CONSUMERS' DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/16-22/2012
Do you wonder why the call for higher and newer taxes of all forms is forever being raised by the government, the BSP, the IMF, WB and ADB, even as government service institutions are declining in number due to privatization?
While new taxes and higher tax goals are instituted at the same time public services such as power, water, road infrastructure among many other privatized public utilities raise their rates without end even as these companies continue to report ever increasing profits year-after-year.
Just the same, public infrastructure projects are supposedly being jointly funded in the BS Aquino III flagship PPP (public-private partnership) scheme.
Hence, government funding requirements should not be as significant as it would be if government had to go it alone, right?
Yet, BS Aquino III is still requiring greater and greater collections from the revenue raising agencies.
Why more taxes?
New tax impositions that all of us, at one time, raise our arms up against eventually come to be accepted as part of life, like the VAT on the Expressways toll which is still unjustified despite the reality that we have to live with it.
The increase on “sin taxes” slated this year, which proponents justify by invoking health concerns, even when they are just obfuscating what is simply an unjustified additional burden.
Last January 3, Malacañang said in a regular press conference that “new taxes still ‘last resort’” but only betrays the government’s continuing intention to raise collection in the face of the question we posed above. Why more taxes, even from so called “improved collection”, which really means forcing businesses to shell out more under-the-table for the BIR and Customs to “mediate” any final amount, when the taxpayer is not getting its worth from the existing taxes being extracted and even less from additional tax burdens?
Run after professionals, self-employed
The last columns in this space for 2011 focused on the essentials issues, including the incontrovertible fact that the Philippines now has sufficient internal financial resources to bankroll its public and private investment needs.
We have to drill this into our readers’ memory that the Philippines GIR (gross international reserves) is now $ 76-B and growing against the $ 62.5-B foreign debt of the country.
We cited Vice President Binay’s reiteration of this position which we have crusaded on for the past year.
In a speech before the PCCI, Binay called for the country to use its GIR for public and private investment requirements.
Yet, the government wants to squeeze more out of our countrymen, with Malacañang and the BIR stressing that it will now run after “self-employed and professionals – tagged as a major source of tax leaks - to help hit its P1.066-trillion goal” collection in 2011.
Averse to real hard work
Aside from the surplus GIR the Philippines holds in its coffers, there is also the SDA (special deposit account) held by the BSP with at least P1.7 trillion in deposits, paying out 4% interest.
Local bankers have urged the BSP to release it by reducing the interest it pays to keep this from circulating.
A mere reduction of interest paid on it by 1% would spur the depositors, like the local banks, to withdraw the funds to seek financial investments that would allow it to earn more.
The bankers want the BSP to bear the burden of the decision and evade the responsibility of making a patriotic decision to help the national economy by seeking worthwhile productive physical investments to fund, like agricultural projects or factories.
But the banks are averse to real hard work.
They are borrowing and borrowing
Much of the deposits are from the conversion of remittance dollars to peso parked in the BSP, which the BSP uses as a mere tool to control and balance money supply and credit instead of spurring real growth.
Despite the existence of this huge reservoir of funds, the BSP continues to harp on the greatness of its performance as measured by the “credit ratings” upgrade by Fitch’s, Moody’s or Standard and Poor’s--despite the fact that these ratings agencies have been discredited the world over for being tools of manipulation by the global finance mafia.
In the case of the Philippines, this mafia wants to keep us borrowing and borrowing without end, with the BSP officials such as Tetangco and Guinigundo in cahoots.
A hole in the head
Last Jan. 3, the headline, “Lenders swarm Philippine’s first global bond issue” appeared, making it like it was Christmas again from the financial Santa Claus in time for the Three Kings’ Feast.
“The oversubscription came within hours of the announcement by the Bureau of Treasury that it would raise between $500 million and $1.5 billion in what would be the first sovereign dollar-denominated bond sale for the year.
“Tapped to jointly coordinate the bond float were Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.
“They were also mandated as joint book runners, along with Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan and UBS.”
