We need a good 'coup'
(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 08-04-2014 MON)
Why is most of the newspaper reportage on Sen. Sonny Trillanes'
comments on the possibility of a coup against BS Aquino skewed to the
negative? Is it because "mainstream media," which comprise most of
the broadsheets owned and run by those who have a stake in the
prevailing system, have a vested, self-serving interest to preserve
the current political-economic order in Philippine society?
Could it be that, just like their principals or alter egos in Big
Business, those in control of the information gateway would not want a
sudden change that could threaten their proximity to power, which only
a coup can bring?
I certainly want change in the Philippines, ASAP, as most Filipinos
do. This is why symbols of change are very popular in the country,
like the sensation that "Juana Change" has become at rallies,
demonstrations, and over social media.
Juana Change, as a character, has become a potent symbol, even though
the call for change has had far more profound advocates antedating
Juana by half-a-century, such as Renato Constantino or Alejandro
Lichauco--both nationalist intellectuals. The problem, though, with
the Juana Change genre is it dwells on forms and not essences, the
superficial and not the roots.
The Juana Change campaigns against political dynasties and the PDAF
(although not all are against the DAP) perennially flail against
"martial law" and "dictatorship," crying out for freedom and
democracy, but fail to go deeper into the real dynasties, the real
corruption, the real martial law and dictatorship, or the rhinestone
freedom and democracy that they claim to at least enjoy under the
present system.
That's why that type of reformism of the Yellows, resurgent after Edsa
Uno, has not brought about any change in their 25 years of being the
dominant "civil society" power.
Edsa Uno and the Yellow types have, in fact, worsened the situation of
the country and its people. Where before electricity, water, toll
fees, and housing provisions were affordable, if not cheap, under the
authoritarian government committed to national development, the
Yellows had condemned all these in favor of the prevailing system: the
authoritarianism of money for, of, and by the oligarchy and the
foreign powers behind it (the USA and its global plutocrats) in
extracting their gargantuan share of the nation's wealth through
enforced national debt, privatization, hiking of all prices, etc.
Forces from both the Left and the Right call for revolution. The
former promotes a people's revolution whereas the latter merely
subverts it through the various "color," "flower," or "season"
revolutions, as what we had witnessed with the Yellow Edsa Uno,
Georgia's Rose Revolution, or Egypt's Arab Spring--all with strong
backing from the National Endowment for Democracy, a US Central
Intelligence Agency adjunct.
The Left's revolution takes a lot more time and needs a confluence of
events to neutralize the foreign power's control, neither of which
Filipinos have time for before the total collapse of Philippine
society. That was what Thailand was facing just a few months ago
before the Thai military took over and stabilized the situation.
Unfortunately for the Thais, the military coup that took over kowtows
to their traditional ruling powers, where there will be no serious
structural change, no matter how thankful they might be for the
temporary restoration of order.
There can be better combinations of coups and counter-coups, which are
really one and the same species of political-military moves for
change. The coup and counter-coup of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela from
1992 to 2002, for instance, jumpstarted political and electoral
victories against US-oligarchic control in Venezuela and allowed the
nationalization of that country's oil resources, which are now devoted
to the welfare of the people.
Hugo Chavez had an intellectually developed core of military officers
guided by Bolivarianism and other progressive ideologies, and allied
with social movements. I know that Alejandro "Ding" Lichauco is an
admirer of the late leader. Renato Constantino, who passed away in
1999 and did not live to see the victory of Chavismo, would have
admired him too.
I would like to see a Chavismo group in the Philippines, participated
in by officers allied to a broad range of progressive movements who
will institute the following upon the completion of a successful
seizure of power:
1) The establishment of a "Constitutional Transition Government" as
preached by former Misamis Oriental governor Homobono Adaza, as well
as a National Unity council comprising all institutional stakeholders;
2) The restoration of basic utility services to public ownership and
control that will cut power and water rates radically to redistribute
the wealth monopolized by oligarchs to consumers themselves;
3) The postponement of elections until the Commission on Elections is
cleaned up and manual voting and precinct counting is restored, and
the scheduling of new elections within one year;
4) The renegotiation all national debt where immediate pay-offs shall
be made that will also lead to the removal of the nefarious Value
Added Tax system.
Juana Change, maybe when properly enlightened, can transform to Juana
Coup. That would take that genre of reformism one step higher.
In light of the Yellow Establishment domination of the current power
structure, people should ask themselves why "Yellow coups" such as
Edsa Uno and Edsa Dos are praised, while the others are despised by
mainstream media.
It's a pity Edsa Tres was aborted; we could have already seen real change then.
