China: Enabling a Disabled World

The World Blind Union’s Kiki Nordstrom says it best about Beijing ’s hosting of the world’s paraplegic Olympics: “ Beijing ’s Paralympics opens up path(s) for (the) disabled into society.”

It is awe-inspiring indeed to see disabled athletes from all over the world -- the blind running in track events (strung by the wrist to a seeing guide-runner) and the wheelchair-bound racing the oval -- and to watch winners burst with joy, marveling at the triumph of the human spirit over disabilities.

The disabled today are no longer outcasts as they quickly rise from the limitations set by their circumstances. And to that end, Beijing ’s munificent hosting of the 2008 Paralympics has naturally earned accolades from the world and showcased the Chinese people’s humanity and hospitality at their best.

From the Beijing Olympics last 08-08-08 down to the Paralympics which opened on September 11, China has overwhelmed the World not only with its awesome capabilities for mobilizing capital and technology for any undertaking but also with its people’s capacity for social discipline and hospitality. One million citizen-volunteer-ushers all over Beijing helping Olympic fans and visitors with their utmost care and service has without doubt become the largest and most palpable of China’s international undertakings that it has generated not only tremendous goodwill but more importantly, conveyed the echoes of the Olympic spirit in keeping with China’s mantra of “One World, One Dream.”

Just to contrast: While China has spent billions building the harmony of civilizations, the US continues to spend billions, creating wars in all four corners of the globe.

China , by its lavishing of immense resources and energy onto its “One World, One Dream” Olympic project, has enabled the world to take a new look at itself. It was the first break in the dark clouds of war that had overtaken the world’s horizons since US President George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, which had divided the world between itself and its so-called “Axis of Evil” nations, which was quickly followed by its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty on December 2001, and later, its reversal of the “no first strike” nuclear policy.

Just over a decade before, “glasnost,” “perestroika” and concessions Russia yielded to for its dialogue with the West all offered hope for the long-awaited end to the global “arms race,” ensuring permanent peace for the world.

But alas! Eight hundred years after the last of the eight Crusades of the West, George W. Bush and his cabal of neo-conservative ideologues of Western hegemony attempted to re-ignite religious war between Christianity and Islam yet again.

Chief among these neo-cons was Samuel Huntington, commissioned to write “The Clash of Civilizations” to lay the predicate of the “historic inevitability” of the global religious war -- make that perpetual war -- that only profits the corporatocracy-funded neo-conservatives. This they did as they prepared for the new “Pearl Harbor” in the form of the World Trade Center “attack,” which provided the pretext for the invasion of Afghanistan (where Unocal maintains an oil pipeline) and Iraq (violating UN consensus and where US oil now has a lock on its contracts).

Yet throughout this period of the “Clash of Civilizations” upon which Bush built his “War on Terror,” China has been promoting the principle of “Harmony of Civilizations” based on Confucian principles. In the past decades, especially during celebrations of Confucius’ millennial birthdays, there have been various international conferences discussing these contrasting philosophies of world evolution.

President Hu Jintao first expounded the concept of “a harmonious world” at the UN Summit in 2005 commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the UN’s founding and expressed the Chinese people’s wish to maintain world peace and promote mutual progress.

Last year, the Xinhua Net covered one such event and reported, “World Conference on Sinology Criticized the Theory of Clash of Civilizations and called for the Building of a Harmonious World.”

Frankly, the US has crippled the world towards making peace by its systematic dismantling of the building blocks towards this global peace, which are civility in international relations, non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, respect for international borders, and fair international trade relations.

Unfortunately, Russia has found itself seriously disadvantaged over the past decades by the US’ treachery against the Eurasian continent, which has also caused China to suffer the worst of the West’s calumnies on Tibet and even the anti-China propaganda in the run-up to the Beijing Games -- with the latest affront being the US’ violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) as it sells nuclear weapons technology to non-signatory India while leaving other signatories like China shortchanged. But then, NNPT member Iran is likewise being persecuted by the US in favor of Israel , which to this day, refuses to sign said treaty.

Truly, the litany of US transgressions is limitless. Just look at the long list of continuing atrocities it has and continues to commit in the Philippines and anyone will get a clear picture -- from the murders of Filipinos in the former US bases in Clark and Subic, to the Michael Meiring bombings in Davao in 2002, to its current conspiracy to take the oil and natural gas riches of Mindanao away from the Filipino nation.

Ninety-nine percent of Philippine opinion writers and broadcasters are simply superficial and are toadies of US political culture to be taken seriously on matters of global history and international relations. While it is evident in Western media that Bush, Obama and McCain all declare the imperative to expand war, like the Afghan War and its intrusion into Pakistani territory, China is expanding international cultural dialogue as evidenced by its official Chinese CCTV 9 programs.

