DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/29/2011
As I write this piece, I recall my recent radio chat with “Sorry Yellow Movement” lead convenor Linggoy Alcuaz. He sees the accelerating collapse of the current regime, citing as a major fissure in the political firmament the declared intention of the presidential uncle, Rep. Peping Cojuangco to actively join the PDP group identified with Binay. “Tito Joe,” as Peping is known in their family circle, was followed by “Tita Tingting,” who resigned from her post as head of a government safety academy connected with state security institutions.
Alcuaz adds that these tremors are just a precursor to more earthquakes ahead as the deadline nears for the one year-ban on appointments, where only one out of 10 of PeNoy’s losing partymates from the 2010 elections can ever hope to get appointed. Many of these un-appointed loyalists will then start to grumble as PeNoy is now a captive of the warring Balay and Samar groups, himself bereft of any redeeming accomplishment.
At the same time, I recall my discussions with leading pro-PeNoy figures from three major economic sections of society — the rice, dairy and coconut sectors. In all, the judgment is the same: The present government has been a massive letdown.
The rice sector’s problems are clearly reflected in the contradicting pronouncements of PeNoy’s Agriculture secretary and his National Food Authority chief, with the former declaring no need for rice imports but with the latter openly contradicting it.
In the dairy sector, the country’s premier organizer of farmer-dairy production networking and marketing says PeNoy’s government has absolutely no support for efforts to increase farm income through production substitution of the country’s yearly P100-billion dairy imports. While he admittedly supported PeNoy as he was taken in by the Yellow mania, when I reminded him that it was President Estrada who was his industry’s biggest supporter, he acknowledged his error.
The coconut industry, meanwhile, which directly and indirectly supports the livelihood of some 20 million Filipinos, initially had high hopes. Coming from the past administration’s kleptocracy, particularly in state coconut institutions such as Philcoa (which was headed by a tradpol), coconut farmers and entrepreneurs anticipated changes; but their hopes were short lived.
To everyone’s disappointment, a coconut NGO leader averred that another non-coconut man was appointed to Philcoa, resulting again in paralysis, where coconut exports slumped severely in the first quarter while coconut development programs continue to be at a standstill.
As the combined rice, dairy and coconut sectors constitute 70 percent of the country’s population, the multi-layered incompetence plus the breakdown of PeNoy’s political coalition, notwithstanding his regime’s administrative aimlessness in the critical economic sectors, all predicate disaster for the Filipino people.
Can we wait until 2016 to take another shot at changing the leadership that is obviously failing big even at this early stage? Can we sit idly by when the food price crisis starts impacting on the people by the third quarter, with the full force of a Fukushima-like tsunami and nuclear disaster, as we face PeNoy’s unceasing commitment to his masters at the US Embassy and the IMF-WB to increase VAT from 12 to 15 percent, to raise MRT/LRT fares, and to keep unchecked the murderously escalating fuel prices pushed by the global “oily-garchs?”
It probably won’t be like Oakwood in 2003 or the 2006 Marine standoff but there certainly will be a new variation that is more political than military. Such a move will be prompted by the pressing need to save the nation from the unprecedented crises that have emerged from a second of year of PeNoy’s massively failing governance and irreconcilable turf wars.
The genuine opposition must come together, prepared for this imminent implosion. By “genuine opposition,” we do not mean the GMA-led trapos who are engaged in a moro-moro with the sitting administration via a fake, acoustic war around the issues of Merci Gutierrez and this new, designed-to-fail Frank Chavez plunder case against Gloria Arroyo. (Why not revive the “Hello Garci” case when all the evidence is there?)
By genuine opposition, we mean the peasants, farmers, coconut planters, workers, as well as urban poor movements — the constituency that is bearing the brunt of PeNoy’s failures. By taking to the streets once more, much like in Edsa III of 2001, the nation can finally install a leadership that is both sincere in its passion for the people and armed with a competence born of experience, maturity and wisdom. Lest it be nipped in the bud, we shall not name names just yet. But believe me, it is growing and biding its time.
To continue our post-Lenten recap from the last column, here’s my take on the cultural front: The Revillame imbroglio is really a political campaign to clobber the entertainer for repeatedly snubbing the Yellow powers. If cultural reformation were the real goal, then they’d also have to demand for a review of Tito, Vic and Joey’s decades-long trashy fare. With the growing number of street children which the Commission on Human Rights isn’t doing anything about, this Jan-Jan child abuse charge by Etta Rosales, et al. is pure hypocrisy.
