More 'Great Train Robberies'

More ‘Great Train Robberies’

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 03-18-2015 WED)

 

“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.” – Noam Chomsky

 

We just have to revise the Chomsky quote to expand on the last part; that is, after people get angry and have been bamboozled into believing there’s no alternative to privatization, the “you” (government captured by corporate oligarchs) then spends to rehabilitate the utility with public funds and raise rates or fares just prior to handing it over to private capital--saving the latter the rehab and political costs.

 

This is what happened to the country’s power, water, and transport utilities (from toll ways to trains) the past 29 years since Cory Aquino and the Yellows started the privatization onslaught in the Philippines.

 

Now it’s the once legendary Bicol Express, the 1920s-era Manila-to-Calamba-to-Southern Tagalog Philippine National Railways’ (PNR) turn to be subjected to the Third Degree of “make sure things don’t work.”  Only 6 of 50 PNR trains are working.  With its revenues dwindling, its privatization commences and government funds are allocated for rehabilitation and acquisition of new engines and coaches.  P35.15 billion from 2005 to the next years from the General Appropriations Act (GAA) are allocated.

 

Predictably, fares are being raised by 30 percent even as PNR General Manager Joseph Dilay let loose massive revenue leakages (thousands don’t pay fares) and contractors with conflicts-of-interest.

 

It is reported by Riles Network--the watchdog group over the Philippines’ public train systems, which has numerous PNR labor union sources--that a major PNR contractor for maintenance services and supplies (having shades of the MRT 3, the DoTC-Liberal Party Mafia, and the Kamag-anak Inc. scandal) is owned by a direct relation of the present PNR manager.  The wife is alleged to be a prime contractor of the PNR, clearly an abhorrent situation.  The Senate and Congress would be complicit if they allow this situation reeking of corruption and nepotism to persist before even considering any action on PNR fare hikes or, worse, privatization proposals.

 

The most sensitive issue to the hundreds of thousands of commuters on the Tutuban-Calamba PNR route is the 30-percent fare hike, raising the minimum fare of P10 to P15 and the maximum fare of P45 to P60.  Bus fares from Calamba to Manila, by the way, cost at least P100.

 

PNR management says that, yearly, revenues amount to P330 million while costs total P683 million.  The PNR, however, receives subsidy from government annually ranging from P300 million to P400 million.  Therefore, PNR revenues are sufficient to cover its operation and maintenance despite the massive leakages, as admitted by the PNR management, when it said that the fares increases will be allotted for payment of financial obligations.

 

Details of the PNR debt has not been reported to the public but GM Dilay said in a Feb. 27 news item, “Everyday na hindi namin nai-implement ‘yan, palaki nang palaki yung lugi.  Kung maari, bukas na…” (Everyday the fare hike is not implemented the debt grows; if possible fares should be hiked tomorrow…)  But reports reiterated on my GNN TV show by “Strike the Hike Network,” another citizens’ commuter trains watchdog against the PNR fare hike, attests to the fact that PNR stations are so disorganized and unruly, and ticket checking is totally absent that thousands get on the trains literally for free--burdening the paying passengers instead.

 

Where did that PNR debt emanate from?  Why did the 29 years and four governments of the Yellows (excluding Estrada, which did not serve out even half its term) allow the deterioration of the PNR to such a degree that only 12 percent of its train assets are operational?  The PNR is the last of the Philippines’ train system to be given attention to the past 30 years, now only to conveniently highlight the crisis it’s in and justify the rush to privatization.

 

But we’ve all seen what disaster privatization has turned out to be in the MRT 3, and now the LRT 1.  Last Monday, I waited by an LRT 1 coach for 30 minutes, while avoiding the MRT 3 due to its safety issues.

 

Noam Chomsky, the renowned American social justice activist, really put the finger on the method behind the corporate and corrupt political system to steal public utilities from the people.  The “Great Train Robberies” of the Philippines under the 29-year regime of the Yellow oligarchy and privatization are really testing the limits of the people’s patience and sufferance.  It may yet prove to be the railroad to revolution.

 

(Watch GNN, Talk News TV with HTL, every Sat. 8pm and Sun. 8am replay Destiny Cable chn. 8/ Skycable chn. 213 – uploaded to You Tube, search Talk New TV… date; tune to 1098AM, Tues. to Fri. 5 to 6pm “Sulo ng Pilipino”)

From the Philippines to Ukraine

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Whats wrong with US anti-terror aid?

