TOPIC: Lacson: Above the Law?
Guest: Atty. Ferdinand Topacio
PART I
PART II
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
RH: Robbery holdup bill
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/16/2011
I have not previously commented on the RH or Reproductive Health Bill since I know it is not a highly essential action that will address the poverty of this nation. First off, the Malthusian argument that population robustness equals poverty is inane, as a simple comparison easily shows:
Japan, with a population of around 130 million (the 10th largest in the world), has a per capita income of $35,500 while the Philippines, with a population of around 94 million (ranking 12th in the world), has a per capita income of only $2,000. Before the 2010 elections, where the previous lame-duck government’s spending-inflated GDP “growth” became the basis for this latest estimate by some economists, ours even hovered lower at around $1,500 to $1,700 per capita.
The point is, the pro-RH proponents’ propaganda, based on an imaginary correlation between poverty and population, is hogwash — characteristic of the pigsty that is Congress, more so when spewed from the mouths of the usual pro-FVR-Gloria Arroyo porkers.
Rep. Edcel Lagman, for one, with the help of his allied NGOs and “cost”-oriented groups, has been taking many people for a ride without revealing the highway robbery built into the RH wagon. Few people know that the original bill presented before Congress already contained a list of brands of contraceptives and other birth control paraphernalia that was only subsequently removed when certain quarters began to smell something scandalously foul.
Big Pharma all over the world, particularly in the Philippines, is well known to provide lavish commissions and paybacks to its agents, promoters, medical prescribers, as well as to political lobby clients and NGOs. Many of these NGOs beholden to foreign funding, such as those linked with Etta Rosales and other Noynoy “leftists,” are with Lagman’s campaign. Ditto the likes of pro-Big Pharma, anti-natural medicine former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral and former (so he says) Carlyle Group director Fidel Ramos.
The transnational investment group Carlyle, which makes use not only of corporate but also global political clout in promoting its military-industrial interests, is also into pharmaceuticals in a very big way. William Shannon reports: “The Carlyle Group… manages nearly US$13 billion investments in various pharmaceutical laboratory and telecommunication, waterway transport companies.” He further calls it a “tentacular financial complex” and lists its “four most significant companies” (and their principal activities and periodic turnovers in parentheses) as: 1) Empi, Inc. (medical drugs and products, $73 million for year 2000); 2) MedPointe Inc. (drugs and condoms, $223 million estimated for 2001); 3) United Defense Industries Inc. (manufacture of tanks and armored vehicles, $1.18 billion for 2000); and 4) United States Marine Repair (the largest American company of non-nuclear warships, $400 million for 2000).
Disguised in this RH bill are the interests of Lagman and his ilk in the legislature (egged along by the similarly financially lascivious Big Pharma): automatic appropriation of the budget for their pork barrel plus government’s purchase of birth control “devices and supplies” as stipulated in Section 30 of the final draft of the RH Bill which states, “The amounts appropriated in the current annual General Appropriations Act (GAA) for Family Health and Responsible Parenting under the DoH and PopCom and other concerned agencies shall be allocated and utilized… Such additional sums… shall be included in the subsequent GAA.”
You see, more funds will have to be allocated (taken from PhilHealth), with the PDAF or pork barrel requiring additional allocation to the delight of those porkers in Congress, along with Big Pharma selling these “devices and supplies” while obtaining a declaration of such as “essential drugs,” thereby opening these to “tax free” classification.
Furthermore, according to the draft, each congressional district “shall” be provided with a “mobile health care service unit,” which will, of course, sport the names of the congressmen and maybe the NGOs working with them. Legislators say the bill will only cost P3 billion; but when you add all the other funding sources (including the Anti-Poverty Commission, which will be required to chip in), then it will run to over tens of billions of pesos!
Meanwhile, RH bill spinmasters, both foreign and local, have been very good at framing the issue as an emotional cause for “women’s rights,” as a fight for “their own bodies,” etc., which no one can argue against. However, in some women’s groups’ hysteria, what is being missed is that they, too, are being used to swindle this nation of its much fed-upon budget pie.