(Watch GNN 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.; tune in to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.;
search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Monday, August 4, 2014
Monday, July 7, 2014
P347-billion added debt burden
DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / July 7, 2014 / Daily Tribune
National government debt increased year-on-year in May by P347 billion or 6.57 percent. Gloria Arroyo left the country a P4.9-trillion debt. BS Aquino’s now stands at P5.6 trillion.
This debt is unnecessary in light of the huge amounts wasted in the so-called BS Aquino Disbursement Acceleration Program cum presidential “pork barrel” (BADAP) or on Congress’ wastage of P35 billion last year passing only one law postponing the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
This is especially so considering the country’s over $20 billion in foreign exchange surplus or its Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) of P1.7 trillion ($ 40 billion) costing 2.5 percent to keep idle, or BS Aquino’s June 2012 boast of lending $1 billion to help keep the Eurozone afloat.
Taking all that into account, does it still make sense for the Philippines to continue growing its debt principal and interest? No!
The Philippines continues to borrow “only” because of subservience to the US-led Western financial-political mafia. As domestic banks get 70 percent of such borrowings, so too are local banks exploiting the people in this unnecessary debt.
The global banking mafia has had, and continues to make, many impositions deleterious to the country, one of which is the invasion of foreign capital into our rural banks, which will result in control by these global “too-big-to-fail” banks that had brought about regular financial collapses such as the 2008 financial meltdown.
The only alternative to this cycle of financial looting is People’s or National Banking, which is part of the broader monetary system in its many forms, from cooperative banks to nationalized or government dominated banks, to the modern evolution called “crypto-currencies.”
This is the banking system of the main economic tigers of Asia, namely, China, Vietnam, Singapore, etc. The people create the wealth and the surplus and savings out of it are lent to projects that benefit the people in a perpetual cycle of enriching people’s communities instead of private bankers.
There is no opposition from the Philippine establishment, i.e. the present ruling class of corrupt politicians and financial mafias (or banks) with interlocking ownership by mega-corporations, because the present financial-political-economic system benefits only them and excludes the people (the middle class and the masses).
BADAP and legislative “pork” are just the share of the system’s political cronies to keep the present system going. Hence, there will eventually be a resurrection of BADAP and “pork” if the present system is to survive, which the powers-that-be are determined to do — unless, there is genuine change or revolution.
Revolution (peaceful desirably) is possible only if the ideological foundation of the prevailing system is undermined, by bringing to light values of right and wrong in matters such as ownership of the nation’s common wealth (land, capital-financial system, public utilities) or of public vs private ownership and control of such resources.
Without such public ownership or control (especially of the financial system), a government dedicated to the peoples’ welfare will never have the wherewithal to serve them. Instead, a government controlled by private wealth will only protect private wealth and grow more private wealth — exactly the situation we have today.
Congressional “pork” was allegedly diverted to the personal coffers of Janet Lim-Napoles and various politicians. But BADAP, now revealed, was used by BS Aquino to rid the Supreme Court (SC) of Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was an obstacle to the Aquino-Cojuangco clan’s desire of obtaining a P10-billion (instead of P490-million) government compensation for the distribution to farmers of Hacienda Luisita.
Unable to skirt clear constitutional separation-of-powers provisions, the current SC struck down BADAP but gave BS Aquino an escape hatch, mindful of his possible retaliation on the high court’s own “pork,” the Judiciary Development Fund.
The Makati Business Club’s “Coalition Against Corruption” made a call to abolish the P25-billion congressional “pork barrel,” but “pork” goes all the way down to the city council level. Moreover, “pork” is public funds meant for public good, too.
But what about the P5.67-trillion debt, 70 percent of which goes to domestic banks and 30 percent to foreign banks? Where do these banks get the money to lend government from which they charge taxpayers interest? Renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith says, “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
Positive Money cites from England, “Where does money come from? In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood. The principal way in which they are created is through commercial banks making loans: whenever a bank makes a loan, it creates a deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.”
The loans banks issue (including to governments) create bank assets, from which they can loan money out again, ad infinitum. We are taxed to pay the interest to them.
Why don’t the people earn the interest by being the bankers themselves — through publicly-owned People’s or National Banks?
Napoles and company are certainly no match for the Ponzi schemes of the private banking mafia.
(Watch GNN 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 “New PCA vs Cocolisap”; tune in to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
National government debt increased year-on-year in May by P347 billion or 6.57 percent. Gloria Arroyo left the country a P4.9-trillion debt. BS Aquino’s now stands at P5.6 trillion.
