BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
2/11-12/2012
The US either has to accept a nuclear-power Iran or go to war to stop it from producing its own nuclear weapon. Such is the premise being floated by those policy makers in Washington, Tel Aviv and London. This observation has come to surface for although all are eager to wage war against Iran, their interests are not really identical.
For one, Israel wants to launch a pre-emptive strike to prevent Iran from completing its alleged nuclear weapons development program. Destroying them before they could be stored in deep and hardened silos is a better option. The focus of Israel’s concern is on Iran’s becoming a full-fledged member of the nuclear club with the capacity to inflict massive damage to its territory.
The US, on the other hand, wants to punish it for threatening to drop the US dollar in the sale of its oil exports. For Iran to make good that threat to shift to other currencies and precious metals, like gold, could set a precedent for other countries to abandon the dollar as their international medium of exchange that has fattened the US economy by their purchase of treasury bills, securities, bonds and assets all denominated in US dollars
Abandonment from that de facto economic monopoly imposed by the US after President Nixon detached the dollar from its gold reserve in 1974 could trigger a steep devaluation of its currency. Such could trigger hyper-inflation to an economy that has been wracked by trade deficit and artificially kept afloat beyond its actual value. It is for this why tension now grips the Strait of Hormuz with the international media drumming up on Iran’s nuclear threat.
But as tension heightens to generate volatility in the price of oil in the international market, their policy towards Iran has been going through some kind of crystalline revision with both the Israelis and the US seeking to redefine their respective interests to warrant their going to war with the international public opinion to back them up. It is for this why observers say that US-Israeli relation is now at the crossword.
It is from this realization that has put a hinge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eagerness to go to war at the earliest possible time. The Zionists know that war with Iran could effectively erase their differences to bare the truth that it is not the threat of nuclear weapon that bugs them, but on their chauvinism to prevent any country from contesting their military dominance that allowed them to dictate the course of events in the Middle East.
The US has become Israel’s unwilling conduit. Trying get along on the issue of Iran’s denuclearization appears reasonable than going to war just to stave off that country’s plan to drop the US dollar. Even if it could snowball to seriously affect its international economic standing that could not hide its imperialistic motivation which might not be acceptable to the American public. Right now the majority of the American public see the present US policy in the Middle East as the result of intense Jewish lobby, and not borne out of any historical link.
It is for this that many patriotic Americans are beginning to ask whether the purposeful link of US interest to Israel’s interest, vis-à-vis its alleged survival, is anchored on that usual jingoistic posturing of not allowing the creation of a Palestinian state. Surely, the American public could not bear to see a war drag on, while sapping both their economic resources and the precious blood of their young boys that is the result of intense Jewish lobby that has found collaborative allies in Wall Street and in Congress.
In fact, many Americans are now questioning the wisdom of the massive economic aid running to about $13 billion annually, just for Israel to effectively play the role of America’s proxy mugger in the Middle East. US banks and oil companies now take cover in that Zionist propaganda to hide the truth that it would be a war to save their own skin consequent to their bungling of the US economy. This is asked because the premise of securing Israel’s existence could no longer be justified by the current military edge it enjoy against the Arab countries.
Rather, US support stands as supplementary to Israeli expansionism to a point that it has become parasitic to US aid all at the expense of the American taxpayers. Its record of atrocities against the Palestinian people is incomparable that they have become the source of American embarrassment domestically and abroad. On the other hand, Iran is fully aware that it was Iraq’s abandonment from the petrodollar that caused the US and its allies to savagely attack that country ending in the hanging of Saddam Hussein by the puppet government they installed, and triggered the bombing of Libya that reduced its cities to rubble and the subsequent brutal murder of Moammar Gaddhafi.
Nonetheless, Iran remains steadfast because the international currency market led by China, India, Russia and Brazil is taking steps to use direct currency exchange in their trade ties. In which case, the next war the world could possibly witness is a war to save the US dollar. As one would put it, the US dollar is the only currency in the world that has been able to maintain its artificial value by virtue of the American military might, and not by its true value in the international currency market.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Useful idiot’s G.I. Joe toys
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/10/2012
While the prosecution’s case in the Senate continues to crumble amid growing public revulsion, and with certain religious sects rallying in front of the Supreme Court (SC) against Malacañang’s assaults, the “useful idiot” in the Palace continues his inane programs serving US and Western interests.