The Magna Carta for Women already protects women more than a chastity belt can; and even among them, many recoil from the idea of removing constraints on abortion. Moreover, nobody follows the Church diktat against the use of condoms and contraceptives anymore (except for those who are still fearful or ignorant), so what else is at issue?
This is perhaps why RH bill spinmasters have thrown in many red herrings, such as the control of HIV — even when a country such as Thailand still leads the world in HIV incidence despite its well known free condoms program. I am told that this is also the case in Bangladesh.
That said, the prevalence of HIV is a problem of values and social education, not sex education. It’s a problem of media culture too. Some young students having their OJT in my radio program have raised an upsetting problem — that of too many young girls (as young as 12) getting pregnant and selling their bodies for sex. But isn’t that a problem of poverty as well — a poverty spawned not by population per se but by a socio-economic system that is exploitative; that concentrates national wealth in an infinitesimal few; and extracts surplus out of the country in the form of unjust debt and taxes, ad nausea?
Ah, but such is the systemic cancer that the RH robbery hold-up gangs and their foreign partners, with their RH debates, would want to distract us from.
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The Robbery Holdup Bill”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/16/2011
I have not previously commented on the RH or Reproductive Health Bill since I know it is not a highly essential action that will address the poverty of this nation. First off, the Malthusian argument that population robustness equals poverty is inane, as a simple comparison easily shows:
Japan, with a population of around 130 million (the 10th largest in the world), has a per capita income of $35,500 while the Philippines, with a population of around 94 million (ranking 12th in the world), has a per capita income of only $2,000. Before the 2010 elections, where the previous lame-duck government’s spending-inflated GDP “growth” became the basis for this latest estimate by some economists, ours even hovered lower at around $1,500 to $1,700 per capita.
The point is, the pro-RH proponents’ propaganda, based on an imaginary correlation between poverty and population, is hogwash — characteristic of the pigsty that is Congress, more so when spewed from the mouths of the usual pro-FVR-Gloria Arroyo porkers.
Rep. Edcel Lagman, for one, with the help of his allied NGOs and “cost”-oriented groups, has been taking many people for a ride without revealing the highway robbery built into the RH wagon. Few people know that the original bill presented before Congress already contained a list of brands of contraceptives and other birth control paraphernalia that was only subsequently removed when certain quarters began to smell something scandalously foul.
Big Pharma all over the world, particularly in the Philippines, is well known to provide lavish commissions and paybacks to its agents, promoters, medical prescribers, as well as to political lobby clients and NGOs. Many of these NGOs beholden to foreign funding, such as those linked with Etta Rosales and other Noynoy “leftists,” are with Lagman’s campaign. Ditto the likes of pro-Big Pharma, anti-natural medicine former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral and former (so he says) Carlyle Group director Fidel Ramos.
The transnational investment group Carlyle, which makes use not only of corporate but also global political clout in promoting its military-industrial interests, is also into pharmaceuticals in a very big way. William Shannon reports: “The Carlyle Group… manages nearly US$13 billion investments in various pharmaceutical laboratory and telecommunication, waterway transport companies.” He further calls it a “tentacular financial complex” and lists its “four most significant companies” (and their principal activities and periodic turnovers in parentheses) as: 1) Empi, Inc. (medical drugs and products, $73 million for year 2000); 2) MedPointe Inc. (drugs and condoms, $223 million estimated for 2001); 3) United Defense Industries Inc. (manufacture of tanks and armored vehicles, $1.18 billion for 2000); and 4) United States Marine Repair (the largest American company of non-nuclear warships, $400 million for 2000).
Disguised in this RH bill are the interests of Lagman and his ilk in the legislature (egged along by the similarly financially lascivious Big Pharma): automatic appropriation of the budget for their pork barrel plus government’s purchase of birth control “devices and supplies” as stipulated in Section 30 of the final draft of the RH Bill which states, “The amounts appropriated in the current annual General Appropriations Act (GAA) for Family Health and Responsible Parenting under the DoH and PopCom and other concerned agencies shall be allocated and utilized… Such additional sums… shall be included in the subsequent GAA.”
