Public service justifies payment of taxes

KIBITZER
Rod Kapunan
5/2-7/2011



The followers of that criminally inspired neo-liberal ideology failed to sort out that the reason that justify governments to collect taxes is not just anchored on the duty to provide security for the people, but to provide them public service.

While we concede that people must pay taxes to raise the money needed to protect them, we know that it could equally work the other way; to be used as an instrument to oppress them.

The neo-liberals would argue that only the private sector could provide public service; could bring down the cost of goods and services, and reduce the amount of taxes, thereby eliminating graft and corruption.

Indeed, these were the assumptions that reached its peak during the Ramos government when it sold left and right government-owned corporations, like the privatization of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the North and South Expressways, the National Steel Corporation, Philippine Airlines, etc.

‘Taboo’
To begin with, in a privatized society “public service” is a taboo for accordingly everything that one would like to enjoy and own must be paid for by him.

This explains why the elite are able to live longer because they could afford to pay all that would help extend their life, like buying organs from donors or getting them from cadavers.

If only they could buy immortality they would do so.

On the other hand, public service is designed to temper the harshness of inequality, not really by establishing a regimented society, but to enhance their chances of survival to reduce the incidence of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease, ignorance, unemployment, etc.

Beyond Public Works
In fact, modern interpretation of public service now goes beyond constructing roads, bridges, public markets, airports, wharves, but includes the overseeing of the people’s welfare.

Thus, humane societies have kept on widening the horizons of public welfare to include the giving of free universal education, health service, including hospitalization and the giving
of medicines for free or at a discounted price; protecting labor by guaranteeing employment, and most important of regulating the profit so that the prices of goods and services could be maintained at affordable level.

The paradox is, when all the channels that produce wealth are in private hands, the government parenthetically losses much of its income that as a result it will have to impose more taxes to support itself.

Everything Privatized
The question is when the government limits its role to just collecting taxes, would that justify its existence? Such is asked because criminal organizations, like the Mafia, have been collecting protection rackets from people without them giving anything in return.

The problem with this criminally- inspired ideology is that they want everything privatized, but wants to use the government to oppress the people.

For instance, when people are deprived of water by way of higher cost per cubic meter, then why are they paying taxes when supposedly water is a God-given element that the government should take care to ensure that it will be available to all, including the farmers that produce the food we eat.

Similarly, what good is there in paying taxes when, in addition to the road-users tax, vehicle and transport owners pay the toll fees just to pass the highway to get to their job that should they fail could spell a much serious problem for them?

Encouraging Mendicancy
What good is the giving of franchise to public utility operators, like that of electricity, to protect their investments, when owners now could conveniently pass them on to their consumers in violation of PD No. 551, thus assuring protection of their privilege without paying a centavo despite the high cost of electricity.

The local disciples of the neoliberal ideology would argue that we should increase the VAT to 15 percent from the current rate of 12 percent. They say in other countries, like China, the VAT there is already at 17 percent.

But the amount is not the problem for even if they will increase that to 50 percent or raise the income tax to 60 to 65 percent, as in the Scandinavian countries, the people there are getting much of what they pay.

Here, our taxes aside from being looted are used to encourage mendicancy and to promote cosmetic programs for political imaging and mileage.

Less Corruption
Another argument raised by the neo-liberals is that less government presence and intervention means less corruption.

Maybe corruption in its classic sense has been minimized if we follow the theory that corruption only takes place in government service.

But Korean economist Ha- Joon Chang in his book “Bad Samaritan”, categorically admitted capitalism as a defective system.

Inescapably, when certain businesses are engaged in hoarding to artificially keep high the price of their commodities, resort to smuggling to avoid the payment of customs duties, undervalue their sales to reduce their taxes, engaged in dollar salting, buy-out other businesses to achieve a monopoly, engage in cartel to bar other players, etc., could we not classify them as corruption done by the private sector?

Systematic Graft
Yes, we have drastically reduced the bureaucracy which has been blamed as the source of corruption. But in lieu we allowed politicians to bloat their number of sinecure employees.

