The challenge of 2009 is to let Filipinos’ hopes survive. As my generation saw the Philippines ’ boom in the 1950s, then its bust during the past two decades, it became clear that life has gotten increasingly worse with each passing year. One gauge of this continuing decline, the United Nations Human Development Index, saw the Philippines plunge from No. 77 to 90 under Mrs. Arroyo, behind Peru , Lebanon and Ecuador . Another indicator, the Food and Agricultural Organization 2006 Hunger Index, had Myanmar at No. 68, better than the Philippines ’ 72nd ranking.
Today, hunger in our lands is even worsening, with four million families or 20 million Filipinos going without food regularly. So how do we still hope, much less survive, amid all this gloom? First, we need to be armed with the truth.
The precipitous crash of RP’s economic and social well-being--marked by rising corruption, criminality, and drug addiction--definitely got worse after Edsa I with the economic liberalization and globalization that followed. It took over two decades, made worse by Edsa II, for most Filipinos to realize the big swindle this “free trade” and liberal economic model brought, as they witnessed the US economy’s crash, and the trashing of its previously sacrosanct export-, import- and debt-dependent policies.
The problem is, few among the architects of this economic swindle are willing to admit their errors to institute the only salvation for the Philippine economy: Self-reliance and import substitution programs.
In the same vein, the local ruling cliques will not allow any inch of their comfort zones of power and privilege to be eroded--even if it involves poisoning the fountainhead of our historical knowledge.
These are why Establishment economists like Solita Monsod still perpetuate the lies of liberal economics even when the whole world already sees it without clothes. Ditto for politicians like Dick Gordon, Noynoy Aquino, and talking heads like state-owned Channel 9 director Deedee Siytangco and opinion writer Billy Esposo for demeaning earnest historical judgments or expressions of intellectual integrity, like Cory Aquino’s mea culpa over Edsa II, even when such are necessary, given the untold hardships their collective acts have wrought upon this nation.
These, too, are why since 2001, this column has exposed the myths and lies of the ruling powers, both local and international, and targeted the evil of this profit-manic “corporatocracy,” finally laid bare in the historic 2008 global financial and economic meltdown. Although some have erred in branding our efforts as the musings of a “conspiracy theorist,” time and time again, we have been vindicated with succeeding events.
The last laugh is on those who still refuse to admit these truths despite confirmations from reality of our analyses and those of our circle of socio-political nationalists, as well as, our global online community of anti-Establishment dissenters.
In the past decade-and-a-half, we have fought and dispensed with the myth of globalization. But many battles still lie in this information war, or “infowar,” to free people’s minds from the clutches of mainstream media and years of miseducation by western financial masters, who, even though are now on the decline, are still bent on pursuing the world’s destruction to dash all prospects for genuine peace and brotherhood.
Thus, Samuel Huntington and the West’s lie about the inevitability of the “Clash of Civilizations” must be replaced with the 21st Century Confucian ethic of “Harmony of Civilizations,” as enunciated by the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Other complementary myths perpetrated by the ruling corporatocracy must also be debunked. For instance, the “global warming” con game is currently being discredited by such contrary weather findings for 2008 cited by Christopher Booker in The Telegraph of UK :
1) The sharp drop of global temperatures after years of flat-lining, enough to offset much of their 20th Century net rise; 2) The Alps’ best snow records in a generation that are set to beat all records by New Year’s Day; and 3) A “worse” winter than last year with Canada and half of the US under snow.
All these, deemed to contradict the “computer models” of alarmists that drive their scare, led Booker to state that “2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved.”
Then, he adds, “Man-made global warming is an anti-industrialization myth to lead to a ‘carbon tax’ scam,” and this convinces me all the more of my correctness in fighting the “nuclear power danger” myth of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant debates, which now ex-anti-nuke Greenpeace co-founder Peter Moore has junked as well.
But then, I will have to dismiss today any calls to revive nuclear power for the Philippines because that would make us dependent on imported uranium, which will become more costly as more nations turn nuclear. And, since we have practically unlimited geothermal energy reserves to tap for the next 50 years, along with the fact that Filipinos are acknowledged to be among the best with this technology, only opportunists or nincompoops will go that route.
So, as 2009 starts, as we renew our “DIE HARD” commitment to engage the nation in our “INFOWAR” for truth and political-economic progress, we affirm our continued support for:
(a) Leaders of change like Pres. Estrada, Gen. Danilo Lim, Sen. Trillanes, and all nationalist, non-trapo forces; (b) Recovery-driving economic sectors and measures such as the Philippine Cooperative for VCO and Allied Industries, local producers, import substitution, debt repudiation, geothermal energy, power sector cooperativization; and (c) Our very own Second Propaganda and Enlightenment Crusade through radio, TV, Internet and DVD campaigns.
Hopefully, as we reap decisive victories in this “infowar,” a lot more will awaken to take action for our nation’s survival in 2009 and beyond.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