On the global front, a recent event encapsulates how pitiful some local opinion writers are for being hoodwinked by the West’s info manipulation: The resignation of Al Jazeera Beirut bureau chief, Ghassan Ben Jeddo, over his former network’s unprofessional coverage of Libya — where massacres that never took place were repeated over and over — and Bahrain — where massacres that did take place have been all but ignored. Need I say more?
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Edsa Tres Revisited;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Rice price subsidy won't solve the problem
KIBITZER
Rod Kapunan
4/25-5/1/2011
Maybe the increase in the price of rice is something we could not avoid. But instead of finding the right solution to the problem, those in charge of preventing famine are looking for a scapegoat.
The scapegoat the National Food Authority has found is the steep increase in the prices of fuel products, like diesel. From an average price of P34 per liter in June 2010, the price now is at an average P47.10 per liter.
I am not saying the previous regime was better than the variety we now have. Their economic policies remain the same, and the only difference is the person in charge. Both dance to the cadence of the band leader for them to carry on the deception that the Filipino people are free and wholly responsible for what they are now – bedraggled, stupid and hungry.
If some came out with their formula of resolving the impasse of poverty, hunger and unemployment, they are palliative solutions because they are not really meant to help, but to boost their own political image as the chosen people of the languid Church we have.
In Connivance
Take the case of rice. When we joined the World Trade Organization, we promised to abide by its rules and resolution.
Unfortunately, one of those resolutions was for the scraping of all subsidies and the dismantling of all protectionism in agriculture to theoretically allow the free flow of cheap food to countries that could not otherwise feed their own people.
As Western economists would say, “why spend time and money in producing food that is costly and unsustainable, when others could produce them much cheaper for us?”
So, instead of encouraging our people to farm, we told them to leave the country and serve as slaves and even as mules abroad. With their meager earnings we tell them now to buy their own small house and lot, while the rich developers in connivance with the good-for-nothing government buy and develop abandoned farmlands to be converted into subdivisions, leisure parks, golf course, ecotourism parks, etc.
Back to Square One
As the hypocrites would often say, there is more money in that approach. The problem is the money earned is not in the hands of ordinary Filipinos who were not able to leave and escape the pangs of hunger here.
The money is mostly in the hands of the elite. So, it’s back to square one. The original problem of the farmers wanting to secure an incentive to produce the food we could eat has become a serious problem of losing both their lands to farm and their money to buy food.
One must bear it in mind that the NFA, headed by that image conscious former acolyte of Senator Lacson, Lito Banayo, cannot forever borrow from the government. The P129-billion debt which is expected to increase cannot be forever tolerated.
The NFA should be taught that it does not exist to serve the political ends of whoever is in charge, but as leverage to reduce the price of rice and other essential food items such as corn. Whether the subsidy is at P1 to P2 per kilo is beside the point just as it would not help solve the problem of food shortage.
One thing sure, for every sale of that imported commodity the government is losing heavily, while at the same time it serves as a disincentive to the remaining farmers. The reason is obvious: that the subsidy in price just to make them affordable is directly helping the farmers and traders exporting those rice at the price they are willing to sell.
Agricultural Subsidy
The hypocrites justified their decision to dismantle the subsidy by citing the comparative advantage theory of David Ricardo, which is to concentrate on what we could produce and sell at cheaper cost, which is to export our people as livestock! For that we removed the guarantee imposed by the then National Grains Authority to buy all the palay at subsidized price during bumper harvest as incentive to the farmers, and to sell the milled rice at floor price to make them affordable to the consumers.
That decision was thorough with the Department of Agriculture discontinuing the subsidy on fertilizers and hybrid rice seedlings.
Instead they revived the rice cartel to increase their price during periods of short supply through hoarding. They abrogated the authority of the NGA to buy, sell and distribute rice, and likewise ordered the National Irrigation Administration to discontinue the subsidy in the cost of irrigation by privatizing them.
Even the size of the farm lands were restructured such that the income of the average farmers today has fallen below the take home pay of the wage earners in commercial and industrial establishments resulting in many of them abandoning their farm lots.
In that one could see the whale of difference in the subsidy in the price from the subsidy in the production of rice. The WTO wants us to dismantle all forms of agricultural subsidy, but would not mind us subsidizing the high cost of imports, while allowing the West to maintain their subsidy in agriculture.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Rod Kapunan
4/25-5/1/2011
Maybe the increase in the price of rice is something we could not avoid. But instead of finding the right solution to the problem, those in charge of preventing famine are looking for a scapegoat.