As one would say, the sinecure employees of politicians are not only lazy, but are more greedy and corrupt than those career employees they fired.

It is this incidence and magnitude of corruption that placed us the second most corrupt country in Asia to debunk the supposition of that criminally-inspired neo-liberal ideology that privatization could reduce corruption.

Today, corruption has become vicious because people are not only burdened with high taxes, and get nothing in return, but realize the money they pay is being systematically looted through graft.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

Hypocrisies

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
5/3/2011



As I start this column on a new, advanced deadline again, I heard DWIZ’s “Mambobola” interview of DOTC Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesuson the issues of the toll ways, airports and the “overcapacity” of the MRT/LRT that is causing so much woe to the riding public.

This interview was one reason why I decided to title our column or this week “Hypocrisies” to point out the almost endless pretenses and insincerity of much of our media criticisms of the goings-on in our Philippine polity.

The “mambobolas” were very critical of the sky-high rate increases in the toll ways just before “Ping” de Jesus came on the air, which suited me very well as one of the public victims of these highway robberies of privatized toll ways; but when Ping de Jesus came on air the “mambobolas” became deferential. Is this because Ping de Jesus hosts a weekly expensive breakfast for media at a Morato restaurant every Thursday morning?

The Truth about Ping
The truth about Ping de Jesus is that this so-called public executive is not a public executive at all but a gofer for the oligarchs, an financial avatar of the Lopezes most of his life doing the dirty economic war for them against the welfare of the Filipino people.

De Jesus was the hatchet man of the Lopezes too when the family controlled the Manila North Tollway Corp. (MNTC) when it ran the NLEX. I wrote exposing the toll fare abuse of the MNTC and fought alongside many NGOs against the exorbitant exploitation by the Lopezes whom I tagged as “velociraptors”. My other newspaper employer was slapped with a P100-M case in court filed by MNTC which lawyers said cost MNTC P 1-M in filing fee.

When the court called for mediation it was De Jesus who represented MNTC.

At one meeting, I stared down at De Jesus and castigated him for being a tool of exploitation, and I said I wouldn’t yield even if they put me in jail. I did eventually compromise for the sake of the newspaper but my disdain for the gofer hasn’t changed since.

The Public Subsidizes
De Jesus dwelt on the improvements at the toll ways without being made to respond to the issue of unjust sky high toll rates. On the NAIA’s stinking toilets, he went on to say they’ve been improved in preparation for the “open sky”. His answer to the MRT/LRT “over-capacity”, when he really meant “overloading”, is privatization of the MRT/LRT – but isn’t this where the MRT came from that ended with the public subsidizing the capital and profits of the “investors” while government and commuters have been exploited?

The privatized MRT was then reverted to government with funds from DBP and Land- Bank. Now, they will privatize it again, along with the LRT and the Mega Tren?

Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." That’s what De Jesus is going to do, privatize MRT/LRT/Mega Tren again and expecting a result other than bilking of government and commuters. De Jesus, “bolahin mo ang lelong mo.”

Critiques of critics' columns, day-by-day:
April 19, Manila Times; Ernesto Herrera, “Firms can afford to pay higher minimum wage”. Former senator Herrera doesn’t know what he’s talking about. According to OpinYon labor writer Dave Diwa, 98% of the 900,000 business enterprises in the Philippines are small and medium enterprises (SMEs) employing a dozen or so workers and mostly marginalized. Big firms like SMC and Meralco are beyond the minimum wage. SMEs will be forced to stop hiring or retrench. Jobs will be even harder for the jobless.

Herrera is a mere labor aristocrat, never knew what generating employment is about. Instead of playing up to the throng he should have helped improve the economic environment, like help cut power rates.

In the same newspaper, Dr. Dante Ang’s “Moral revolution from the top”, Ang should firstget his hands off of PCSO’s advertising funds as PR agent and get as much as 40% commissions. Manoling Morato says the PCSO never had a PR as it has an in-house media bureau.