The Philippines should look to China for a view of what its role could be in the global evolution towards peace and harmony. Witek John of Georgetown University said that the traditional Chinese doctrines of Confucius and Mencius illustrate the essence of humanity, which can be used to promote harmonious development in the world. Professor Zhang Liwen from Renmin University of China, famous for his theory of “Study of Harmony” (he he xue), proposed five fundamental principles for the building of a harmonious world: 1) Harmonious Life, 2) Harmonious Co-existence, 3) Harmonious Independence , 4) Harmonious Development, and 5) Harmonious Love.

China has no military bases outside its country while international NGOs tag 700 US foreign military bases in more than 60 countries. China ’s international relations will place commerce and cultural mutualism as priority -- not imperialism.

China today enables the world with peace that Bush has disabled with war.

False flags – are you fooled?

“False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations or other organizations which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy ’s strategy of tension.” — Wikipedia

“How many buildings collapsed in the 9/11 World Trade Center ‘attack’,” I often ask groups that I have coffee with to test their understanding of what happened in the World Trade Center complex in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Nine out of 10 would answer without hesitation that two buildings collapsed. One would either be uncertain and say that he seems to have an impression that more than two buildings collapsed or another would say even more buildings had collapsed. The fact is, three buildings collapsed. WTC 1 and 2 -- the North and South Towers -- were hit by airplanes and collapsed allegedly due to the heat from the exploding planes and jet fuel; but a third building, WTC 7, also collapsed, which was never hit by any airplane; yet it collapsed.

Even more intriguing is the fact that the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported on air the collapse of WTC 7 20 minutes before it actually happened, giving rise to the belief that the people stage-managing the news were fed the information too early and screwed up -- as it’s all caught on TV footage. There is also a video footage available on YouTube of the WTC building complex owner, Larry Silverstein, saying he ordered to “pull it” on WTC 7 — which, in building demolition language, is an order to demolish a building. Larry Silverstein bought the complex about six months before 9/11 and added “terror attack” to the insurance coverage while he had a security company handling the security of the complex which had a Bush brother on the board.

There is an article on the Internet entitled, “70 reasons you should doubt the official 9/11 story” that I suggest for readers to Google to learn more. I can only cite a few crucial reasons in this limited space: 1) aviation fuel can burn only at a maximum of 1,500°F while the special structural steel of the WTC buildings were designed to withstand up to 2,750°F heat, 2) WTC 1 and 2 fell flat out in just over nine and a half seconds or at free fall speed, and any resisting structures were simultaneously removed as the top fell, which is only possible in a virtually simultaneous explosion of each floor, 3) there is no building in history, some almost as tall and decades older than WTC and being 10 times longer, that has ever collapsed from fire. These are only three of the 70 other reasons you should study.

Over 400 US scientists (physicists, architects, engineers, explosive experts, etc.) and thousands of experts all over the world have come forward to oppose the official version of what happened on 9/11 at the WTC. Michael Moore started the documentary critiques of the official version with Fahrenheit 9/11 which was followed by Loose Change 9/11 (now in its third or fourth editions), the 9/11 Mysteries and 9/11 Chronicles, and now an Italian investigative production entitled ZERO. There are also German and Japanese productions -- the latter has one proving that the so-called cell phone calls from the airplanes to the ground were not possible at that time because of technological limitations. The 9/11 Truth Movement skeptics are gaining more ground as time moves on -- a sure sign that it has truth on its side.

According to an ABC News poll, in October 2001, 92 percent of US citizens approved of “the way Bush (was) handling the US campaign against terrorism.” Today, that number has dropped to 53 percent. The numbers mirror those in a CBS and Gallup poll. According to a May Zogby survey, 42 percent of the US population believes the government concealed evidence contradicting official accounts of the events of that day, and 45 percent believes there should be another investigation. According to an August Scripps Howard-Ohio University survey, 36 percent of the US population believes it is “very or somewhat likely that federal officials either participated in or allowed the attacks to happen to justify war in the Middle East .” Celebrities who doubt that al-Qaeda “did it” include Gov. Jesse Ventura, Charlie and Martin Sheen, Rosie O’Donnell, and others.

What is beyond doubt in the 9/11 WTC attack saga is that Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons used it as the excuse to declare the “War on Terror,” thereafter attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, raising defense industry stocks and imposing Draconian statues in the US and elsewhere -- like the Philippines, which was compelled to enact anti-terror laws too.

Here, this column has been the chief advocate of educating the Filipino public about “false flag” operations because it is the key to liberating the Filipino mind from the manipulation of powerful forces who can create heinous, violent events to spin in media and manipulate mass perceptions toward political-economic objectives. “False flag” operations have been standard political tools since historian Hannah Arendt studied the Nazi’s “Reichstag Fire” false flag operation which allowed Hitler to impose his police state over Germany .

