No-bullsh*t zone

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 14, 2014 / Daily Tribune


Mike Whitney, writing in Counterpunch, an independent US political Web site, on May 12 spoke of how “US Media Ignores Putin’s Peace Plan” because they “(do not) want people to know that Putin is not the ghoulish, authoritarian caricature he’s portrayed to be, but a levelheaded pragmatist who wants a swift and peaceful resolution to the (Ukrainian) crisis.”

Whitney further wrote: “Putin is a plain-speaking guy who shoots from the hip and says what he means. He’s not a bullsh*tter…”
That reminded me of a Filipino political leader, President-Mayor Joseph Estrada, who last Monday showed the Philippine media and public that he means what he says; such that wherever he is becomes a “no-bullsh*t zone.”

That occasion marked the City of Manila opening its doors to its “Command Center,” showing on a video wall the size of a fourth of a volleyball court actual, real-time scenes captured by closed-circuit television cameras across Manila’s critical areas of traffic, security, and sanitation concerns. When Estrada launched his candidacy for the mayorship of Manila, he pledged to clear up traffic and clean up the fiscal, governance, and sanitation situations. There were many skeptics. Now the video wall that a horde of media reporters and cameramen witnessed gave evidence to Estrada’s accomplishment of that pledge. No bullshi*t. It was right there: Divisoria, T.M. Kalaw, Adriatico, and a dozen other scenes — clear of traffic jams and mess.

Manila Mayor Estrada, with his Vice Mayor Isko Moreno, reported other details such as the R-10 expansion to an all eight-lane road to decongest the port area. Sixteen thousand “urban poor” houses and 32,000 families (squatter houses usually house two families) have been removed and relocated to sites in Batangas, Laguna, and some in on-site developments — with titles to their new homes. Manila raised revenues which should have resolved the City’s fiscal woes. Then something came from out from left field — city hall employees’ withholding taxes of over P680 million due to the Bureau of Internal Revenue from 2007 to 2011 were never remitted by the previous administration; but Estrada is confident it will be overcome.

Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson to “Honorable President Mayor” Estrada in his agency’s request for the “moratorium on the truck ban… from May 13 to 20 (noontime), 2014 for 8 days in preparation for the World Economic Forum to be hosted by the Philippines from May 21 to 23, 2014.” The addition of “honorable” is apropos, as speaking in a clear tongue as Estrada does, is such a rarity in Philippine politics today. Plain talking reflects the integrity of word and deed, and a mark of honor — in contrast to the bullsh*t the public is getting today on the Napoles list and most everything else. I digress because the hypocritical, forked-tongues playing on the Napoles list need commenting.

Their hypocrisy is in direct contrast to the praise in this piece for integrity in talk and deed. On the issue of corruption, the self-righteous shams from stripteasing De Lima to Aquino to Lacson portray them as if they are immaculately white when their obscene Napoles striptease are but one of the many acts on the stage of the anti-corruption zarzuela being played out. In belaboring their immaculateness they believe they have no need to perform in real life, no requisite to deliver improvements in lives of the people and the nation that can be felt, enjoyed, and believed in. These people have made the entire country a Bullsh*t Zone. Now, BS Aquino has gotten in on the act to obfuscate the List.

Back to Manila, the city is bending backward to accommodate 6,000 trucks in batches of 200 trucks per hour for eight days — for the World Economic Forum. Local and foreign chambers of commerce shrilly protested the truck ban, accusing it of hurting the economy (Inquirer, “Manila truck ban pits Estrada vs business org,” Feb. 5).

The truck ban began February. At the Command Center press conference, Estrada held up a copy of one of the business sector’s favorite papers with the Inquirer’s May 10 headline, “S&P gives Philippine another credit upgrade,” to belie the business sector’s claim. The Big Business sector is just as self-serving as BS Aquino is too willing to sacrifice the public for their business bottomline.

Ironically, the World Economic Forum (WEF), established in 1971, will convene in Estrada’s “No-BS Zone” on May 21 while the organization presides over a world economy where, Oxfam says, “85 people now own 50 percent of world’s wealth,” and the Philippines, which this 23rd WEF describes as “poised to be the strongest performing economy in Southeast Asia,” was reported May 13 by local papers to be where “More self-rated poor went hungry.”