The scapegoat the National Food Authority has found is the steep increase in the prices of fuel products, like diesel. From an average price of P34 per liter in June 2010, the price now is at an average P47.10 per liter.
I am not saying the previous regime was better than the variety we now have. Their economic policies remain the same, and the only difference is the person in charge. Both dance to the cadence of the band leader for them to carry on the deception that the Filipino people are free and wholly responsible for what they are now – bedraggled, stupid and hungry.
If some came out with their formula of resolving the impasse of poverty, hunger and unemployment, they are palliative solutions because they are not really meant to help, but to boost their own political image as the chosen people of the languid Church we have.
In Connivance
Take the case of rice. When we joined the World Trade Organization, we promised to abide by its rules and resolution.
Unfortunately, one of those resolutions was for the scraping of all subsidies and the dismantling of all protectionism in agriculture to theoretically allow the free flow of cheap food to countries that could not otherwise feed their own people.
As Western economists would say, “why spend time and money in producing food that is costly and unsustainable, when others could produce them much cheaper for us?”
So, instead of encouraging our people to farm, we told them to leave the country and serve as slaves and even as mules abroad. With their meager earnings we tell them now to buy their own small house and lot, while the rich developers in connivance with the good-for-nothing government buy and develop abandoned farmlands to be converted into subdivisions, leisure parks, golf course, ecotourism parks, etc.
Back to Square One
As the hypocrites would often say, there is more money in that approach. The problem is the money earned is not in the hands of ordinary Filipinos who were not able to leave and escape the pangs of hunger here.
The money is mostly in the hands of the elite. So, it’s back to square one. The original problem of the farmers wanting to secure an incentive to produce the food we could eat has become a serious problem of losing both their lands to farm and their money to buy food.
One must bear it in mind that the NFA, headed by that image conscious former acolyte of Senator Lacson, Lito Banayo, cannot forever borrow from the government. The P129-billion debt which is expected to increase cannot be forever tolerated.
The NFA should be taught that it does not exist to serve the political ends of whoever is in charge, but as leverage to reduce the price of rice and other essential food items such as corn. Whether the subsidy is at P1 to P2 per kilo is beside the point just as it would not help solve the problem of food shortage.
One thing sure, for every sale of that imported commodity the government is losing heavily, while at the same time it serves as a disincentive to the remaining farmers. The reason is obvious: that the subsidy in price just to make them affordable is directly helping the farmers and traders exporting those rice at the price they are willing to sell.
Agricultural Subsidy
The hypocrites justified their decision to dismantle the subsidy by citing the comparative advantage theory of David Ricardo, which is to concentrate on what we could produce and sell at cheaper cost, which is to export our people as livestock! For that we removed the guarantee imposed by the then National Grains Authority to buy all the palay at subsidized price during bumper harvest as incentive to the farmers, and to sell the milled rice at floor price to make them affordable to the consumers.
That decision was thorough with the Department of Agriculture discontinuing the subsidy on fertilizers and hybrid rice seedlings.
Instead they revived the rice cartel to increase their price during periods of short supply through hoarding. They abrogated the authority of the NGA to buy, sell and distribute rice, and likewise ordered the National Irrigation Administration to discontinue the subsidy in the cost of irrigation by privatizing them.
Even the size of the farm lands were restructured such that the income of the average farmers today has fallen below the take home pay of the wage earners in commercial and industrial establishments resulting in many of them abandoning their farm lots.
In that one could see the whale of difference in the subsidy in the price from the subsidy in the production of rice. The WTO wants us to dismantle all forms of agricultural subsidy, but would not mind us subsidizing the high cost of imports, while allowing the West to maintain their subsidy in agriculture.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Monday, April 25, 2011
Post-Lenten recap
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/25/2011
The holidays allowed me a breathing spell from the daily information battles we are waging on several fronts. With the peace and tranquility of the last few days, I am able to see the dust and din from a distance more clearly again, helping me make this post-Lenten recap of these foremost issues:
The Economy. Aquino III is clueless about oil and energy and the elite globalists’ geo-political machinations on them. Veteran reporter Jim Tucker reported this month that “By the end of the year 2012 (the Bilderbergers and other elite) want us paying $7 a gallon for gasoline (that’s $4 today)…” and Western ground troops into Libya, as suggested by Kissinger, is the next step to ensure this.
The fuel subsidy of around P500 million taken from the Value Added Tax is really paid for by Filipino fuel consumers while oil companies are paid in full (without a dip in their sales volumes) for oil that’s overpriced by transfer pricing to their mother companies.