My oh my, they make it sound so great, except that we need this gift like a hole in the head, with the only true beneficiaries , the financial brokers and the bankers.
Making them richer and richer
The Philippines is already in a perfect position to do what Brazil did in 2005, which paid all its $15-billion debt while telling the IMF to go to hell. Argentina did the same after defaulting and negotiating a 70%-write-off. Today, it is one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America, growing between 8 to 9% per annum.
Our title for this week’s piece is “Consumers/taxpayers should revolt” because the continuing additional public utility rate hikes and tax increases are absolutely useless to those paying them.
The money extracted goes only to making the financial oligarchy richer and richer while the real, physical economy gets dried up even more. It’s time to revolt for real!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
The ERC vs impeach hearings
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/20/2012
It is not just the country’s Chief Justice (CJ) on trial but the entire social and political establishment of the Philippines. Last Monday, two hearings of note were held. One involved Supreme Court (SC) CJ Renato Corona, while the other, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the issues before it.
Amid a hodgepodge of allegations of betrayal of public trust, the Corona impeachment trial may well unearth tens of millions of pesos of anomalies in material terms. But, as the latter speaks of P30 billion to P50 billion in direct annual losses to the pockets of every Filipino for the last seven years and the years to come, it certainly constitutes more of a lasting damage to the life of the nation’s economy if it were not resolved in the people’s favor. This much has been affirmed by business, labor, energy and economic experts, as well as consultants, both foreign and local, and most especially, consumer advocates, who have long protested such grave injustice.
For the past eight years, the ERC has run afoul of several crucial decisions of the SC that sought to protect Filipino electricity consumers. In 2003, the Puno-led tribunal had already made several very important rulings: 1) a refund of the P28-billion Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) overcharging since 1994 (which has not been fully concluded today, leaving a question as to whether the power company actually took this out from consumers’ payments or its own equity); 2) an affirmation of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira)’s Return on Rate Base (RoRB) of 12 percent as a fair and just method of determining return on capital; 3) a declaration that corporate income tax payments cannot be charged to consumers as Meralco has done; and 4) an order for the Commission on Audit (CoA) to scrutinize Meralco’s books, which led to the discovery of P14 billion in overcharges for 2003 and 2007.
By exploiting a loophole in the Epira, the ERC, in complete defiance of the SC, replaced the RoRB that had been thoroughly threshed out by the high court with a so-called Performance Based Regulation (PBR) scheme that allowed rates of return to zoom up to 15 and well over 17 percent — with incentives to boot! This also gave Meralco the leeway to continue charging its income tax to customers under a new guise and the ERC further excuse to write rules that open it to charges of corruption.
The Jan. 16 ERC hearing was on two related petitions: “(a) Application for Approval of Maximum Average Price (MAP) for 2012, (b) Translation of the (said) MAP… into a Distribution Rate Structure for Meralco’s Various Customer Classes.” Yet, the ERC is hearing these without first settling prejudicial questions.
For one, Mang Naro Lualhati’s motion for reconsideration on the ERC’s approval of the capital expense claim of Meralco, upon which its (rounded off) MAP of P1.60/kWh is based — an overstated amount as shown by earlier CoA findings, which correct rate should only be P0.90/kWh — is still pending. For another, fellow advocate Jojo Borja’s petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the ERC hearing, pending resolution of his protest for the regulatory agency’s disregard of his evidence of Meralco’s overprice of its own poles, transformers, and substations by over 500 percent, has yet to be acted on.
Moreover, as another warrior in our cause, Butch Junia, demanded that these prejudicial questions be settled first, drawing the ire of a very well-suited Meralco lawyer, he proceeded to question the “regulatory liaison” budget approved by the ERC for Meralco to the tune of P2.2 billion (for the regulatory period of four years) or P550 million per year.
First of all, aren’t we, taxpayers, already funding the ERC to regulate and communicate with all energy providers? Why then should Meralco have its own budget for “liaison” charged to us consumers?
