DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/20/2010
Nowhere can a Filipino find more bunk in this bunk rich land than at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which again boasts of an expansion in the country’s gross international reserves when the value of the currency it keeps is in danger of imminent massive crash. That means Filipinos will be holding close to $50 billion of worthless bunk, or US T-bills, when the music stops. But do Tetangco, Guinigundo, Paderanga et al. give a hoot? Would they even bother with the thought of more Filipinos finding themselves in the poorhouse once the dollar crash descends upon the world, since they are paid tens of millions anyway to keep the farce alive? Quite simply, this kind of bunk, in tandem with the Department of Finance (DoF)’s peso bonds, will be our final ruin.
A whole spectrum of financial and currency analysts, as well as scholars — from renowned economists such as New York University Professor Noriel Roubini to similarly prestigious Mark Solomon — have already projected the dollar crash between now and the middle of 2011.
According to Roubini, “If markets were to believe, and I’m not saying it’s likely, that inflation is going to be the route that the US is going to take to resolve this problem, then you could have a crash of the value of the dollar… The value of the dollar over time has to fall on a trade-weighted basis, but not necessarily relative to euro and yen.”
Solomon adds, “…a 20-percent drop in the value of either a stock or financial holding over a period of time is considered a crash. The US dollar already crashed from 120 on the USDX down to its current level of 75. This 45-point drop, or roughly 33-percent drop, over several years, meets the definition of a crash.”
A growing number of Filipinos who are becoming aware of this but still cannot do anything, as the Aquino government is simply clueless as can be, must therefore keep on educating fellow Filipinos on this.
Last week the Japanese Central Bank intervened by buying up dollars to support it. Take this news two days ago: “Japan props up dollar for first time since 2004… for the first time in six years, selling the yen to buy dollars. It follows a surge in the value of the Japanese currency to a 15-year peak which was spooking business leaders worried about its effects on exports…”
The BSP, in turn, is building up precarious US dollars while the DoF issues more debts in the $1-billion peso bonds, which are inevitably dollar debts because all of its transactions will still be in dollars. Despite the DoF’s Foolish-ima spin, the Philippine peso is not of reserve quality anywhere.
At the same time, Malacañang’s P15-billion public-private partnership (PPP) projects which are really taxpayer-driven, will give sovereign guarantee funds again to the plutocrats and US crony capitalists, who are now boosting the local stock market.
Foreign portfolio investors always smell easy, quick, and gargantuan profits whenever PPP-type projects in power, water, infrastructure (such as tollways), etc. are given special financial packages guaranteed with taxpayers’ and consumers’ money.
These inelastic or unavoidably necessary public utilities, which used to be a right of any citizen and provided free or for the most minimal of costs since the public funded them, were, under the Yellows’ political-economic philosophy beginning with Cory Aquino, converted into profiteering opportunities for private enterprises, with complete disregard for public welfare and development. For this reason, state revenues will continue to dwindle and public institutions will have to rely more and more on other means to survive.
These economic and financial policies are directly connected to such issues as the current “Juetengate” bedeviling the new Aquino. Jueteng is now the only source of funds for the Philippine National Police (PNP) top brass to maintain a lifestyle befitting of members of the ruling class. After all, what’s all the hardship for if not to give them the wherewithal to put their children into exclusives schools, travel on European junkets, and have the latest cars and the money to run for elections? Aren’t most members of the ruling class living it up, say, on the sinecure of a congressman’s “pork barrel,” which come from debts such as the Foolish-ima peso bonds, which in turn increase the state’s penury and inability to sustain itself?
PeNoy Aquino knows the realities of life in government; he has seen it all since childhood. Surely, he’s not about to start a rebellion in the police brass by really cracking down on that illegal numbers game.
Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s campaign against the “immoral” jueteng is also a bunk-load in the contradiction that he personally faces for not condemning all forms of gambling such as church bingos, raffles, sharing in horse racing proceeds, and legalized gambling that impoverish and break up families. And if he condemns jueteng because it is illegal, then it is another contradiction for him not to endorse its legalization.
Contradictions make for a lot of bunk; so does hypocrisy; even fraud. Although some priests can almost beat the Bunk-O Sentral ng Pilipinas in its amount of bunk, in the end, the financial sector still beats ‘em all. With the help of controlled mainstream media, many Filipinos still unconsciously swallow them in leaps and bounds. This space, however, will continue to try its darn best to expose the bunk to save our fellow citizens from it.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Honorable Capt. Gary Alejano’s struggle
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/17/2010
When I watched the farcical Senate, with the likes of Joker Arroyo faulting media’s work in the hostage crisis, and read such do-nothing solons criticizing our colleagues Michael Rogas of RMN and the TV crews, I can only thank media for risking life and limb to get the full story or else the tales of the dead hostages and Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza may never have come to light — this, as the highest officials of the land are still trying to cover up their dark motives, siopao predilections, and gross incompetence.
