 1983 Jobo started us on the road to perdition by using interest rates instead of debt repudiation to solve forex crisis.
“Result: you have the monstrous debt problem and resulting debt service problem which is more than the revenue of the national government. Those theologians from the U.P. school will never move out of their dogmatic ways. Their gospel believes that there is one world economy therefore there is one monetary system. In essence they believe that the earth is flat. You actually bleed a country that has limited savings to make sure you can access foreign savings and the result becomes you can never raise your savings as you destroy your physical productive capacities during the bloodletting.
“That my friend is what the ‘economic hit man's’ role is. They use and preach the religion of free trade and free markets and people do not realize that this will result in slavery. Debt repudiation and capital controls is what is necessary. National government debt is $37 B. We have over to $30b in forex reserves, (BSP and FCDU). We could immediately pay off all multilateral loans. The BSP reserves are all result of loans anyway. We have at least $ 10b in recurring income from OFW's We have another $8B from exports. If only we institute capital controls we can also reduce interest rates in peso levels. There would be no need to raise taxes. However we would be in violation of the Brady agreement we signed. So what!!!!”
So what too to opposition lawyers’ in-the-box legalistic reaction to the SC Poe petition decision, the people ask: is GMA legitimate? The SC junking is an admission she’s illegal. People’s Electoral Tribunal here we come! WE, the people, will be the judge.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri. 6-7pm)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/4/2005
The thinking inside the box, or conventional wisdom of today, is Pope John Paul II or Karol Wojtyla is an exceptional and great religious leader. What would he be like if one steps outside the box:
Karol Wojtyla is as good as any human being can be, but not great as Western and Roman Catholic Church propaganda makes him. All this drama over his last moments is great catharsis to reinforce the psychological hold of the Church over its flock, good for it; but not necessarily good for Mankind. Karol Wojtyla was a conservative and preached against the political liberation of the poor. He interfered to diminish the sovereignty of states and if they tried to kill him it is because of this. He failed to deliver on a major Church theme during his watch – the Jubillee’s debt forgiveness for the poor nations.
Wojtyla worked with the CIA to break open Poland and Eastern Europe, which strengthened the old European oligarchy's power over Eurasian politics. In the Philippines he allowed Sin to play politics and restore the oligarchy with Edsa Uno. The Roman Catholic Church has always been the Church of the oligarchy and will continue to be, and that is why where this Church is dominant in Third World countries the domestic economies are exploited for a few foreign and local interests. Most religions are too political, but Buddhism is not and many in the West have turned to it for honest faith.
The Catholic Church under Wojtyla restored a great degree of worldly powers but lost a lot of moral powers. He did not have the moral courage to resolve the hypocrisy of priestly celibacy that created the scandals of priests in sex. Yet, there are pictures on the Internet of Wotyla with a woman and a child enjoying an outing privately like a family. He campaigned against population planning, which I agree with, but used the distorted moral arguments that fail to address the real issue – population and poverty is foremost a problem of distribution and control of economic resources of the earth. Wojtyla could not argue this way for he would have to go against Western and national oligarchies upon which the Vatican depends for resources.
Wojtyla was a potentate who refused to retire even when demonstrably incapacitated. Arguing reminiscent of Davide’s convoluted “constructive resignation”, Wojtyla or his hangers-on said that his incapacity served as inspiration for the suffering people. Crass Vatican politics will choose its next political leader, there is much talk that the world may be seeing the last of them. There many are priests, nuns and bishops I like and admire, but institutionalized religion is a bureaucracy with vested interests like all the others.
Here’s a beautiful piece outside the box, from Hero Vaswani: “ ….understand why interest rates were so low during the period of fixed rates of exchange and capital controls (of the 50s). There was no macroeconomic fundamentals then as now for the domestic national economy. However with liberalization , privatization and deregulation you have actually made the macroeconomic fundamentals of this country a slave to the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, through the Federal Reserve and the U.S. treasury. In effect the Philippines remains a colony of the U.S.
“Rationale for interest rates is risk and real income. Income after inflation. However here in the Philippines it is impossible to have demand side inflation as our problem has always been ‘cost push’. BOP crisis resulting in devaluation. In peso terms we have already paid out debts many times over. Look at the explosion of debt since 1997 till 2004 and you have devaluation as the major source. Hence today since 1983 Jobo started us on the road to perdition by using interest rates instead of debt repudiation to solve forex crisis.
“Result: you have the monstrous debt problem and resulting debt service problem which is more than the revenue of the national government. Those theologians from the U.P. school will never move out of their dogmatic ways. Their gospel believes that there is one world economy therefore there is one monetary system. In essence they believe that the earth is flat. You actually bleed a country that has limited savings to make sure you can access foreign savings and the result becomes you can never raise your savings as you destroy your physical productive capacities during the bloodletting.
“That my friend is what the ‘economic hit man's’ role is. They use and preach the religion of free trade and free markets and people do not realize that this will result in slavery. Debt repudiation and capital controls is what is necessary. National government debt is $37 B. We have over to $30b in forex reserves, (BSP and FCDU). We could immediately pay off all multilateral loans. The BSP reserves are all result of loans anyway. We have at least $ 10b in recurring income from OFW's We have another $8B from exports. If only we institute capital controls we can also reduce interest rates in peso levels. There would be no need to raise taxes. However we would be in violation of the Brady agreement we signed. So what!!!!”
So what too to opposition lawyers’ in-the-box legalistic reaction to the SC Poe petition decision, the people ask: is GMA legitimate? The SC junking is an admission she’s illegal. People’s Electoral Tribunal here we come! WE, the people, will be the judge.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri. 6-7pm)
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