And what exactly is “liaison?” The Free Online Dictionary says that liaison is “an instance or a means of communication between different groups or units; one that maintains communication; a close relationship, connection, or link; an adulterous relationship; an affair.”
Now, if theirs isn’t one that mirrors the latter definitions, do both really need P550 million a year just to communicate?
Since we are today guaranteeing Meralco a 16-percent profit margin, as opposed to the 12 percent ruled as fair by the SC of 2003; and as Mang Naro has shown that the power firm’s annual P9-billion capital expense should only be P1 billion; notwithstanding Jojo Borja’s revelation that many of the most essential equipments used in its rate base application are overpriced by as much as 500 percent, or Butch Junia’s exposé of its P550-million annual “liaison” budget (which we will raise with the courts in the near future), aren’t we ending up with a total of P50 billion in annual electricity rate overcharging, as approved by the ERC?
Third party consultants of both the ERC and Meralco themselves have stated for the record that Meralco’s assets are underutilized by as much as 50 percent. So why are yearly increases and an expansion of Meralco’s asset base still being approved while the power company’s market grows by only 2 percent?
Inasmuch as I was prevailed upon by my home network to join its Senate impeachment watch, I immediately seized the opportunity to raise the greater significance of the ERC hearing there, as I am doing in this column today.
The real handlers of BS Aquino III (the Makati Business Club, US Embassy, “evil society”) are the very same ones behind the impeachment-ouster of President Joseph Estrada more than a decade ago. Their purpose is to distract from the continuing plunder by the oligarchs and the foreign financial mafia.
The script is almost exactly the same. The Epira then was passed right before an unsuspecting public just as Estrada was made a scapegoat. Today, the power plunder rages on as some other scapegoats are paraded anew.
(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., on “QC’s last HURA in 2012;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/20/2012
It is not just the country’s Chief Justice (CJ) on trial but the entire social and political establishment of the Philippines. Last Monday, two hearings of note were held. One involved Supreme Court (SC) CJ Renato Corona, while the other, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the issues before it.
Amid a hodgepodge of allegations of betrayal of public trust, the Corona impeachment trial may well unearth tens of millions of pesos of anomalies in material terms. But, as the latter speaks of P30 billion to P50 billion in direct annual losses to the pockets of every Filipino for the last seven years and the years to come, it certainly constitutes more of a lasting damage to the life of the nation’s economy if it were not resolved in the people’s favor. This much has been affirmed by business, labor, energy and economic experts, as well as consultants, both foreign and local, and most especially, consumer advocates, who have long protested such grave injustice.
For the past eight years, the ERC has run afoul of several crucial decisions of the SC that sought to protect Filipino electricity consumers. In 2003, the Puno-led tribunal had already made several very important rulings: 1) a refund of the P28-billion Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) overcharging since 1994 (which has not been fully concluded today, leaving a question as to whether the power company actually took this out from consumers’ payments or its own equity); 2) an affirmation of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira)’s Return on Rate Base (RoRB) of 12 percent as a fair and just method of determining return on capital; 3) a declaration that corporate income tax payments cannot be charged to consumers as Meralco has done; and 4) an order for the Commission on Audit (CoA) to scrutinize Meralco’s books, which led to the discovery of P14 billion in overcharges for 2003 and 2007.
By exploiting a loophole in the Epira, the ERC, in complete defiance of the SC, replaced the RoRB that had been thoroughly threshed out by the high court with a so-called Performance Based Regulation (PBR) scheme that allowed rates of return to zoom up to 15 and well over 17 percent — with incentives to boot! This also gave Meralco the leeway to continue charging its income tax to customers under a new guise and the ERC further excuse to write rules that open it to charges of corruption.
The Jan. 16 ERC hearing was on two related petitions: “(a) Application for Approval of Maximum Average Price (MAP) for 2012, (b) Translation of the (said) MAP… into a Distribution Rate Structure for Meralco’s Various Customer Classes.” Yet, the ERC is hearing these without first settling prejudicial questions.