You see, more funds will have to be allocated (taken from PhilHealth), with the PDAF or pork barrel requiring additional allocation to the delight of those porkers in Congress, along with Big Pharma selling these “devices and supplies” while obtaining a declaration of such as “essential drugs,” thereby opening these to “tax free” classification.
Furthermore, according to the draft, each congressional district “shall” be provided with a “mobile health care service unit,” which will, of course, sport the names of the congressmen and maybe the NGOs working with them. Legislators say the bill will only cost P3 billion; but when you add all the other funding sources (including the Anti-Poverty Commission, which will be required to chip in), then it will run to over tens of billions of pesos!
Meanwhile, RH bill spinmasters, both foreign and local, have been very good at framing the issue as an emotional cause for “women’s rights,” as a fight for “their own bodies,” etc., which no one can argue against. However, in some women’s groups’ hysteria, what is being missed is that they, too, are being used to swindle this nation of its much fed-upon budget pie.
The Magna Carta for Women already protects women more than a chastity belt can; and even among them, many recoil from the idea of removing constraints on abortion. Moreover, nobody follows the Church diktat against the use of condoms and contraceptives anymore (except for those who are still fearful or ignorant), so what else is at issue?
This is perhaps why RH bill spinmasters have thrown in many red herrings, such as the control of HIV — even when a country such as Thailand still leads the world in HIV incidence despite its well known free condoms program. I am told that this is also the case in Bangladesh.
That said, the prevalence of HIV is a problem of values and social education, not sex education. It’s a problem of media culture too. Some young students having their OJT in my radio program have raised an upsetting problem — that of too many young girls (as young as 12) getting pregnant and selling their bodies for sex. But isn’t that a problem of poverty as well — a poverty spawned not by population per se but by a socio-economic system that is exploitative; that concentrates national wealth in an infinitesimal few; and extracts surplus out of the country in the form of unjust debt and taxes, ad nausea?
Ah, but such is the systemic cancer that the RH robbery hold-up gangs and their foreign partners, with their RH debates, would want to distract us from.
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The Robbery Holdup Bill”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Cartelizing the supply of labor
BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
5/14-15/2011
If labor-only contracting is a new shade of slavery, then this new form of exploitation promises to be more cruel and painful for it seeks to effectively destroy the current system of employment. The conventional mode where the workers are free to find employment under the open labor market system, and employers equally free to hire workers of their choice would soon be a thing of the past.
As labor-only contracting widens to cover all industries and businesses, and qualitatively train their manpower to cater to every specialized and technical field of undertaking, such could not only result in the virtual enslavement of the workers done through the misplaced leasing of human services, but could eventually destroy the universally accepted mode in labor relations anchored on that concept of “employer-employee relations.”
Labor-only contracting has already evolved from its generic nomenclature of being called “manpower or employment agencies” to one styling as “manpower specialists.” Hence, from their traditional line of merely offering janitorial and messengerial services, they have evolved to offer manpower that have the educational qualifications, skills, technical specialization, and experience needed by wide range of industrial, commercial and business establishments. Many now style themselves as management and legal specialists, accounting and financial analysts, computer experts, and even medical technicians. Their objective is to completely debase companies of employees working on the principal business for which they were hired.
Notably, once labor-only contracting gain widespread acceptance, the first thing that will be affected is the practice of direct hiring, which is possible only under an open labor market system. Under this, workers directly apply to companies in need of their services, and get hired if they are qualified. Under this conventional mode, there is a meeting of the minds between the two on the terms of employment, amount of wage, benefits, and the assurance of becoming permanent after hurdling the six months probationary period. It is direct hiring that gives rise to the term “employer-employee relations” because the contractual relation is between the employee and the employer.