The newest toys that BS Aquino III is acquiring for his policy of “territorial defense,” announced through his equally inane Defense Chief Voltaire Gazmin, include multi-purpose attack helicopters, destroyers and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Earlier announced was the acquisition of a squadron of F-16s and Hamilton class cutters (of which one had been delivered, refurbished, and christened BRP Gregorio del Pilar). All these are part of a P70-billion (roughly P10 billion annual) modernization budget for eight years.
Considering that an F-16 costs around $70 million (or P3 billion each, fetching P36 billion for a squadron of 12), very little else can really be bought, with the ones already acquired either obsolete or soon to be so by the end of eight years.
The F-16 is a “fourth-generation jet fighter;” its military aviation technology is now classified as 6th generation. Meanwhile, China, the perceived “territorial threat” of Malacañang (with the obvious prodding of the US), already has an undisclosed fleet of Chengdu J-20s.
Further, unlike the Philippines, most Asean countries are already flying 5th generation fighters. Malaysia, another country that has territorial issues with us, has its F/A-18D Hornets, MiG-29 Fulcrum and Sukhoi Su-30. India, for its part, has developed the Sukhoi PAK FA with its Russian partners.
Given these realities, acquiring a squadron of F-16s is merely G.I. Joe stuff — toys for the really small boys. And these are definitely no different from the World War II-vintage Hamilton cutters being bruited about by Malacañang. As for the UAVs already in the Philippines, even retired Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Gen. Ramon Farolan in his newspaper column suspects the recent bombing of the Abu Sayyaf lair in Sulu, allegedly killing its top three commanders, as being done by US UAVs — not PeNoy Broncos.
A Predator drone, widely used by the US in its operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, costs $4.5 million or P200 million each. Maybe it would cost a little less if it is only for surveillance and reconnaissance, but the drone itself is just a small part of an entire infrastructure consisting of satellite links, command and control, etc.
The yearning for multi-purpose attack helicopters by Malacañang and Gazmin is clearly out of synch with the real needs of the country, where several natural disasters affect hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, who are most often in desperate need of rescue and emergency airlift operations.
As for anti-submarine ships, Malacañang would do better to build up the Navy’s drydock facilities for repair and maintenance, as well as to focus on the building of ships to keep those still afloat floating and to produce new ones that run and don’t sink. In other words, we have to build our own shipbuilding capabilities.
It is now an old tenet that the strength of a nation is in its economic and industrial capacity for with it, a nation can build and buy the best. In the armaments arena, if you cannot have the latest then you are the most likely loser in a war.
The acquisition of G.I. Joe toy-weapons is useful only to the traders of these armaments, including US congressmen and senators who are peddling these in the Third World. G.I. Joe toys will do nothing to enhance the territorial defense of the Philippines especially when the real invaders have long infiltrated the country like the US, which already has its troops and drones in our territory all these years.
Even the purchase of G.I. Joe toy guns, ships and planes being directed by the real G.I. Joes is meant to sustain the Western economies and their defense industries now in dire straits — with funds taken from RP’s share in, say, Malampaya. It’s the classic “frying us in our own oil” scheme, where the US and its allies get to devour the feast.
If injected into the coconut industry to develop its downstream products and industries, P10 billion even just for a year would already start a massive economic upsurge.
There is a growing global demand for healthy nutritional alternatives that coconut provides, from the humble virgin coconut oil (VCO) to new anti-Alzheimer medication derived from it; to packaging and marketing of coconut water; to the development of “nutraceuticals” for the medical and beauty industries; to high-end chemicals with applications even in the explosives industry; to eco-textile against soil erosion for countries such as China. P10 billion for just one year injected into the local dairy industry can spur local production of dairy products that will save the country $1 billion in dairy imports every year.
Just think: Investments into these two grassroots agro-industrial commodities alone will help improve the income of at least 40 percent of the population in the agricultural sector and boost both the industrial and service sectors’ vitality.
Let us not play games with our nation’s future anymore. Only when we purge our nation of various foreign economic and political subversives can we get to provide ourselves with a stable economy — first, through a strong industrial base and, second, through a strong Armed Forces that will keep these pesky infiltrators out.
(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 “The struggle against the Rule of Farce;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/10/2012
While the prosecution’s case in the Senate continues to crumble amid growing public revulsion, and with certain religious sects rallying in front of the Supreme Court (SC) against Malacañang’s assaults, the “useful idiot” in the Palace continues his inane programs serving US and Western interests.
The newest toys that BS Aquino III is acquiring for his policy of “territorial defense,” announced through his equally inane Defense Chief Voltaire Gazmin, include multi-purpose attack helicopters, destroyers and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Earlier announced was the acquisition of a squadron of F-16s and Hamilton class cutters (of which one had been delivered, refurbished, and christened BRP Gregorio del Pilar). All these are part of a P70-billion (roughly P10 billion annual) modernization budget for eight years.