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Power blackmail in Mindanao;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Tempest in a teapot

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 12, 2014 / Daily Tribune


Exaggeration. That was my first reaction to the headlines describing “tension” over the arrest of Chinese fishermen off the Spratlys and their detention by Philippine authorities. “Tension” was also the term used by international reports I read, and I immediately suspected a coordinated build-up.

Arrests of Chinese fishermen by Philippine authorities have been going on for decades. Infinitely worse incidents have happened — like the 2012 Scarborough standoff and the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard — which had expectedly pushed nerves to the limit. But cases of poaching —notwithstanding their gravity — ought not to be blown out of proportion. Protocols in these cases are clear as diplomatic and legal processes are expected.
I explained to my radio audience the apparent exaggeration of this “tension” and we seemed to have a consensus. Philippine and Western mainstream media, in sync with the US State Department, are prone to stir up the same tempests in teacups when it comes to the China Sea issues. This tendency escalated after the “Asia pivot,” which the US announced over three years ago, raising more justification for US involvement in the region.

I did a quick research into such cases of arrests, and on the Internet I found that the Philippines’ arrests of Chinese fishermen since the 1990s numbered many, many more than reports of Chinese authorities arresting Filipino fishermen, of which I found only one.

The almost simultaneous case of the ship-ramming encounters between Chinese and Vietnamese maritime vessels at the Paracels is different. The Chinese side is moving a $1-billion oil rig into what it deems as “indisputable” Chinese territory 50 kilometers off the closest Chinese Shisha islands but 150 kilometers off the closest Vietnamese reference points. Higher officials on both sides have called for dialog to resolve the issue peacefully, although the ships of both sides are in what seems to be a “Mexican standoff” for now. That the Chinese have reiterated their desire for dialog indicates that it would not be obstinate. Shouldn’t mutual development of the resources of the area be the solution?

Brinkmanship is part of the strategy in negotiations, which both China and Vietnam are employing in their ongoing face-off. At stake may be billions of dollars of revenues from the natural wealth of the China Sea for the two parties. We hope the two sides are careful not to draw blood and, especially, not to fire anything more than water cannons at each other. At this juncture, they are avoiding what seems to be the easy habit of Philippine Coast Guard and naval personnel of being trigger happy, as was proven in the killing of the Taiwanese fisherman and now in the arrest of 11 Chinese fishermen, who yielded after supposed guns were fired in the air (or at them, as alleged, which should be investigated).

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meeting in Myanmar will be on its second working day when this column sees print. It would not be a surprise if the two incidents above happened in connection with this conference. Philippine mainstream media, reflecting the Aquino government’s strategy, created the impression, reflected in the prime establishment newspaper, the Inquirer, that “China tops Asean agenda” when, in fact, it is merely BS Aquino and his Foreign Affairs and Defense secretaries’ top agenda — not the Asean’s as a whole.

If anything, what the arrest of these Chinese fishermen will allow is for the Philippine side to raise the matter of a “joint” declaration on disputes over the China Sea, which it did not get in the last Asean meeting.

Vietnam and China are into negotiations without needing the intercession of any other international or regional bodies. Given the record of both China and Vietnam in resolving their most difficult issues, such as the border disputes that had led to military clashes some decades ago, but culminating today in cooperative efforts such as the Kunming-Hanoi road projects, it leads us to hope that the “oil rig” issue will be resolved peacefully and constructively for both.
On the other hand, relations and issues between China and the Philippines are another matter since the latter still refuses to engage in bilateral negotiations and insists on internationalizing the issue involving extraneous parties.

BS Aquino’s government is intent on raising the tempest in the teapot of the China Sea while unconcerned about the real tempest roiling with 100 million Filipinos who are experiencing or witnessing the following: 1) excruciating Mindanao power blackouts created deliberately by BS Aquino to enforce exorbitant, price-gouging power rates by the oligarchs; 2) increasing onerous taxes from Kim Henares sucking in professionals, as well as street vendors and pedicab drivers; and 3) the withholding of the Napoles “list” linking BS Aquino, his cover-up artist “Lie-la Dilemma,” and administration stalwarts.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Power blackmail in Mindanao;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Taxes and Filipinos' psychosis

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 7, 2014 / Daily Tribune

Last May 4, the newspapers reported an International Monetary Fund (IMF) advice to the Philippines: Widen the Philippine government’s tax revenue base.