With the advent of labor-only contracting, direct hiring will slowly be replaced by the system of “indirect hiring.” Invariably, the open labor market system will be replaced by the closed labor market system because workers could no longer apply for a specific job, except through a specialized manpower service agency. In that case, employers will more and more rely on labor-only contractors for their specific manpower requirements until they finally do away with the practice of directly hiring workers beginning with the scrapping their personnel or human resources development or HRD. This modification to slavery was never anticipated by Karl Marx despite his extensive treatise about the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists.
One must bear it in mind that indirect hiring came about because there no longer exists a direct relationship between the workers and the employers. Employers under this new mode are now called “employer-beneficiaries” because they benefit from the services rendered by workers supplied by labor-only contractors carried out under the unorthodox method of leasing out human services. Employer-beneficiaries now stand as lessees of human services, while labor-only contractors stand as lessors of human services. The workers, which are the object of their misplaced lease agreement, stand as leased-out or for-hire workers, not contractual workers because they are not really a party to the contract of employment.
Because of this new arrangement, the term “employer-employee relations” now becomes meaningless. What will prevail is the contractual relation between the lessor and the lessee. In that sense labor relations becomes an empty subject because there is nothing to conciliate, negotiate or arbitrate under that situation. For that matter, labor unions and trade federations that contributed to enrich the concept of labor relations would no longer exist much that labor-only contractors would now play the role of “negotiators” for their for-hire workers. We are already seeing the withering of trade unions, and sadly enough the emergence of labor-only contracting is rooted on that defective system of regulated wage which they blindly supported.
As the system of direct hiring is gradually phased out, workers could only find employment through their labor-only contractors. So, the workers, whether blue- or white-collar ones, and even those aspiring for managerial positions, to find employment will have to enlist first with the labor-only contractor or specialized manpower agency, like Job Street. It is only after an employer-beneficiary finds interest in their educational qualifications, skill or experience would they will be able to find a job, and that can only to be concluded after the interested employer-beneficiary has agreed to the terms demanded by their agency.
Considering that labor-only contractors are organized and operate on a different plane often favorable to the interest of their clients, their evolution will eventually alter the entire landscape in labor relations. From their original objective of aiding employer-beneficiaries reduce the cost of wage, they could then metamorphose to one of labor cartel once they reach that level of operating on a near monopoly. They could then dictate the price for the services of their for-lease workers, and easily they could do that in a manner no different from the oil and rice cartels which have proven to effectively operate under all systems of closed market.
In that we will be witnessing the emergence of a cartel exclusively engaged in the supply of labor. The unholy alliance now between the employers and the labor-only contractors to reduce the cost of wage would only be good for as long as labor unions exist. Once they have been eradicated, the contradiction will be between the employer-beneficiaries and the labor-only contractors, and not between the workers and the capitalists as anticipated by the stereotype Left.
Right now, big companies are putting up their front specialized manpower agencies to justify indirect hiring. Even if the cost is higher than the prevailing labor market cost, they would still be glad to engage their services because they would no longer be saddled into giving their leased-out workers the array of benefits corollary to their becoming regular employees, more so if their exists a union.
rodkap@yahoo.com.ph
Rod Kapunan
5/14-15/2011
If labor-only contracting is a new shade of slavery, then this new form of exploitation promises to be more cruel and painful for it seeks to effectively destroy the current system of employment. The conventional mode where the workers are free to find employment under the open labor market system, and employers equally free to hire workers of their choice would soon be a thing of the past.
As labor-only contracting widens to cover all industries and businesses, and qualitatively train their manpower to cater to every specialized and technical field of undertaking, such could not only result in the virtual enslavement of the workers done through the misplaced leasing of human services, but could eventually destroy the universally accepted mode in labor relations anchored on that concept of “employer-employee relations.”