This debt is unnecessary in light of the huge amounts wasted in the so-called BS Aquino Disbursement Acceleration Program cum presidential “pork barrel” (BADAP) or on Congress’ wastage of P35 billion last year passing only one law postponing the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
This is especially so considering the country’s over $20 billion in foreign exchange surplus or its Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) of P1.7 trillion ($ 40 billion) costing 2.5 percent to keep idle, or BS Aquino’s June 2012 boast of lending $1 billion to help keep the Eurozone afloat.
Taking all that into account, does it still make sense for the Philippines to continue growing its debt principal and interest? No!
The Philippines continues to borrow “only” because of subservience to the US-led Western financial-political mafia. As domestic banks get 70 percent of such borrowings, so too are local banks exploiting the people in this unnecessary debt.
The global banking mafia has had, and continues to make, many impositions deleterious to the country, one of which is the invasion of foreign capital into our rural banks, which will result in control by these global “too-big-to-fail” banks that had brought about regular financial collapses such as the 2008 financial meltdown.
The only alternative to this cycle of financial looting is People’s or National Banking, which is part of the broader monetary system in its many forms, from cooperative banks to nationalized or government dominated banks, to the modern evolution called “crypto-currencies.”
This is the banking system of the main economic tigers of Asia, namely, China, Vietnam, Singapore, etc. The people create the wealth and the surplus and savings out of it are lent to projects that benefit the people in a perpetual cycle of enriching people’s communities instead of private bankers.
There is no opposition from the Philippine establishment, i.e. the present ruling class of corrupt politicians and financial mafias (or banks) with interlocking ownership by mega-corporations, because the present financial-political-economic system benefits only them and excludes the people (the middle class and the masses).
BADAP and legislative “pork” are just the share of the system’s political cronies to keep the present system going. Hence, there will eventually be a resurrection of BADAP and “pork” if the present system is to survive, which the powers-that-be are determined to do — unless, there is genuine change or revolution.
Revolution (peaceful desirably) is possible only if the ideological foundation of the prevailing system is undermined, by bringing to light values of right and wrong in matters such as ownership of the nation’s common wealth (land, capital-financial system, public utilities) or of public vs private ownership and control of such resources.
Without such public ownership or control (especially of the financial system), a government dedicated to the peoples’ welfare will never have the wherewithal to serve them. Instead, a government controlled by private wealth will only protect private wealth and grow more private wealth — exactly the situation we have today.
Congressional “pork” was allegedly diverted to the personal coffers of Janet Lim-Napoles and various politicians. But BADAP, now revealed, was used by BS Aquino to rid the Supreme Court (SC) of Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was an obstacle to the Aquino-Cojuangco clan’s desire of obtaining a P10-billion (instead of P490-million) government compensation for the distribution to farmers of Hacienda Luisita.
Unable to skirt clear constitutional separation-of-powers provisions, the current SC struck down BADAP but gave BS Aquino an escape hatch, mindful of his possible retaliation on the high court’s own “pork,” the Judiciary Development Fund.
The Makati Business Club’s “Coalition Against Corruption” made a call to abolish the P25-billion congressional “pork barrel,” but “pork” goes all the way down to the city council level. Moreover, “pork” is public funds meant for public good, too.
But what about the P5.67-trillion debt, 70 percent of which goes to domestic banks and 30 percent to foreign banks? Where do these banks get the money to lend government from which they charge taxpayers interest? Renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith says, “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
Positive Money cites from England, “Where does money come from? In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood. The principal way in which they are created is through commercial banks making loans: whenever a bank makes a loan, it creates a deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.”
The loans banks issue (including to governments) create bank assets, from which they can loan money out again, ad infinitum. We are taxed to pay the interest to them.
Why don’t the people earn the interest by being the bankers themselves — through publicly-owned People’s or National Banks?
Napoles and company are certainly no match for the Ponzi schemes of the private banking mafia.
(Watch GNN 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 “New PCA vs Cocolisap”; tune in to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
War-puppet regimes
DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / July 2, 2014 / Daily Tribune
I really want to refocus on several crucial domestic issues, such as the Melors (Manual Election or Revolution) call from one of our readers. That is a battle cry for this country cheated by the PCOS Smartmatic machines in 2010 and 2013. The need is highlighted today by presidential election candidate runaway leader VP Binay’s warning of “high tech election fraud in 2016.” Indeed, countries like Germany, Netherlands and Ireland have banned electronic or automated voting, many others have put them on hold or banned various aspects of it. Its two years to the next election, we have to begin the Melors campaign now.