Media need not apologize; the authorities failed to direct the scene in every way. But as I watch these farces, I remember the real struggle of a few good men of idealism and vision, continuing their fight for justice and social change despite the absence of media’s klieg lights: Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, still in unjust detention, and Capt. Gary Alejano, who won the mayorship of Sipalay, Negros Occidental but was Hocus-PCOSed and now fights for a manual recount.
Media should pay more attention to these real struggles, as these people are the ones who can make the difference. In fact, the women behind these warriors are as dedicated and visionary, too: Arlene Trillanes, once a military officer in her own right, and Minnie Alejano, who carried the campaign when Gary was in detention. The public knows much more about Senator Trillanes than they do about Gary Alejano. The latter is a young Marine officer who abandoned the much-coveted Medal of Valor Award almost eight years ago on the day he chose to join the Bagong Katipuneros’ march to Oakwood to make a stand for change by condemning corruption in the military and beyond. In all these years, Alejano’s twin girls only grew up visiting and playing with him inside the Fort Bonifacio brig and later the Camp Crame detention center.
Capt. Gary Alejano’s aborted Medal of Valor was based on his rescue of a team of soldiers from another unit trapped and under severe threat from enemy combatants in an encounter along the Narciso Ramos Highway, which connects Marawi and Parang to Cotabato. The Medal of Valor is the highest, most prestigious, and most coveted honor given to any member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines for “acts of conspicuous gallantry” and a deed “of personal bravery and self-sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty so conspicuous as to distinguish himself clearly above his comrades in the performance of more than ordinary hazardous service.”
Gary, whom I have come to know well since his detention in 2003, exhibits truly heroic humor and equanimity in the face of the worst possible crises, as I have witnessed when I was arrested and detained with him after the Manila Peninsula stand-off at Camp Crame.
Candidate Alejano ran in the last elections, along with fellow Magdalo partymates in other parts of the country, such as Navy Seal Lt. James Layug, Army Capt. Dante Langkit and Lt. Ace Acedillo, who ran for congressional seats in Taguig, Kalinga, and Cebu, respectively. Even though Magdalo was not accredited as a party despite its track record as a national organization of around 85,000 card carrying members to date, these four gentlemen still had the fortitude to run as independents.
By all accounts, Alejano won in his bid for the mayorship of Sipalay, a city which he has great vision for — a vision that inspired his constituents to come together to vote for him in the hope of freeing their beloved place from the monopoly of the Montilla dynasty that prevents the full development of tourism and mining potentials there.
On election day itself, the camp of the Montillas had already become mournful. Their impending debacle became clearly written on the wall. Eight of 10 “deacons” of a religious sect had joined the campaign of Alejano despite the promise of money and threat of expulsion from their church. Volunteer campaign workers for Alejano had swelled the ranks, and nothing stood in the way of a people’s victory over the old dynasty.
The mood in the other camp only turned for the better when rumor filtered out from their headquarters that they had found the “fix” to deliver the “winning” votes. Alas, as in so many areas of the country, such as in the premier city of Manila, where candidate Lito Atienza is now engaged in a recount of the Hocus-PCOS votes, the issue of manipulated voting machines reared its ugly head.
Alejano has filed a protest with the Commission on Elections, calling for a recount, and is still being asked to fork over P235,000. That is not an amount easy to come by; yet he is determined to push through with the recount to prove the election anomaly — in the interest of future election exercises which would become meaningless if the Hocus-PCOS is allowed to wreak havoc again. I have joined Alejano’s struggle to obtain this manual recount of votes, to prove the Hocus-PCOS fraud and seat the rightful and deserving leader in place.
Contributions to Alejano’s “Election Protest Fund” can be sent directly to Gary Alejano, Samahang Magdalo HQ, 2/F Timog Bldg., Barangay South Triangle, Quezon City. I am also doing the rounds of friends and supporters personally to raise funds for this cause. Please help restore our democracy; let’s each do our share.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics (and Economics) Today, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/17/2010
When I watched the farcical Senate, with the likes of Joker Arroyo faulting media’s work in the hostage crisis, and read such do-nothing solons criticizing our colleagues Michael Rogas of RMN and the TV crews, I can only thank media for risking life and limb to get the full story or else the tales of the dead hostages and Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza may never have come to light — this, as the highest officials of the land are still trying to cover up their dark motives, siopao predilections, and gross incompetence.