Aquino III’s importation of 50 million liters of diesel fuel is a farce, a claimed “strategic stock” that will last only a few hours for 3.3 million diesel vehicles plus countless sea-going vessels.
The only solutions are a re-regulation and re-nationalization of the fuel industry, along with a restoration of the Marcos-era energy development program.
The economy is now on its 26th year of counter-democratic re-structuring as it continues to see the privatization of the nation’s wealth and the socialization of the tax burden. The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines found approval with the Energy Regulatory Commission to pass on its 3 percent franchise tax to consumers. That will be on top of the franchise tax that’s being passed on to us by power distributors such as Meralco (Manila Electric Co.).
Marcos’ Presidential Decree 551 of Sept. 11, 1974 (which writer Rod Kapunan recently retrieved) was precisely issued to lower the cost of public utilities by assigning the payment of franchise taxes specifically to electric franchise holders enjoying the privilege granted.
It is immoral and patently illegal for those enjoying the privilege of a captive market to transfer their tax burden onto those who are entitled to these constitutionally-mandated basic services.
As the two passed-on franchise taxes will cost consumers 6 percent in additional burden, we ask: Is the fulfillment of one’s basic needs no longer a right but a privilege that people have to be heavily taxed for?
Then, there’s the issue of the minimum wage hike again, which will directly affect small-and-medium businesses and the lowest paid workers, many of whom will be retrenched, but spare transnational mega-corporations whose wage structures are already above minimum.
Former Sen. Ernesto Herrera, being the head of a US “labor” movement-sponsored unions’ federation that has always spoon fed his needed “capital,” has the temerity to write that “companies can afford the wage hike” even when he has never handled a private business that had to compete in the market.
On the other hand, Leftist labor movements that have nothing to show for still rely on the irrelevant minimum wage issue to maintain their illusion of relevance when the real issues are the exploitative, oligarchic government and the increasing “oligopolization” of the economy as small-and-medium enterprises are systematically being marginalized.
The Real Political Battles. Since both the Balay and Samar factions kowtow to the Yellow flag, as Aquino III and Marcos Jr. are united under the Marcos-Ochoa-Serapio-Tan law firm, and after Arroyo Comelec chairman Jose “Hocus PCOS” Melo was appointed by PeNoy to the multi-million Clark Development Corp., is there still any doubt about the Aquinorroyo zarzuela?
Such conflicts are par for the course in Philippine agnotology, i.e. the science of perpetrating ignorance, where anything and everything will be used to distract people’s minds from the real class exploitation happening on the real, live economic stage.
Another one is the reproductive health (RH) — now renamed RP for responsible parenthood (What the hell!). While it pits the triad of women, the Catholic hierarchy, and politicians against each other, there’s only one real loser — the people.
The bill, once enacted into law, makes the RH budget automatically appropriated in succeeding years. Politicians will get their RH medical buses with all the supplies and their large names plastered a la “Project of Congressman Piggy.” I knew there was a catch!
Meanwhile, as Kissinger’s National State Security Memorandum 200, entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests,” cited with alarm the burgeoning populations of “ India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines… since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength,” more people must be made aware of this other reason for the vigorous push for the RH bill.
Still, aside from the US planning to eliminate these “threats” through its contraceptive devices, it will also enable its pharmaceuticals — one of two US business mainstays alongside the defense industries — to enjoy a continuing bonanza by supplying these RH supplies. In the end, ALL Filipinos (women included) lose economically.
Then, while the PeNoy government lumbers, within its bowels operates the future US virus — the Akyat-Bayan gang that’s beholden to the oligarchs and kowtows to US diktats in every way but hides in leftist gibberish. This Etta Rosales-Gloria Arroyo bunch of fresher clones with populist pretensions, supported by the likes of ABS-CBN, is reportedly “really powerful” these days, so much so that other leftists who may want positions now have to apply with them.
The real giveaway for this group, however, is its rabid support for the CCT (Conditional Cash Transfer) doleouts that only create a culture of mendicancy and dependency, even to the USAID and IMF-WB.
We’ll have more on cultural, global and other issues in our Friday column.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on the “Philippine Labor Movement: Quo Vadis”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/25/2011
The holidays allowed me a breathing spell from the daily information battles we are waging on several fronts. With the peace and tranquility of the last few days, I am able to see the dust and din from a distance more clearly again, helping me make this post-Lenten recap of these foremost issues:
The Economy. Aquino III is clueless about oil and energy and the elite globalists’ geo-political machinations on them. Veteran reporter Jim Tucker reported this month that “By the end of the year 2012 (the Bilderbergers and other elite) want us paying $7 a gallon for gasoline (that’s $4 today)…” and Western ground troops into Libya, as suggested by Kissinger, is the next step to ensure this.