However, something overshadows all the immediate domestic issues. The PCOS Smartmatic manipulations were possible because a power far greater that any local force caused the Smartmatic PCOS to be installed. When one really looks into it deeply one will see the US hand which controlled it. The machines in the 2010 and 2013 elections were Smartmatic but the software was from Dominion Voting Systems, a Denver based company today enjoying a seeming monopoly of automated voting technologies after it bought US companies Sequoia, Diebold, ES&S. Reporter Chris Flyod writing in Moscow Times described: “CIA-owned Voting Machines Ensure Bush Victory in 2004.”
The “US pivot” was first broached in 2009, during then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first trip to Asia. There followed three elections in the region that revealed the US hand in installing what would subsequently be the building of anti-China coalition with the US.
In September 2009 a new Japanese Prime Minister was elected on the basis of a pledge to remove the US Futenma base from the island of Okinawa. Nine months later PM Yukio Hatoyama resigned on the basis of his “failure” to deliver on that promise. Yoshihiko Noda succeeded Hatoyama in February 2011 and fell in December 2012 with only one memorable act — the nationalization of the Diaoyu or Senkaku islands.
The alleged reasons for the Noda cabinet’s resignation were its “failure to improve the economy and its perceived lack of strong leadership.” So why did the Japanese Diet oust Hatoyama when he was the Japanese leader who dared to do what the Okinawan and Japanese desired — the removal of US bases. The LDP’s Shinzo Abe, traditional US political enforcers since WWII replaced Noda and championed the removal of the “peace provisions” of the Japanese Constitution and pushed the “collective defense” for Japan to deploy troops with allies in “defense” of each other. US pressure and not Japanese electorates was behind Japan’s political changes.
Last June 29 a Japanese man committed self-immolation on an elevated railroad girder in Shinjuko district, protesting Shinzo Abe’s “collective defense” and military expansionist plans.
Our article “Two-faced US-Aquino-Abe” reported Japanese survey showing as much as 70 percent of Japanese opposed to Abe’s saber-rattling. “Abe-nomics” devalued the Yen, raised taxes and inflation but not consumption. Some Japanese are upset enough to commit fiery hara-kiri, yet Abe gets only praises form the West. Meanwhile, in South Korea, a petition to manually recount the results of the 2012 elections that installed Park Geun-hye has circulated on the Internet.
South Korea presidents have single term limit and hawkish. Rabid anti-North President Lee Myung-bak had to go in 2012. Major candidates to replace Lee were Moon Jae-in, human rights advocate, and former strongman Park Chung-hee’s daughter Park Guen-hye. South Korean voters manually stamp their votes followed by a machine count. As the petition for manual recount says, “The graphs representing the voter turnout and the votes earned for Mr. Moon and Ms. Park, measured over time, were consistently smooth to have occurred in real life… Only the graphs implied by the Formula of Logistic Function can produce such a beautiful, smooth curves.” Shades of 60-30-10!
US covert operations in its formerly directly occupied countries are bequeathed and “left behind” covert operators - those countries’ intelligence agencies. South Korea’s NIS (National Intelligence Service) is one such “left behind.” From various South Korea reports: “Since the Presidential elections... debate has continued over suspected election interference… The head Prosecutor has confirmed that from 2011 to December 2012, NIS employees of the Psychological Operations Group made 22 million tweets from 2270 Twitter accounts, tweets that were systematically posted… linked to interference in the presidential election and politics… postings praising or blasting specific parties or lawmakers…”
The Philippine Comelec’s removal of security measures from its Smartmatic PCOS machines, i.e. removal of vote receipt to teacher’s digital signatures, last minute switching of 80,000 CF cards, and Dominion Voting System’s non-delivery of the source code in both the 2010 and 2013 elections, ensured installation of US puppet leaders in Malacañang and the Senate. The few independent politicians who made it through are now being ousted for alleged “pork crimes.”
These had to happen before the crucial cha-cha that could change the Constitution and install a 2016 government that will be wholly controlled by the US and ally with the collective Asian war faction.
(1098AM, SWAD 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tues. to Fri.; GNN Talk New TV program, S “PCA versus Cocolisap”at. 8 p.m. and Sun. 8 a.m. on Destiny Cable channel 8 and SkyCable chn. 213 or www.gnntv-asia.com. or YouTube Talk News TV and add date; visit www.newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com)
I really want to refocus on several crucial domestic issues, such as the Melors (Manual Election or Revolution) call from one of our readers. That is a battle cry for this country cheated by the PCOS Smartmatic machines in 2010 and 2013. The need is highlighted today by presidential election candidate runaway leader VP Binay’s warning of “high tech election fraud in 2016.” Indeed, countries like Germany, Netherlands and Ireland have banned electronic or automated voting, many others have put them on hold or banned various aspects of it. Its two years to the next election, we have to begin the Melors campaign now.