Media need not apologize; the authorities failed to direct the scene in every way. But as I watch these farces, I remember the real struggle of a few good men of idealism and vision, continuing their fight for justice and social change despite the absence of media’s klieg lights: Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, still in unjust detention, and Capt. Gary Alejano, who won the mayorship of Sipalay, Negros Occidental but was Hocus-PCOSed and now fights for a manual recount.
Media should pay more attention to these real struggles, as these people are the ones who can make the difference. In fact, the women behind these warriors are as dedicated and visionary, too: Arlene Trillanes, once a military officer in her own right, and Minnie Alejano, who carried the campaign when Gary was in detention. The public knows much more about Senator Trillanes than they do about Gary Alejano. The latter is a young Marine officer who abandoned the much-coveted Medal of Valor Award almost eight years ago on the day he chose to join the Bagong Katipuneros’ march to Oakwood to make a stand for change by condemning corruption in the military and beyond. In all these years, Alejano’s twin girls only grew up visiting and playing with him inside the Fort Bonifacio brig and later the Camp Crame detention center.
Capt. Gary Alejano’s aborted Medal of Valor was based on his rescue of a team of soldiers from another unit trapped and under severe threat from enemy combatants in an encounter along the Narciso Ramos Highway, which connects Marawi and Parang to Cotabato. The Medal of Valor is the highest, most prestigious, and most coveted honor given to any member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines for “acts of conspicuous gallantry” and a deed “of personal bravery and self-sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty so conspicuous as to distinguish himself clearly above his comrades in the performance of more than ordinary hazardous service.”
Gary, whom I have come to know well since his detention in 2003, exhibits truly heroic humor and equanimity in the face of the worst possible crises, as I have witnessed when I was arrested and detained with him after the Manila Peninsula stand-off at Camp Crame.
Candidate Alejano ran in the last elections, along with fellow Magdalo partymates in other parts of the country, such as Navy Seal Lt. James Layug, Army Capt. Dante Langkit and Lt. Ace Acedillo, who ran for congressional seats in Taguig, Kalinga, and Cebu, respectively. Even though Magdalo was not accredited as a party despite its track record as a national organization of around 85,000 card carrying members to date, these four gentlemen still had the fortitude to run as independents.
By all accounts, Alejano won in his bid for the mayorship of Sipalay, a city which he has great vision for — a vision that inspired his constituents to come together to vote for him in the hope of freeing their beloved place from the monopoly of the Montilla dynasty that prevents the full development of tourism and mining potentials there.
On election day itself, the camp of the Montillas had already become mournful. Their impending debacle became clearly written on the wall. Eight of 10 “deacons” of a religious sect had joined the campaign of Alejano despite the promise of money and threat of expulsion from their church. Volunteer campaign workers for Alejano had swelled the ranks, and nothing stood in the way of a people’s victory over the old dynasty.
The mood in the other camp only turned for the better when rumor filtered out from their headquarters that they had found the “fix” to deliver the “winning” votes. Alas, as in so many areas of the country, such as in the premier city of Manila, where candidate Lito Atienza is now engaged in a recount of the Hocus-PCOS votes, the issue of manipulated voting machines reared its ugly head.
Alejano has filed a protest with the Commission on Elections, calling for a recount, and is still being asked to fork over P235,000. That is not an amount easy to come by; yet he is determined to push through with the recount to prove the election anomaly — in the interest of future election exercises which would become meaningless if the Hocus-PCOS is allowed to wreak havoc again. I have joined Alejano’s struggle to obtain this manual recount of votes, to prove the Hocus-PCOS fraud and seat the rightful and deserving leader in place.
Contributions to Alejano’s “Election Protest Fund” can be sent directly to Gary Alejano, Samahang Magdalo HQ, 2/F Timog Bldg., Barangay South Triangle, Quezon City. I am also doing the rounds of friends and supporters personally to raise funds for this cause. Please help restore our democracy; let’s each do our share.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics (and Economics) Today, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, September 13, 2010
The DoF’s ‘Foolish-ima’
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/13/2010
As always, great horn-blowing accompanies the latest multi-billion peso borrowing announced by PeNoy Aquino’s Finance chief. Cesar Purisima clearly hopes this will drown out objective and critical analysis of the P44.1 billion in new loans added to the already enormous P4.6-trillion national government debt stock and our total debt of about P7 trillion. One headline even quotes the Hyatt 10 balik-secretary describing the oversubscribed issue as a “landslide vote of confidence,” the “first peso-denominated bond outside the country,” a “milestone,” and “the first time an Asian country conducted a float using its own currency.”