Self-rated Poverty
Again, in the same newspaper and same date, Arroyo factotum Gary Olivar, in his column, “Progress” stated that “Mrs. Arroyo brought down self-rated poverty to an average of 55 percent during her term, down from the time of Presidents Cory Aquino (63.4 percent), Fidel Ramos (62.2 percent), and Joseph Estrada (59.6 percent).”

From the one doing the survey himself, Mahar Mangahas, in 2009 Inquirer column of his: “The highly alarming economic trend shown by the SWS surveys is that hunger quadrupled in the last six years — from 5 percent in 2003 to 20 percent in June 2009.”

In 2010 report in his own newspaper, Manila Times came out with this report: “SWS said the hunger problem has affected more than 20% of Filipino families for the past three quarters. It hit a record-high 24% in December 2009, dipped slightly to 21.2% in March, and is now at 21.1% in June.” That was just the end of Arroyo and Gary Olivar’s stint in Malacañang.

A Controlled Economy
On April 19, this item circulated : “Top economists warn vs ‘populist measures’ citing The Foundation for Economic Freedom’s (FEF) criticisms “… special exemption … from VAT, … oil price stabilization fund, …price controls,…” and trumpeting the “ … tenets of the Oil Deregulation Law … truly competitive market, stimulating private investments, freeing up the government and taxpayers of costly oil subsidies…”

Can they tell that to Chinese economic managers who propelled their economy to # 2 in the world through heavy economic protectionism and social welfarism?

I just finished the book “The Party… the secret world of China’s communist rulers” by Richard McGregor who writes that China is clearly State-led and a controlled economy.

The FEF, namely Sicat, De Ocampo, Medalla, Canlas, Leung, Fabella, Bernardo, Lotilla Balisacan, and advisers Virata and Mon del Rosario as Big Business apologists and gofers are all beneficiaries of the liberal economy while the people have become ever poorer.

Without Critical Thinking
April 26, Framework -- By Elfren Sicangco Cruz, “100 tyrants” in a review of the book “TYRANTS: History’s 100 Most Evil Despots & Dictators (2004) by Nigel Cawthorne and includes, as No. 86, Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines.

Cruz reviews the book without any critical thinking, reproducing everything written by this Western political hack without spotting the basic flaw, Cawthorne never brings up the US tyrants who have invaded small Third World countries since its inception as a colonial and imperial power, including the grab of the Philippines islands, invasion of South American countries, the Vietnam War, Iraq, Afghanistan, ad infinitum and maintaining 800 US military bases all over the world today.

Elfren Cruz is a professor of Strategic Management at the De La Salle University. When he faces my son who is a student there, he’ll get a drubbing from the questions on this professor’s naiveté or hypocrisy.

Again, I have run out of space – so tune in to Radyo OpinYon and join us there daily.

(Tune to 1098AM, Radyo OpinYon Mon to Fri 5-6m, and Sulo M-W-F, 6 to 7 p.m. ; GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, TNT with HTL, Tuesdays, 8-9 p.m. replay 11 p.m. this week: “EDSA Tres Revisited”; visit http://newkatipunero. blogspot.com for our radio and GNN shows)

Facelifting 'royalties'

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/2/2011



Today there are two royalties in desperate straits because of declining popularity and credibility, with each undergoing one monumental facelift after another.

One royalty touting itself as heavenly and the other as an earthly power have both seen their material and political fortunes decline over the last generation. After being rocked by family and/or sexual scandals, each one has now had to resort to—as they’ve previously done for their survival—the technique originated by Edward Bernays (pioneer of modern public relations and nephew of Sigmund Freud) of using great galas with pomp and pageantry, mixing royalty with celebrity — like “Bread and Circus” but in a much grander scale — to mesmerize the throng into accepting their “superiority” and their “right” to demand absolute loyalty from their subjects.

The Vatican has seen its global flock decline rapidly over the last decade while the House of Windsor is still in shock over the attack on Prince Charles’ limo by London’s tuition fee protesters.

The failing faith of Catholics is reflected in the Roman Catholic Church’s dire situation in Latin America, once considered the “continent of faith,” now the “continent of concern” for the Vatican.