The fuel subsidy of around P500 million taken from the Value Added Tax is really paid for by Filipino fuel consumers while oil companies are paid in full (without a dip in their sales volumes) for oil that’s overpriced by transfer pricing to their mother companies.
Aquino III’s importation of 50 million liters of diesel fuel is a farce, a claimed “strategic stock” that will last only a few hours for 3.3 million diesel vehicles plus countless sea-going vessels.
The only solutions are a re-regulation and re-nationalization of the fuel industry, along with a restoration of the Marcos-era energy development program.
The economy is now on its 26th year of counter-democratic re-structuring as it continues to see the privatization of the nation’s wealth and the socialization of the tax burden. The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines found approval with the Energy Regulatory Commission to pass on its 3 percent franchise tax to consumers. That will be on top of the franchise tax that’s being passed on to us by power distributors such as Meralco (Manila Electric Co.).
Marcos’ Presidential Decree 551 of Sept. 11, 1974 (which writer Rod Kapunan recently retrieved) was precisely issued to lower the cost of public utilities by assigning the payment of franchise taxes specifically to electric franchise holders enjoying the privilege granted.
It is immoral and patently illegal for those enjoying the privilege of a captive market to transfer their tax burden onto those who are entitled to these constitutionally-mandated basic services.
As the two passed-on franchise taxes will cost consumers 6 percent in additional burden, we ask: Is the fulfillment of one’s basic needs no longer a right but a privilege that people have to be heavily taxed for?
Then, there’s the issue of the minimum wage hike again, which will directly affect small-and-medium businesses and the lowest paid workers, many of whom will be retrenched, but spare transnational mega-corporations whose wage structures are already above minimum.
Former Sen. Ernesto Herrera, being the head of a US “labor” movement-sponsored unions’ federation that has always spoon fed his needed “capital,” has the temerity to write that “companies can afford the wage hike” even when he has never handled a private business that had to compete in the market.
On the other hand, Leftist labor movements that have nothing to show for still rely on the irrelevant minimum wage issue to maintain their illusion of relevance when the real issues are the exploitative, oligarchic government and the increasing “oligopolization” of the economy as small-and-medium enterprises are systematically being marginalized.
The Real Political Battles. Since both the Balay and Samar factions kowtow to the Yellow flag, as Aquino III and Marcos Jr. are united under the Marcos-Ochoa-Serapio-Tan law firm, and after Arroyo Comelec chairman Jose “Hocus PCOS” Melo was appointed by PeNoy to the multi-million Clark Development Corp., is there still any doubt about the Aquinorroyo zarzuela?
Such conflicts are par for the course in Philippine agnotology, i.e. the science of perpetrating ignorance, where anything and everything will be used to distract people’s minds from the real class exploitation happening on the real, live economic stage.
Another one is the reproductive health (RH) — now renamed RP for responsible parenthood (What the hell!). While it pits the triad of women, the Catholic hierarchy, and politicians against each other, there’s only one real loser — the people.
The bill, once enacted into law, makes the RH budget automatically appropriated in succeeding years. Politicians will get their RH medical buses with all the supplies and their large names plastered a la “Project of Congressman Piggy.” I knew there was a catch!
Meanwhile, as Kissinger’s National State Security Memorandum 200, entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests,” cited with alarm the burgeoning populations of “ India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines… since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength,” more people must be made aware of this other reason for the vigorous push for the RH bill.
Still, aside from the US planning to eliminate these “threats” through its contraceptive devices, it will also enable its pharmaceuticals — one of two US business mainstays alongside the defense industries — to enjoy a continuing bonanza by supplying these RH supplies. In the end, ALL Filipinos (women included) lose economically.
Then, while the PeNoy government lumbers, within its bowels operates the future US virus — the Akyat-Bayan gang that’s beholden to the oligarchs and kowtows to US diktats in every way but hides in leftist gibberish. This Etta Rosales-Gloria Arroyo bunch of fresher clones with populist pretensions, supported by the likes of ABS-CBN, is reportedly “really powerful” these days, so much so that other leftists who may want positions now have to apply with them.
The real giveaway for this group, however, is its rabid support for the CCT (Conditional Cash Transfer) doleouts that only create a culture of mendicancy and dependency, even to the USAID and IMF-WB.
We’ll have more on cultural, global and other issues in our Friday column.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on the “Philippine Labor Movement: Quo Vadis”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
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