Considering that an F-16 costs around $70 million (or P3 billion each, fetching P36 billion for a squadron of 12), very little else can really be bought, with the ones already acquired either obsolete or soon to be so by the end of eight years.
The F-16 is a “fourth-generation jet fighter;” its military aviation technology is now classified as 6th generation. Meanwhile, China, the perceived “territorial threat” of Malacañang (with the obvious prodding of the US), already has an undisclosed fleet of Chengdu J-20s.
Further, unlike the Philippines, most Asean countries are already flying 5th generation fighters. Malaysia, another country that has territorial issues with us, has its F/A-18D Hornets, MiG-29 Fulcrum and Sukhoi Su-30. India, for its part, has developed the Sukhoi PAK FA with its Russian partners.
Given these realities, acquiring a squadron of F-16s is merely G.I. Joe stuff — toys for the really small boys. And these are definitely no different from the World War II-vintage Hamilton cutters being bruited about by Malacañang. As for the UAVs already in the Philippines, even retired Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Gen. Ramon Farolan in his newspaper column suspects the recent bombing of the Abu Sayyaf lair in Sulu, allegedly killing its top three commanders, as being done by US UAVs — not PeNoy Broncos.
A Predator drone, widely used by the US in its operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, costs $4.5 million or P200 million each. Maybe it would cost a little less if it is only for surveillance and reconnaissance, but the drone itself is just a small part of an entire infrastructure consisting of satellite links, command and control, etc.
The yearning for multi-purpose attack helicopters by Malacañang and Gazmin is clearly out of synch with the real needs of the country, where several natural disasters affect hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, who are most often in desperate need of rescue and emergency airlift operations.
As for anti-submarine ships, Malacañang would do better to build up the Navy’s drydock facilities for repair and maintenance, as well as to focus on the building of ships to keep those still afloat floating and to produce new ones that run and don’t sink. In other words, we have to build our own shipbuilding capabilities.
It is now an old tenet that the strength of a nation is in its economic and industrial capacity for with it, a nation can build and buy the best. In the armaments arena, if you cannot have the latest then you are the most likely loser in a war.
The acquisition of G.I. Joe toy-weapons is useful only to the traders of these armaments, including US congressmen and senators who are peddling these in the Third World. G.I. Joe toys will do nothing to enhance the territorial defense of the Philippines especially when the real invaders have long infiltrated the country like the US, which already has its troops and drones in our territory all these years.
Even the purchase of G.I. Joe toy guns, ships and planes being directed by the real G.I. Joes is meant to sustain the Western economies and their defense industries now in dire straits — with funds taken from RP’s share in, say, Malampaya. It’s the classic “frying us in our own oil” scheme, where the US and its allies get to devour the feast.
If injected into the coconut industry to develop its downstream products and industries, P10 billion even just for a year would already start a massive economic upsurge.
There is a growing global demand for healthy nutritional alternatives that coconut provides, from the humble virgin coconut oil (VCO) to new anti-Alzheimer medication derived from it; to packaging and marketing of coconut water; to the development of “nutraceuticals” for the medical and beauty industries; to high-end chemicals with applications even in the explosives industry; to eco-textile against soil erosion for countries such as China. P10 billion for just one year injected into the local dairy industry can spur local production of dairy products that will save the country $1 billion in dairy imports every year.
Just think: Investments into these two grassroots agro-industrial commodities alone will help improve the income of at least 40 percent of the population in the agricultural sector and boost both the industrial and service sectors’ vitality.
Let us not play games with our nation’s future anymore. Only when we purge our nation of various foreign economic and political subversives can we get to provide ourselves with a stable economy — first, through a strong industrial base and, second, through a strong Armed Forces that will keep these pesky infiltrators out.
(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 “The struggle against the Rule of Farce;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Monday, February 6, 2012
While the show goes on
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/6/2012
While the impeachment show goes on, the thieves are getting away with highway robbery right before the noses of the people. As it has been for the past two-and-a-half-decades, the target of the gigantic burglary are the crown jewels of the nation in the energy sector, this time focused on Mindanao’s electricity sector. Our Mindanao power consumer crusader and second generation power distribution company entrepreneur Mr. Uriel “Jojo” Borja of Iligan Light and Power, called us during the weekend that a two-hour “power curtailment” hit Iligan City last Saturday; but he railed that the Department of Energy (DoE) should already send the power barges 101, 102, 103, 104 to provide emergency power to Mindanao to avoid the power predators’ scheme to justify contracting new power generation capacity at double the cost per kilowatt hour to the present Mindanao power supply for the next twenty-five years.