In Brazil, where there are more Catholics than in any other country in the world, up to half a million followers are leaving the Church every year. Mexico, with the second largest number of Catholics, has seen a decline of almost 10 percent from the last century. In Colombia, only two out of every three are now Catholic when almost the entire population was such in the 1950s. In Guatemala, one third of the country’s 12 million inhabitants have left the Catholic Church this decade, mostly converting to evangelical Protestantism.

A poll carried out by Unimer Research International revealed that 52 percent of Costa Ricans “no longer believe” in the Catholic Church. We know, of course, that this is happening in the Philippines , too, especially in light of the Church’s unpopular opposition to the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, among other things.

Thus, the Vatican’s fast-track beatification of the late Pope John Paul II (PJPII), which opens the door to his early sainthood, is obviously in response to the crisis of popularity and credibility of the Catholic empire. The belief in the righteousness of this effort, however, even among Catholic luminaries, is by no means universal.

The current pope, Benedict XVI, waived the five-year waiting period for PJPII’s canonization allegedly for “responding to the will of the people.” But it was also most likely to preempt disturbing questions, such as that of Fr. Richard Vega, president of the US National Federation of Priests’ councils, who said that “…the normal five-year wait would have allowed more time to examine John Paul’s relationship with Maciel” (Mexican-born Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, disgraced founder of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement, found guilty of raping underaged males and also fathering at least one child). Others are even more pointed.

Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister criticized PJPII’s “attitude toward clerical sex abuse of children,” saying it “embodied the worst kind of clericalism,” adding that, “The least the church could do in respect for those who have already suffered insult at the hands of the church is to let the perspective of time decide whether or not canonization is in order.”

Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane said other causes for canonization should have had more priority — particularly assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero’s, calling yesterday’s beatification of the late pontiff “somewhat premature.”

Outside Catholicism, Rev. Charles Curran, professor of theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas , who claims not to have any objection to PJPII’s beatification, said the church “would be a lot better off if we stopped canonizing popes, bishops, clergy and religious.”

I obtained these from an article by Joshua McElwee in the National Catholic Reporter, where there are more criticisms of the rushed beatification.

On the much darker side of PJPII are the published stories, not incontrovertible but certainly with much basis to consider, of suppression of dissent within the Catholic Church especially in regard to liberation theology and its socialist underpinnings — arguments that some see as justification for the rightwing pogroms in Latin America against progressive priests and activists.

There is the established fact that PJPII operated with the CIA in mobilizing the Polish Solidarity movement, triggering insurrection and establishing the pattern for failed “revolutions” in East Europe. As a 2009 survey of Polish sentiment after two decades of the Solidarity government reported, “…when asked what in the country has changed for the worse in comparison with the communist era, Poles most often mention high unemployment, poor health care, the higher cost of living, low wages, widespread poverty, corruption, and social and economic inequality.” It is the same pattern in almost all of former Soviet Eastern Europe.

A new book, co-authored by Marco Ansaldo, a journalist with the Italian paper La Repubblica, and Turkish journalist Yasemin Taskin, raises evidence that this was US State Secretary Gen. Alexander Haig’s order to blame communists for what was actually an independent act of an outlawed ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist Islamic group (“Grey Wolves”) that papal assassin Mehmet Agca was part of. Agca was later forced by Italian secret service and the CIA to implicate Bulgaria.

Over and above all these, however, is the question of PJPII’s financial dealings. It must be remembered that he took over from the “Smiling Pope” John Paul I, Albino Luciani, who served only 33 days and was poisoned (as documented in “In God’s Name” by David Yallop) because of the reforms he initiated, especially financial reforms.

When PJPII took over, none of these reforms were pursued. Instead, he set a record of profligacy in his travels that he appointed Jaime Cardinal Sin to the Special Commission on Finance to raise funds — even from the Philippines. The worst, however, is still his whitewash of John Paul I’s murder.

As for British Royalty’s crooked-teethed lords and knock-kneed ladies, we’ll wait for the next royal’s murder to 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” with Ronald Lumbao and Linggoy Alcuaz; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)