Shanaka Jayanath Peiris, the IMF’s resident representative to the country, pushed for legislation to achieve this widening of the tax base “the sooner, the better.”
Peiris told reporters, “The tax to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio of the Philippines is still very low compared to other countries in the same level of development, and so for the tax to GDP to increase a lot, you probably need to broaden the base not only by administration but also changes in policies.”

Is high tax to GDP ratio the key to investments and progress? No. In the Philippines, the key is to lower high power rates to the region’s average. Peiris dispenses the usual IMF generalizations to divert from the real economic issues — and from alternatives that guarantee economic, industrial, and employment development.
The more important question is where our taxes go. If they’re not going to investment in the “hard industries” and public services, such as basic agro-industrial support projects (import-substituting fertilizers, steel, energy, and other strategic industries), but only into needless debt service, public services privatization funding, or consumer products-addiction imports, then no development can happen.

The IMF wants to tax every sector as much as it can and as much as taxpayers can stand. IMF gofer Kim Henares started to get the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) serious in taxing professionals such as doctors and lawyers, though her success beyond the “shame campaign” is doubtful.

My family’s recent visits to the doctors were still not covered by receipts nor was the advice rendered by lawyers’ offices. For years, the various BIR chiefs, who have been “seconded” from the IMF, have salivated over extending taxation to taxi drivers, street vendors, as well as tricycle drivers and operators. The latest news release of the IMF is a reminder to the government of its desire to tax these sectors.

The IMF wants to extract taxes from the “informal economy” which comprises at least 61 percent of the economy, or as high as 80 percent — even if the informal sector is already heavily taxed. The expanded Value Added Tax (eVAT) is already shouldered by small vendors or drivers whenever they purchase necessities for their micro-livelihood, such as cooking oil for their banana-cue or gasoline for their tricycles. Still, the IMF and Henares want to tax the income of these hand-to-mouth self-employed workers. Philippine eVAT is at 12 percent, compared to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia at 10 percent; Singapore and Thailand at 7 percent; and Taiwan at 5 percent. We have the highest corporate income tax and among the highest personal income tax.

The IMF is a US creation, one of the spokes of the global financial hub that turns the wheels of today’s financial world. It is a world already exposed as the fountainhead of corruption in the 2008 Wall Street financial collapse, then propped up by public tax increases and extractions by austerity to fund the Quantitative Easing policy; London Interbank Offered Rate manipulation; and the multi-billion fines on Citibank, JP Morgan, and HSBC for cheating depositors and investors, both private and institutional.

The Hub of the hub is the Bank of International Settlements, where policies are made for progressively centralizing all banking in the hands of the few Western banking families.

When we read that Filipinos admire the US government more than the US population itself, we get exasperated. How dumb can the Filipino people get?
At a media kapihan where the moderator, panel, and audience focused all their rage against China’s alleged “aggression” and pinned their frustrated hope on Obama, I countered by explaining the ceaseless political and economic abuses, as well as the oppression and exploitation of this country by the US. I lamented the “bobong Pinoy,” but the audience thought I referred only to BS Aquino and Malacañang, even though I was clearly referring to the vast majority of Filipinos, including many of them at that kapihan, still admiring and relying on the US.

Twenty-five years ago, James Fallows wrote that which Filipinos have is a damaged culture. He was being kind. Filipinos suffer a national psychosis — one that leads to loss of contact with reality, which makes them unable to see that the US is punishing them economically, financially, and politically without end, and one that makes them even love their tormentor.

How does one cure this insanity—induced by a cultural DNA mutated by 100 years old of US and neocolonialism, by mainstream media’s hallucinatory reportage, alongside delusionary TV and cinema, pitiful Americanized FM radio, as well as health and wealth religious groups, ad nausea? Shock therapy can be helpful. The IMF was behind the original VAT, then the eVAT (now the highest in Southeast Asia), which raised the cost of fuel, electricity, food, medicine, and other commodities in the Asian region. Let another round of spikes in these prices shock the people again.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Pork and DAP exposés” with Sandra Cam, Argee Guevarra et al.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)