Labor-only contracting has already evolved from its generic nomenclature of being called “manpower or employment agencies” to one styling as “manpower specialists.” Hence, from their traditional line of merely offering janitorial and messengerial services, they have evolved to offer manpower that have the educational qualifications, skills, technical specialization, and experience needed by wide range of industrial, commercial and business establishments. Many now style themselves as management and legal specialists, accounting and financial analysts, computer experts, and even medical technicians. Their objective is to completely debase companies of employees working on the principal business for which they were hired.
Notably, once labor-only contracting gain widespread acceptance, the first thing that will be affected is the practice of direct hiring, which is possible only under an open labor market system. Under this, workers directly apply to companies in need of their services, and get hired if they are qualified. Under this conventional mode, there is a meeting of the minds between the two on the terms of employment, amount of wage, benefits, and the assurance of becoming permanent after hurdling the six months probationary period. It is direct hiring that gives rise to the term “employer-employee relations” because the contractual relation is between the employee and the employer.
With the advent of labor-only contracting, direct hiring will slowly be replaced by the system of “indirect hiring.” Invariably, the open labor market system will be replaced by the closed labor market system because workers could no longer apply for a specific job, except through a specialized manpower service agency. In that case, employers will more and more rely on labor-only contractors for their specific manpower requirements until they finally do away with the practice of directly hiring workers beginning with the scrapping their personnel or human resources development or HRD. This modification to slavery was never anticipated by Karl Marx despite his extensive treatise about the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists.
One must bear it in mind that indirect hiring came about because there no longer exists a direct relationship between the workers and the employers. Employers under this new mode are now called “employer-beneficiaries” because they benefit from the services rendered by workers supplied by labor-only contractors carried out under the unorthodox method of leasing out human services. Employer-beneficiaries now stand as lessees of human services, while labor-only contractors stand as lessors of human services. The workers, which are the object of their misplaced lease agreement, stand as leased-out or for-hire workers, not contractual workers because they are not really a party to the contract of employment.
Because of this new arrangement, the term “employer-employee relations” now becomes meaningless. What will prevail is the contractual relation between the lessor and the lessee. In that sense labor relations becomes an empty subject because there is nothing to conciliate, negotiate or arbitrate under that situation. For that matter, labor unions and trade federations that contributed to enrich the concept of labor relations would no longer exist much that labor-only contractors would now play the role of “negotiators” for their for-hire workers. We are already seeing the withering of trade unions, and sadly enough the emergence of labor-only contracting is rooted on that defective system of regulated wage which they blindly supported.
As the system of direct hiring is gradually phased out, workers could only find employment through their labor-only contractors. So, the workers, whether blue- or white-collar ones, and even those aspiring for managerial positions, to find employment will have to enlist first with the labor-only contractor or specialized manpower agency, like Job Street. It is only after an employer-beneficiary finds interest in their educational qualifications, skill or experience would they will be able to find a job, and that can only to be concluded after the interested employer-beneficiary has agreed to the terms demanded by their agency.
Considering that labor-only contractors are organized and operate on a different plane often favorable to the interest of their clients, their evolution will eventually alter the entire landscape in labor relations. From their original objective of aiding employer-beneficiaries reduce the cost of wage, they could then metamorphose to one of labor cartel once they reach that level of operating on a near monopoly. They could then dictate the price for the services of their for-lease workers, and easily they could do that in a manner no different from the oil and rice cartels which have proven to effectively operate under all systems of closed market.
In that we will be witnessing the emergence of a cartel exclusively engaged in the supply of labor. The unholy alliance now between the employers and the labor-only contractors to reduce the cost of wage would only be good for as long as labor unions exist. Once they have been eradicated, the contradiction will be between the employer-beneficiaries and the labor-only contractors, and not between the workers and the capitalists as anticipated by the stereotype Left.
Right now, big companies are putting up their front specialized manpower agencies to justify indirect hiring. Even if the cost is higher than the prevailing labor market cost, they would still be glad to engage their services because they would no longer be saddled into giving their leased-out workers the array of benefits corollary to their becoming regular employees, more so if their exists a union.
rodkap@yahoo.com.ph
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