Infowar vs. national mental rot

Eleven days of our brand new 365 days of year 2010 have passed and things instead of getting better, things are getting worse each day. Foremost of the deterioration situation is the rot of the Filipino mind. This is perfectly illustrated by a mainstream news headline: “Disasters doubles devotees”, referring to the Black Nazarene procession Friday. The hordes flocking to the Quirino Grandstand looked so much larger than yesteryears. By the end of the day early Internet headlines declared two dead and fifty injured in the disastrous crush. This “disaster” is now on top of the financial-economic crash, the Ondoy devastation, and certainly the Maguindanao Massacre among many other. It seems that the Filipino mind had have gone back another century to the Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance.

Are there progressive, truthful and concerned priests and Catholics that can help the dispel the notion that idolatry and iconic images, considered blasphemy in other Christian sects and in Islam, can be solve real world problems of the economy, storms, or anguishing personal problems? The Black Nazarene was brought in from Mexico in by Augustinian Recolletos missionaries on May 31, 1606. I assume they’ve been having the processions for it since that time. If it were true that it solves problems then the Philippines, after four hundred years of processions to it, should be the most progressive nation in the world today. Would the late scientist-Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin countenance such voodoo Christianity if he were here today? The Catholic hierarchy is undoubtedly promoting primitive superstition by continuing these processions, supported by two Vatican popes no less.

If the masa has that black statue, the Filipino intelligentsia has many of its own. Some Filipinos who fancy themselves financially literate will tout as great the news that the GIR (Gross International Reserves) of the Philippines is up tnow o $ 45.03-B. The high priests of the Bangko Sentral ng Piilipinas have been going around singing Hallelujah; but the voodoo songs-and-dances of BSP’s Tetangco and Gunigundo show that they are covering up for some things. First, they claim that the reserves represent 7.1-months of imports, but the general rule is that a country needs to cover only three months of its imports. For a debt ridden country like the Philippines up to $ 60-B in debt, shouldn’t the 4.5-months over coverage of imports cost be used to pay off part of our large foreign debt? Why don’t they do this when we are paying high rates for those debts?

The GIR is parked in U.S Treasury Bills at the lowest interests possible. Between the huge foreign dollar debt and the GIR parked in T-Bills or other bonds that earn much lower returns, the Philippines is losing money while America gets cheap money to finance U.S. bail outs. What Tetangco and Gunigundo are covering up are their personal as well as the Philippine financial system’s peonage and servitude to the U.S. Federal Reserve. An overly large GIR does not serve Philippine economic interest but U.S. financial interest. The BSP high priests claim the GIR increased also because of portfolio “hot money” inflows, but these can as quickly go out! It is a phantom asset. Maintaining the excessively high GIR, parking it in U.S. T-bills or bonds while sustaining the foreign debt levels ends up losing massive amounts of money for the country. Many Pinoys still worship the GIR god, a sign of the mental rot as well.

The Philippine Left has its own idolatry and sacred doctrines. One faction has become the “orthodox” church and dubbed “re-affirmist” in re-confirming its obedience to the Lord Jose Ma. Sison. Of course, central to its doctrine is the “People’s War” with its sub-verses such as “surrounding the cities from the countryside” etc. Despite fifty years of the failure of these idols and doctrines, and thousands of lives of the youngest, best and brightest, they haven’t updated to the new realities and the lessons of decades. The orthodoxy recently claimed another life, as reported in the Inquirer: Kemberly Jul Luna, a beauteous 21 years young lass and state university scholar was killed in an NPA-AFP gun battle. She follows a long line of fallen young warriors over the past five decades which includes several of my own friends and comrades. Is this still the right way to fight for national liberation?

A former NPA said of the Kemberly report: “This is still fighting the imperialists with 1,000 armed young guerillas when we should be mobilizing the millions of our people by enlightening them to through political education.” Young idealists, nationalists and anti-imperialists should live and grow to maturity to educate the nation through media, the Internet and schools, especially aiming for the AFP nationalist officers, instead of triggering a cycle of fraternal murder. That’s the lesson of Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. The Inquirer’s style in its report glorified the death of Kemberly Jul Luna, the NPA and their struggle - promoting the Filipino’s internecine war. Yet, the Inquirer is a pillar of U.S. imperialism’s and its local comprador-oligarchy partners’ economic and culture condition of the nation for the ruling class’ economic exploitation and U.S. domination. It’s a neat set up for the oligarch-owned Inquirer.

This country’s economic recovery depends on its achieving sovereign, which requires breaking free of the chains of ignorance, superstition, mental mendicancy and rot to bring about the political underpinnings of economic sovereignty. The first struggle is to liberate the nation’s mind and consciousness. Only education, information and enlightenment of the people, as well as the AFP – an information war, can achieve final and real victory for the people.