For one, Mang Naro Lualhati’s motion for reconsideration on the ERC’s approval of the capital expense claim of Meralco, upon which its (rounded off) MAP of P1.60/kWh is based — an overstated amount as shown by earlier CoA findings, which correct rate should only be P0.90/kWh — is still pending. For another, fellow advocate Jojo Borja’s petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the ERC hearing, pending resolution of his protest for the regulatory agency’s disregard of his evidence of Meralco’s overprice of its own poles, transformers, and substations by over 500 percent, has yet to be acted on.
Moreover, as another warrior in our cause, Butch Junia, demanded that these prejudicial questions be settled first, drawing the ire of a very well-suited Meralco lawyer, he proceeded to question the “regulatory liaison” budget approved by the ERC for Meralco to the tune of P2.2 billion (for the regulatory period of four years) or P550 million per year.
First of all, aren’t we, taxpayers, already funding the ERC to regulate and communicate with all energy providers? Why then should Meralco have its own budget for “liaison” charged to us consumers?
And what exactly is “liaison?” The Free Online Dictionary says that liaison is “an instance or a means of communication between different groups or units; one that maintains communication; a close relationship, connection, or link; an adulterous relationship; an affair.”
Now, if theirs isn’t one that mirrors the latter definitions, do both really need P550 million a year just to communicate?
Since we are today guaranteeing Meralco a 16-percent profit margin, as opposed to the 12 percent ruled as fair by the SC of 2003; and as Mang Naro has shown that the power firm’s annual P9-billion capital expense should only be P1 billion; notwithstanding Jojo Borja’s revelation that many of the most essential equipments used in its rate base application are overpriced by as much as 500 percent, or Butch Junia’s exposé of its P550-million annual “liaison” budget (which we will raise with the courts in the near future), aren’t we ending up with a total of P50 billion in annual electricity rate overcharging, as approved by the ERC?
Third party consultants of both the ERC and Meralco themselves have stated for the record that Meralco’s assets are underutilized by as much as 50 percent. So why are yearly increases and an expansion of Meralco’s asset base still being approved while the power company’s market grows by only 2 percent?
Inasmuch as I was prevailed upon by my home network to join its Senate impeachment watch, I immediately seized the opportunity to raise the greater significance of the ERC hearing there, as I am doing in this column today.
The real handlers of BS Aquino III (the Makati Business Club, US Embassy, “evil society”) are the very same ones behind the impeachment-ouster of President Joseph Estrada more than a decade ago. Their purpose is to distract from the continuing plunder by the oligarchs and the foreign financial mafia.
The script is almost exactly the same. The Epira then was passed right before an unsuspecting public just as Estrada was made a scapegoat. Today, the power plunder rages on as some other scapegoats are paraded anew.
(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., on “QC’s last HURA in 2012;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Monday, January 16, 2012
Squabbling while the nation sinks
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/16/2012
A Nov. 10 to 23, 2011 survey by Pulse Asia reported last week by Jocelyn Montemayor found that 97 percent of Filipinos say “their lives were affected by worsening economic conditions.” The same survey reported that the number of people who “felt,” which I take to mean palpably sensed, the economic deterioration jumped from 16 percent in Oct. 2010 to 38 percent a year later, in what can be described as a dramatic doubling.
This makes me wonder how the same survey outfit can still find that BS Aquino III’s approval ratings are staying at a high 70-percent rate. This also makes me wonder if the people surveyed are disjointed in their brains of if the controlled mass media have really done a terrific job of obfuscating issues so as to stunt the public’s capacity for perception.
What is clear is that Filipinos are facing a deepening crisis and, contrary to many columnists’ sanguine projections, 2012 holds even grimmer prospects.
Last Wednesday, Jan. 11, InterAksyon.com reported that the Department of Energy (DoE) is “gear(ing) up for fuel rationing, transport subsidies” in case “tensions in the Middle East trigger a fuel shortage.” As we have been tracking the events there, we have consistently asked what the leadership of this country is doing in case a war affecting the Strait of Hormuz and, consequently, global oil supply triggers a worldwide shortage and price spike from $150 to $200/bbl.