By real honest standards, however, forensic financial analyst Hero Vaswani of the Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya explains that there is nothing really great about it. If anything, that huge borrowing is merely evidence that the Philippine economy is unable to generate revenues, and that the government still has to borrow to finance its operations, despite claims of a 7.9-percent GDP growth.
A debt is a debt. Yet Purisima says the peso bond issuance “is the latest development in the (country’s) financing program in support of the government’s proactive management of external liabilities, particularly with respect to reducing its vulnerability to foreign currency risks.”
But isn’t it really just the foreign financial syndicates’ way of avoiding the volatility of the US dollar by tying up a debtor country to an exchange rate for the bond? So far, only the weak and unstable countries, such as Colombia in South America, have become suckers to this scheme of issuing local currency bonds.
National Treasurer Roberto Tan even supported the new peso bond debt, saying it would “enhance the government’s debt investor profile,” despite past examples of investor profiles given to countries such as Greece that have shown the scoring by the financial ratings agencies to be really meaningless.
Even as Purisima boasts that the peso bond issuance was oversubscribed 13 times, we ask: Isn’t this oversubscription just a symptom of the hard times in the western economies? The US is facing an on-going “low intensity depression” and its policymakers have already pumped trillions of dollars into the system, leading to desperation on where to park the overflowing financial assets.
Further, Vaswani explains that the US is lending at practically zero interest; which is why so-called “investors” have started to use this to buy Third World debt earning upwards of 5 percent. This reminds me of the “petrodollars” 40 years ago when US dollars overflowed after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries required oil to be traded only in that currency, as the Middle East crises (of created wars and oil embargoes) exploded oil prices from $15/bbl to almost $90/bbl (adjusted to 2008 dollar values). Trillions of US dollars then had to be recycled by finagling or forcing Third World countries to swallow a lot of un-payable loans.
Purisima is simply doing what all his predecessors have done: Increasing our debt; failing to raise revenues for government; and relying on new debts to finance the growing national budget with its increasing annual deficit-spending. The two months under the PeNoy administration has not brought about new ideas for generating greater revenues without imposing new taxes and other pains onto the public. Hence, the imbroglio over the value-added tax (VAT) on tollways, the raising of MRT fares, and now, the removal of the senior citizens’ VAT exemptions, which came out in the news just last Sept. 9.
Where then is the much-vaunted “anti-corruption dividend,” where savings from cleaning up waste from graft and corruption are supposed to make up for the deficits and fulfill the “no new taxes” pledge from PeNoy’s election campaign?
The plain truth is, the Philippines will never be able to break loose from the tightening strangle of the “debt trap” because every administration since the February 1986 elite counter-revolution (with the sole exception of Erap Estrada) had all been against the national economic development paradigm of Ferdinand Marcos.
After Cory Aquino took over, state revenues and the people’s wealth — as directed by the US State Department and Makati Business Club — were aggressively transferred to the oligarchy through trade liberalization (jumpstarted by Cory and Bobby Tañada’s removal of 3,000 items from tariff protection); privatization and deregulation of strategic industries and public utilities (Meralco, Petron, Napocor, etc.); and reversal of progressive income taxation through the institution of the regressive VAT system.
It went on through Fidel Ramos and peaked under Gloria Arroyo, where Big Business raked in P3 trillion in profits in just nine years!
To stop this bloodletting, the people must wrest power away from the oligarchy and put a genuinely democratic leadership in place. Unless PeNoy undergoes a miraculous transformation and becomes truly Pinoy — no longer for and of the US and the Makati Business Club — Filipinos will have to continue their search for genuine nationalist and patriotic leadership. It could be still by elections, if we can stop the future use of those Hocus-PCOS machines, or it can well be by other means, which may prove feasible when the time comes.
In the meantime, let’s continue to expose what the current Finance secretary is really doing in contracting all these new debts — whether in peso, dollar, euro, or yen. Debts in any currency are just the same old financial foolishness. Right, Mr. Foolish-ima?