Current power generation cost in Mindanao averages P2.60/kwH, but if the DoE and Psalm have their way, this will rise to around
P5/kwH, equal to Luzon and Visayas’ generation rate. Mindanao power traditionally cost only half that of other parts of the country because the bulk comes from hydroelectric power plants such as Agus-Pulangui. However, experts have said that the government agencies’ management of these hydroelectric dams and power plants, are failing to optimize its capacity by planned incompetence or willful negligence of corporatists named to head the DoE. Dredging and desilting have not been religiously done, reducing the capacities of these dams; while scheduling release and use of its water reserves for power have been invariably and suspiciously badly timed, exhausting them just as seasonal shortages are expected — seemingly to justify the frequent “red alert” the DoE issues of impending power curtailments.
Since 2009 the DoE has been issuing Mindanao power “red alerts,” citing expected rainfall deficits to be brought about by La Niña or El Niño. But, as Jojo Borja has been reporting, the rains have been coming every year, defying the predictions of the DoE. Last year was also supposed to be dry for Mindanao but Sendong came and devastated Cagayan de Oro and Iligan with a deluge resulting in murderous landslides.
Several weeks ago I wrote and disputed the power shortage “red alert” the DoE and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP, the private company that took over government’s transmission grid). Some people attribute the brownouts in some areas to lack of power transmission connections, but Borja does not see any real power supply shortage. What shortage there is are only short term and seasonal shortages that does not justify contracting new, overpriced power plants.
Napocor has power barges idle in Luzon waiting to be utilized for emergencies but the DoE secretary Almendras announced again last week that these power barges PB 101, 102, 103, 104 will be sold off by March 2012. To a normal, rational and logical mind Almendras’ plan is absolutely ridiculous. Almendras’ plan will cause the same tragic result as the 2009 sale of power barges 117 and 118 to the Aboitiz’s Therma Marine group for $ 30M which it turned around and revalued a few months later at $ 70M and used as its rate base for supplying emergency power to Mindanao — horrendously raising the power cost to consumers. Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro has objected to the sale of the power barges in 2009 and continues to object to the present hurried sale. He called for the four power barges still owned by government to be transferred to Mindanao to provide emergency power at the lower cost that Napocor provides, but the DoE is deaf to the plea.
Apart from insisting on selling the four power barges in March, Secretary Almendras of the DoE has opened the way for new power plants to be contracted and set up in Mindanao reminiscent of the IPPs in Luzon of the 90s during Ramos’ time. These will have “take or pay,” Power Purchase Agreements that consumers will see tacked on to their bills whether they use the electricity capacity or not — paying for the next 20 or 25 years. The scam that was inflicted mainly on Luzon in the mid-90s that saddled the country with $18-B Napocor debt, which reamins the same despite 90 percent Napocor assets privatized, is being inflicted on Mindanao this time. There is clearly a well established modus operandi in all this that involves the conspiracy of the international finance Mafia, the corrupt political authorities using the 10-year old Epira.
The Epira law bans government from the electricity generation service. Hence, the IPP power plants bought 10 to 20 years ago transferred to government will have to be sold off dirt cheap. The oligarchs who set up the original exorbitant IPP (independent power plants) will now be the one to buy those same power plants for a song.
We appeal to our dear Filipinos consumers and taxpayers: Wake up to the systematic and massive plunder we are constantly victims of by the conspiracy of the ruling oligarchs and their political agents in the two houses of Congress. Let us not fall into the trap of being mesmerized by political comedies and drama they are staging to distract the nation for their failure to protect the people from the avarice of the present ruling class. Let’s never be distracted again by the weapons of mass distraction the political theater provides; these trapos who spend hours daily grandstanding but give nary a day to hear and inquire into the Philippine scam of the century — the power rip off occurring daily in our midst.
(Tune to 1098AM, DWAD, Mon. to Fri. 5-6pm; watch GNN HTL edition of TNT, Destiny Cable, Saturdays 8:15pm and replay 11:15pm: “The struggle against the Rule of Farce”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our radio and GNN shows)
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/6/2012
While the impeachment show goes on, the thieves are getting away with highway robbery right before the noses of the people. As it has been for the past two-and-a-half-decades, the target of the gigantic burglary are the crown jewels of the nation in the energy sector, this time focused on Mindanao’s electricity sector. Our Mindanao power consumer crusader and second generation power distribution company entrepreneur Mr. Uriel “Jojo” Borja of Iligan Light and Power, called us during the weekend that a two-hour “power curtailment” hit Iligan City last Saturday; but he railed that the Department of Energy (DoE) should already send the power barges 101, 102, 103, 104 to provide emergency power to Mindanao to avoid the power predators’ scheme to justify contracting new power generation capacity at double the cost per kilowatt hour to the present Mindanao power supply for the next twenty-five years.