The current Philippine oil stockpile ranges only from 30 to 60 days, and more frequently it is at the minimum. These are indeed ridiculous levels, considering that it takes about that long for shipments to arrive from the sources.
Curiously, an August 2011 newspaper report discussed the call (such as from our many columns) for government to stockpile oil requirements for as much as six months to one year. But, in that same report, a certain Jorge Montepeque, global director for pricing at Platts (a US oil trading company), was also interviewed. He said that such a proposal would only do harm as stockpiling would cause oil prices to rise. Of course, that pronouncement from the said executive, no matter how inane it was, must have been taken as a diktat to government and political authorities to shut up on the matter as the economic managers who earlier raised the idea never did so again.
That advice was inane for the simple reason that the Philippines’ whole year demand won’t even cause a blip in the oil markets, where prices are manipulated by speculators on a daily basis — prices which we, in turn, are compelled to always accept at their highest levels since we buy only what can be delivered because of the short lead time, and never at a cheaper price than the last offer. So, in order to get us out of this quagmire, the next logical question is where to get the money for a stockpile that will last us a good six months to one year.
Ah, but only a few like us would say that money is the least of our problems since we already have that P1.7-trillion Special Deposit Account (SDA) kept in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that yields four percent in interest earnings for banks when it can be used to earn multiples of that in our stockpiling of oil.
Then, we also have the surplus in our gross international reserves (GIR), which, in our discussion on how to properly release without appreciating the peso and harming the exchange rate that overseas Filipino workers (OFW) families rely on, finance forensics expert Hiro Vaswani of the Kilusan para sa Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME) suggested for the BSP to stop lending $25 billion to the US in buying its Treasury Bills, and instead to use that for our domestic needs — one of which is the country’s stockpiling of oil.
As our annual oil imports amount to around $14 billion, we have more than enough money to afford such a stockpile. Yet, while any sane person would never doubt the economic security and benefit we would get out of it, our economic managers remain inutile, all because they are useless slaves of Western financial interests.
Oil prices jumped to $101/bbl when Iran warned off a US aircraft carrier during a naval exercise of the Iranian Navy two weeks ago. For sure, we can expect more of such tensions in the Strait of Hormuz — through which 80 percent of oil for our country passes and a major part of which is legally considered under Iran’s jurisdiction.
The Iranian parliament is now considering legislation either to limit passage through that strait or to charge fees for it and to ban warships from passing, which are a response to US saber-rattling.
But even without these tensions, the global trend of oil prices is on the upswing due to the higher cost of extraction. As such, oil stockpiling is always a safe bet even on a purely commercial basis. Still, we need to underscore the economic stability that can be derived from having a large oil stockpile, especially since an oil shock that will lead to a complete economic standstill for an unprepared nation like the Philippines would be devastating.
Thus, one must realize how irresponsible and brainless this BS Aquino III government is today, creating imagined terror threats and picking fights left and right to create an atmosphere ripe for authoritarianism while real economic terror stalks the land.
The crisis the nation will face in 2012 will require all the people and political sectors to rally around the flag in order to survive. And as the growing internecine fighting is only going to doom the nation, a New Third Force that is neither Aquino nor Arroyo; neither Yellow nor Red; and neither Right nor Left must arise to offer the leadership that the present government cannot give as it winds down its self-destructive path.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, with this week’s topic, “QC Real Estate Tax Scam in 2012;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/16/2012
A Nov. 10 to 23, 2011 survey by Pulse Asia reported last week by Jocelyn Montemayor found that 97 percent of Filipinos say “their lives were affected by worsening economic conditions.” The same survey reported that the number of people who “felt,” which I take to mean palpably sensed, the economic deterioration jumped from 16 percent in Oct. 2010 to 38 percent a year later, in what can be described as a dramatic doubling.
This makes me wonder how the same survey outfit can still find that BS Aquino III’s approval ratings are staying at a high 70-percent rate. This also makes me wonder if the people surveyed are disjointed in their brains of if the controlled mass media have really done a terrific job of obfuscating issues so as to stunt the public’s capacity for perception.