However, something overshadows all the immediate domestic issues. The PCOS Smartmatic manipulations were possible because a power far greater that any local force caused the Smartmatic PCOS to be installed. When one really looks into it deeply one will see the US hand which controlled it. The machines in the 2010 and 2013 elections were Smartmatic but the software was from Dominion Voting Systems, a Denver based company today enjoying a seeming monopoly of automated voting technologies after it bought US companies Sequoia, Diebold, ES&S. Reporter Chris Flyod writing in Moscow Times described: “CIA-owned Voting Machines Ensure Bush Victory in 2004.”
The “US pivot” was first broached in 2009, during then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first trip to Asia. There followed three elections in the region that revealed the US hand in installing what would subsequently be the building of anti-China coalition with the US.
In September 2009 a new Japanese Prime Minister was elected on the basis of a pledge to remove the US Futenma base from the island of Okinawa. Nine months later PM Yukio Hatoyama resigned on the basis of his “failure” to deliver on that promise. Yoshihiko Noda succeeded Hatoyama in February 2011 and fell in December 2012 with only one memorable act — the nationalization of the Diaoyu or Senkaku islands.
The alleged reasons for the Noda cabinet’s resignation were its “failure to improve the economy and its perceived lack of strong leadership.” So why did the Japanese Diet oust Hatoyama when he was the Japanese leader who dared to do what the Okinawan and Japanese desired — the removal of US bases. The LDP’s Shinzo Abe, traditional US political enforcers since WWII replaced Noda and championed the removal of the “peace provisions” of the Japanese Constitution and pushed the “collective defense” for Japan to deploy troops with allies in “defense” of each other. US pressure and not Japanese electorates was behind Japan’s political changes.
Last June 29 a Japanese man committed self-immolation on an elevated railroad girder in Shinjuko district, protesting Shinzo Abe’s “collective defense” and military expansionist plans.
Our article “Two-faced US-Aquino-Abe” reported Japanese survey showing as much as 70 percent of Japanese opposed to Abe’s saber-rattling. “Abe-nomics” devalued the Yen, raised taxes and inflation but not consumption. Some Japanese are upset enough to commit fiery hara-kiri, yet Abe gets only praises form the West. Meanwhile, in South Korea, a petition to manually recount the results of the 2012 elections that installed Park Geun-hye has circulated on the Internet.
South Korea presidents have single term limit and hawkish. Rabid anti-North President Lee Myung-bak had to go in 2012. Major candidates to replace Lee were Moon Jae-in, human rights advocate, and former strongman Park Chung-hee’s daughter Park Guen-hye. South Korean voters manually stamp their votes followed by a machine count. As the petition for manual recount says, “The graphs representing the voter turnout and the votes earned for Mr. Moon and Ms. Park, measured over time, were consistently smooth to have occurred in real life… Only the graphs implied by the Formula of Logistic Function can produce such a beautiful, smooth curves.” Shades of 60-30-10!
US covert operations in its formerly directly occupied countries are bequeathed and “left behind” covert operators - those countries’ intelligence agencies. South Korea’s NIS (National Intelligence Service) is one such “left behind.” From various South Korea reports: “Since the Presidential elections... debate has continued over suspected election interference… The head Prosecutor has confirmed that from 2011 to December 2012, NIS employees of the Psychological Operations Group made 22 million tweets from 2270 Twitter accounts, tweets that were systematically posted… linked to interference in the presidential election and politics… postings praising or blasting specific parties or lawmakers…”
The Philippine Comelec’s removal of security measures from its Smartmatic PCOS machines, i.e. removal of vote receipt to teacher’s digital signatures, last minute switching of 80,000 CF cards, and Dominion Voting System’s non-delivery of the source code in both the 2010 and 2013 elections, ensured installation of US puppet leaders in Malacañang and the Senate. The few independent politicians who made it through are now being ousted for alleged “pork crimes.”
These had to happen before the crucial cha-cha that could change the Constitution and install a 2016 government that will be wholly controlled by the US and ally with the collective Asian war faction.
(1098AM, SWAD 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tues. to Fri.; GNN Talk New TV program, S “PCA versus Cocolisap”at. 8 p.m. and Sun. 8 a.m. on Destiny Cable channel 8 and SkyCable chn. 213 or www.gnntv-asia.com. or YouTube Talk News TV and add date; visit www.newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com)
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