Current power generation cost in Mindanao averages P2.60/kwH, but if the DoE and Psalm have their way, this will rise to around
P5/kwH, equal to Luzon and Visayas’ generation rate. Mindanao power traditionally cost only half that of other parts of the country because the bulk comes from hydroelectric power plants such as Agus-Pulangui. However, experts have said that the government agencies’ management of these hydroelectric dams and power plants, are failing to optimize its capacity by planned incompetence or willful negligence of corporatists named to head the DoE. Dredging and desilting have not been religiously done, reducing the capacities of these dams; while scheduling release and use of its water reserves for power have been invariably and suspiciously badly timed, exhausting them just as seasonal shortages are expected — seemingly to justify the frequent “red alert” the DoE issues of impending power curtailments.
Since 2009 the DoE has been issuing Mindanao power “red alerts,” citing expected rainfall deficits to be brought about by La Niña or El Niño. But, as Jojo Borja has been reporting, the rains have been coming every year, defying the predictions of the DoE. Last year was also supposed to be dry for Mindanao but Sendong came and devastated Cagayan de Oro and Iligan with a deluge resulting in murderous landslides.
Several weeks ago I wrote and disputed the power shortage “red alert” the DoE and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP, the private company that took over government’s transmission grid). Some people attribute the brownouts in some areas to lack of power transmission connections, but Borja does not see any real power supply shortage. What shortage there is are only short term and seasonal shortages that does not justify contracting new, overpriced power plants.
Napocor has power barges idle in Luzon waiting to be utilized for emergencies but the DoE secretary Almendras announced again last week that these power barges PB 101, 102, 103, 104 will be sold off by March 2012. To a normal, rational and logical mind Almendras’ plan is absolutely ridiculous. Almendras’ plan will cause the same tragic result as the 2009 sale of power barges 117 and 118 to the Aboitiz’s Therma Marine group for $ 30M which it turned around and revalued a few months later at $ 70M and used as its rate base for supplying emergency power to Mindanao — horrendously raising the power cost to consumers. Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro has objected to the sale of the power barges in 2009 and continues to object to the present hurried sale. He called for the four power barges still owned by government to be transferred to Mindanao to provide emergency power at the lower cost that Napocor provides, but the DoE is deaf to the plea.
Apart from insisting on selling the four power barges in March, Secretary Almendras of the DoE has opened the way for new power plants to be contracted and set up in Mindanao reminiscent of the IPPs in Luzon of the 90s during Ramos’ time. These will have “take or pay,” Power Purchase Agreements that consumers will see tacked on to their bills whether they use the electricity capacity or not — paying for the next 20 or 25 years. The scam that was inflicted mainly on Luzon in the mid-90s that saddled the country with $18-B Napocor debt, which reamins the same despite 90 percent Napocor assets privatized, is being inflicted on Mindanao this time. There is clearly a well established modus operandi in all this that involves the conspiracy of the international finance Mafia, the corrupt political authorities using the 10-year old Epira.
The Epira law bans government from the electricity generation service. Hence, the IPP power plants bought 10 to 20 years ago transferred to government will have to be sold off dirt cheap. The oligarchs who set up the original exorbitant IPP (independent power plants) will now be the one to buy those same power plants for a song.
We appeal to our dear Filipinos consumers and taxpayers: Wake up to the systematic and massive plunder we are constantly victims of by the conspiracy of the ruling oligarchs and their political agents in the two houses of Congress. Let us not fall into the trap of being mesmerized by political comedies and drama they are staging to distract the nation for their failure to protect the people from the avarice of the present ruling class. Let’s never be distracted again by the weapons of mass distraction the political theater provides; these trapos who spend hours daily grandstanding but give nary a day to hear and inquire into the Philippine scam of the century — the power rip off occurring daily in our midst.
(Tune to 1098AM, DWAD, Mon. to Fri. 5-6pm; watch GNN HTL edition of TNT, Destiny Cable, Saturdays 8:15pm and replay 11:15pm: “The struggle against the Rule of Farce”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our radio and GNN shows)
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