What is clear is that Filipinos are facing a deepening crisis and, contrary to many columnists’ sanguine projections, 2012 holds even grimmer prospects.
Last Wednesday, Jan. 11, InterAksyon.com reported that the Department of Energy (DoE) is “gear(ing) up for fuel rationing, transport subsidies” in case “tensions in the Middle East trigger a fuel shortage.” As we have been tracking the events there, we have consistently asked what the leadership of this country is doing in case a war affecting the Strait of Hormuz and, consequently, global oil supply triggers a worldwide shortage and price spike from $150 to $200/bbl.
The current Philippine oil stockpile ranges only from 30 to 60 days, and more frequently it is at the minimum. These are indeed ridiculous levels, considering that it takes about that long for shipments to arrive from the sources.
Curiously, an August 2011 newspaper report discussed the call (such as from our many columns) for government to stockpile oil requirements for as much as six months to one year. But, in that same report, a certain Jorge Montepeque, global director for pricing at Platts (a US oil trading company), was also interviewed. He said that such a proposal would only do harm as stockpiling would cause oil prices to rise. Of course, that pronouncement from the said executive, no matter how inane it was, must have been taken as a diktat to government and political authorities to shut up on the matter as the economic managers who earlier raised the idea never did so again.
That advice was inane for the simple reason that the Philippines’ whole year demand won’t even cause a blip in the oil markets, where prices are manipulated by speculators on a daily basis — prices which we, in turn, are compelled to always accept at their highest levels since we buy only what can be delivered because of the short lead time, and never at a cheaper price than the last offer. So, in order to get us out of this quagmire, the next logical question is where to get the money for a stockpile that will last us a good six months to one year.
Ah, but only a few like us would say that money is the least of our problems since we already have that P1.7-trillion Special Deposit Account (SDA) kept in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that yields four percent in interest earnings for banks when it can be used to earn multiples of that in our stockpiling of oil.
Then, we also have the surplus in our gross international reserves (GIR), which, in our discussion on how to properly release without appreciating the peso and harming the exchange rate that overseas Filipino workers (OFW) families rely on, finance forensics expert Hiro Vaswani of the Kilusan para sa Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME) suggested for the BSP to stop lending $25 billion to the US in buying its Treasury Bills, and instead to use that for our domestic needs — one of which is the country’s stockpiling of oil.
As our annual oil imports amount to around $14 billion, we have more than enough money to afford such a stockpile. Yet, while any sane person would never doubt the economic security and benefit we would get out of it, our economic managers remain inutile, all because they are useless slaves of Western financial interests.
Oil prices jumped to $101/bbl when Iran warned off a US aircraft carrier during a naval exercise of the Iranian Navy two weeks ago. For sure, we can expect more of such tensions in the Strait of Hormuz — through which 80 percent of oil for our country passes and a major part of which is legally considered under Iran’s jurisdiction.
The Iranian parliament is now considering legislation either to limit passage through that strait or to charge fees for it and to ban warships from passing, which are a response to US saber-rattling.
But even without these tensions, the global trend of oil prices is on the upswing due to the higher cost of extraction. As such, oil stockpiling is always a safe bet even on a purely commercial basis. Still, we need to underscore the economic stability that can be derived from having a large oil stockpile, especially since an oil shock that will lead to a complete economic standstill for an unprepared nation like the Philippines would be devastating.
Thus, one must realize how irresponsible and brainless this BS Aquino III government is today, creating imagined terror threats and picking fights left and right to create an atmosphere ripe for authoritarianism while real economic terror stalks the land.
The crisis the nation will face in 2012 will require all the people and political sectors to rally around the flag in order to survive. And as the growing internecine fighting is only going to doom the nation, a New Third Force that is neither Aquino nor Arroyo; neither Yellow nor Red; and neither Right nor Left must arise to offer the leadership that the present government cannot give as it winds down its self-destructive path.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, with this week’s topic, “QC Real Estate Tax Scam in 2012;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
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