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics (and Economics) Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http:hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/13/2010
As always, great horn-blowing accompanies the latest multi-billion peso borrowing announced by PeNoy Aquino’s Finance chief. Cesar Purisima clearly hopes this will drown out objective and critical analysis of the P44.1 billion in new loans added to the already enormous P4.6-trillion national government debt stock and our total debt of about P7 trillion. One headline even quotes the Hyatt 10 balik-secretary describing the oversubscribed issue as a “landslide vote of confidence,” the “first peso-denominated bond outside the country,” a “milestone,” and “the first time an Asian country conducted a float using its own currency.”
By real honest standards, however, forensic financial analyst Hero Vaswani of the Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya explains that there is nothing really great about it. If anything, that huge borrowing is merely evidence that the Philippine economy is unable to generate revenues, and that the government still has to borrow to finance its operations, despite claims of a 7.9-percent GDP growth.
A debt is a debt. Yet Purisima says the peso bond issuance “is the latest development in the (country’s) financing program in support of the government’s proactive management of external liabilities, particularly with respect to reducing its vulnerability to foreign currency risks.”
But isn’t it really just the foreign financial syndicates’ way of avoiding the volatility of the US dollar by tying up a debtor country to an exchange rate for the bond? So far, only the weak and unstable countries, such as Colombia in South America, have become suckers to this scheme of issuing local currency bonds.
National Treasurer Roberto Tan even supported the new peso bond debt, saying it would “enhance the government’s debt investor profile,” despite past examples of investor profiles given to countries such as Greece that have shown the scoring by the financial ratings agencies to be really meaningless.
Even as Purisima boasts that the peso bond issuance was oversubscribed 13 times, we ask: Isn’t this oversubscription just a symptom of the hard times in the western economies? The US is facing an on-going “low intensity depression” and its policymakers have already pumped trillions of dollars into the system, leading to desperation on where to park the overflowing financial assets.
Further, Vaswani explains that the US is lending at practically zero interest; which is why so-called “investors” have started to use this to buy Third World debt earning upwards of 5 percent. This reminds me of the “petrodollars” 40 years ago when US dollars overflowed after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries required oil to be traded only in that currency, as the Middle East crises (of created wars and oil embargoes) exploded oil prices from $15/bbl to almost $90/bbl (adjusted to 2008 dollar values). Trillions of US dollars then had to be recycled by finagling or forcing Third World countries to swallow a lot of un-payable loans.
Purisima is simply doing what all his predecessors have done: Increasing our debt; failing to raise revenues for government; and relying on new debts to finance the growing national budget with its increasing annual deficit-spending. The two months under the PeNoy administration has not brought about new ideas for generating greater revenues without imposing new taxes and other pains onto the public. Hence, the imbroglio over the value-added tax (VAT) on tollways, the raising of MRT fares, and now, the removal of the senior citizens’ VAT exemptions, which came out in the news just last Sept. 9.
Where then is the much-vaunted “anti-corruption dividend,” where savings from cleaning up waste from graft and corruption are supposed to make up for the deficits and fulfill the “no new taxes” pledge from PeNoy’s election campaign?
The plain truth is, the Philippines will never be able to break loose from the tightening strangle of the “debt trap” because every administration since the February 1986 elite counter-revolution (with the sole exception of Erap Estrada) had all been against the national economic development paradigm of Ferdinand Marcos.
After Cory Aquino took over, state revenues and the people’s wealth — as directed by the US State Department and Makati Business Club — were aggressively transferred to the oligarchy through trade liberalization (jumpstarted by Cory and Bobby Tañada’s removal of 3,000 items from tariff protection); privatization and deregulation of strategic industries and public utilities (Meralco, Petron, Napocor, etc.); and reversal of progressive income taxation through the institution of the regressive VAT system.
It went on through Fidel Ramos and peaked under Gloria Arroyo, where Big Business raked in P3 trillion in profits in just nine years!
To stop this bloodletting, the people must wrest power away from the oligarchy and put a genuinely democratic leadership in place. Unless PeNoy undergoes a miraculous transformation and becomes truly Pinoy — no longer for and of the US and the Makati Business Club — Filipinos will have to continue their search for genuine nationalist and patriotic leadership. It could be still by elections, if we can stop the future use of those Hocus-PCOS machines, or it can well be by other means, which may prove feasible when the time comes.
In the meantime, let’s continue to expose what the current Finance secretary is really doing in contracting all these new debts — whether in peso, dollar, euro, or yen. Debts in any currency are just the same old financial foolishness. Right, Mr. Foolish-ima?
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics (and Economics) Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http:hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
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