Whats wrong with US anti-terror aid?
(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 03-11-2015 WED)

The question has been raised by several senators and some media pundits in the course of the investigation of the Mamasapano tragedy. There is a widespread public belief that the cause of the senseless sacrifice of the Special Action Forces (SAF) 44 plus 20 is BS Aquino’s prioritizing of a US-funded and guided anti-terror project to neutralize international jihadist-bomb maker Zulkifli Abdhir alias “Marwan,” and that not even the lives of the fallen SAF commandos should jeopardize an even higher priority US geopolitical “gerrymandering” project--the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)-BangsaMoro Basic Law that shall effectively carve out a new state in Mindanao. This belief has led many to question Philippine reliance on US “aid” against terrorist forces.

Marwan is accused of the 2002 Bali Bombing, classified as an international terror incident; hence, the US and international arrest warrant against Marwan. He is said to be the leader of Jemaah Islamiya (JI) in the Philippines but may only be a figurehead used to create the impression of numerous organizations that actually only share one general, limited mass base. Wikipedia says Marwan is protected by the purported MILF splinter group, BangsaMoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), but documents filed before the US District Court in California confirm Marwan is protected by the MILF. Yet the US plays Big Brother to the MILF in the BBL project--indeed, an inconvenient truth for those who have swallowed the US anti-terror mantra hook-line-and-sinker in justifying US anti-terrorism “aid” so readily.

Let us look into other cases of real US attitudes toward terrorism, such as the bomb that exploded in 2002 at the Davao Evergreen Hotel. There, a frequent American tenant, Michael Meiring, was discovered to be assembling bombs when one accidentally went off and severely injured him. Brought to the Davao Medical Mission Hospital, the US Embassy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) swooped in, secured the hospital, prevented Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and the police from investigating, paid the hospital bills, and flew Meiring out to the US of A. Meiring’s bombs are believed to have been among those used in several Davao blasts, including those in the wharf and airport at that time.

Another example of US terrorism duplicity is the 2000 abduction case of Afro-American Jeffrey Schilling, who was allegedly “kidnapped” by the Abu Sayyaf but later discovered to be related to a top Abu Sayyaf leader through Schilling’s girlfriend, and supplying communications equipment and arms to the Abu Sayyaf. When President Joseph Estrada ordered an assault on the Abu Sayyaf, then US President Bill Clinton sent his Defense Secretary William Cohen with a handwritten note requesting Malacañang to halt the assault as US citizen Schilling may be put in harm’s way. Of course, the Abu Sayyaf bandits would also have been saved from the onslaught of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that could have wiped them out. Erap naturally did not oblige.

So the question now is: Did the US hunt down Marwan in the Philippines in the common interest of both countries, or was it because only the Philippines will you find so-called leaders who would allow such an operation that smacks of total surrender of national sovereignty? Countless news reports confirm that the funding, training, equipping, monitoring, up to the immediate export to the US of Marwan’s finger for DNA testing was by the US. Now, based on Aquino’s claim that he was lied to amid the “gaps” in Alan Purisima’s testimonies, even who the top man is in the Philippine chain-of-command is put in doubt. Moreover, we can’t imagine neighboring Malaysia or Indonesia agreeing to such a totally US-run operation.

My answer to those who ask “What's wrong with US anti-terror help?” is this, “Are you sure they are here to help fight terrorism in the Philippines?”

Confirmed US support for the MILF--an organization that has taken up arms against the Philippine Republic and has given aid and comfort to the likes of Marwan and the BIFF, which fronts for the protection of Marwan, and defends the Abu Sayyaf whenever the AFP is running after it--is an indirect support of terrorism against the Philippines and its people. This is no different from US Gen. Wesley Clark admitting last February 22 on TV that “ISIS Got Started with Funding From our Closest Allies” (i.e. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, et al.).

President Joseph Estrada proved once and for all that we are better off without outside help when he crushed the MILF in 1999. It's worth remembering that US allies in the Organization of Islamic Conference funded the Moro National Liberation Front while the US would not even sell ammunition to then President Marcos and the AFP; yet we still won militarily and diplomatically.

Whenever foreign countries help, they help our enemies for fear of a stronger and more independent Philippines. Malaysia funds the MILF while the US gives it international legitimacy for it to set conditions that hamstring government law enforcement repeatedly, leading to such fiascos as Mamasapano.

Only Filipinos will solve problems of Filipinos for the real benefit of Filipinos.

(Watch GNN, Talk News TV with HTL, every Sat. 8pm and Sun. 8am replay Destiny Cable chn. 8/ Skycable chn. 213 – uploaded to You Tube, search Talk New TV… date; tune to 1098AM, Tues. to Fri. 5 to 6pm “Sulo ng Pilipino”)