Filipinos have been increasingly victimized by “false flag” operations in the past decades, from the incompetent “ambush me” of Juan Ponce Enrile in the build-up toward Martial Rule of Marcos, to the FIDEL (Plaza Ferguson, International airport, Dusit Hotel, Edsan Transit and LRT) bombings by Gloria henchmen but blamed on various Islamic movements (and even on Erap and Lacson) but meant to depose Erap, the Glorietta bombing which Bert Gonzales attempted to blame on Muslim extremists as a pretext to imposing emergency measures, and the Basilan Massacre of Marines to divert AFP focus from Manila to Basilan while Gloria “convicted” former President Estrada. The recent Kato and Bravo attacks on Mindanao communities are also a deliberate diversion to shift blame for the MILF MoA fiasco away from Gloria.

Some classic “false flag” operations have involved one by CIA agent Michael Meiring in Davao in 2002, which aimed to create tension while the US regrouped the MILF after being scuttled by Erap in 2000 and, of course, “Operation Greenbase,” which the Magdalos exposed at Oakwood.

Remember: “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.” — Mossad

Agustin Chan turns in his grave

Ilocos Sur CoA provincial auditor Agustin Chan was closing his investigation on the financial shenanigans of an Ilocos Sur governor -- from an invisible tomato paste plant to billions in tobacco subsidies that could not be found -- until these were all traced back to the governor.

Before Chan could even finalize his report, he was gunned down and killed in Barrio Bantay, Ilocos Sur, along with his driver Alex Recacho on October 4, 2001. If motive were the only prime element in murder, then the governor Chan was investigating should have been the chief suspect right off the bat.

Yet there has never been an investigation on this heinous act. In fact, over the years under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, this suspect has even risen to the highest ranks of government power.

The Agustin Chan murder will be eight years old this October, yet it remains unsolved. All this time, Chan’s family has been overtaken by a gloom that has taken its toll on the morale of the children, who have all but lost faith in society and the system.

Also, during this span of time, the prime murder suspect has continued to spread the scourge of social decay and oppression all over society, with jueteng abetted by the ruling powers, which have no regard for law and even less for justice.

But then, there is no more law in Philippine society today, only the rule of force and corruption by gangsters and hoodlums in uniform, robes, and sultanas.

I include the sultana-donning priests because of the proliferation of jueteng today, which they used as a pretext to launch Edsa II to oust a law-abiding president.

And now, could you even imagine the chief jueteng promoter being promoted to secure the nation? What is he to secure -- jueteng?

While one bishop has postured himself to be the arch-nemesis of jueteng, he nonetheless obfuscates the campaign by pulling the rug from under the only Catholic leader, Gov. Ed Panlilio, who has actually done something to stop it by joining the call for him to vacate the governorship.

I almost forgot to include the gangsters in business suits who supported the jueteng governor in Edsa II. They are as silent today because as evil politics entrenches itself, it pays them off with inordinate corporate profits.

We understand Senator Ping Lacson’s plaintive lament on the Philippine Star’s headline, “Exposing gov’t anomalies really tiring, says Lacson.” That is why despite the highest negative rating of any Philippine president in history, the demonstrations and rallies against Gloria have been growing steadily tepid as angry people face the same sentiment -- exposés and protests are useless against a regime that is not bound by any moral or legal precepts.

Stealing from the people’s coffers, murdering innocents, corruption of government and society -- these evils are growing in severity and nothing in the arsenal of law and justice has any potency anymore. Only the use of counter-force remains and this, it seems, is what the oppressive rulers are inviting.

Gloria’s sect of political evil and its rule over our government is the main issue in Philippine society today. This high priestess and her religion of greed and corruption have relentlessly pursued the corruption, dehumanization and dismemberment of this nation -- blighting the entire history of this country.

We ask each and everyone who claims to desire to lead this country of what they say about this. It is a timely question because there are already a number posturing to lead this nation. For Senator Villar, for example, what can he now say considering his role in fast tracking this evil sect to power when he was Speaker of the House in 2000? And what will he say once his own evil loans are exposed in the course of the campaign in the coming months? Is he then any different from Gloria?

This early, Villar doesn’t seem to be shy of manipulating surveys to make it appear he is really in the running. A latest SWS poll was ingenuously geared to show Villar rising in the surveys, contrary to his very poor showing in the Pulse Asia survey earlier. The variance on Chiz Escudero and Erap in the SWS poll was too big to be credible, a ploy which may have worked had SWS not had the damaged reputation from its 2004 “exit poll,” where it projected a huge Metro Manila victory for Gloria, only to be thrashed when the actually counting ended, as FPJ won overwhelmingly in all Metro Manila cities and towns, except in the Villars’ Las Piñas bailiwick. It was such a grievous error that SWS’ Mahar Mangahas had to apologize in October 2005 after finding out that their subcontractor, led by Jayjay Soriano, had “massaged” the survey.

Truly, the only leadership that can cure the cancer Gloria infected this country with and untangle all the legal and constitutional mess must be her exact opposite. This leadership must be truly human, stringently honest, principled, law abiding, unselfish and creative. It must also be perceptive enough to have seen through the masquerades of Gloria and her cabal right from the start.

Those who still feign ignorance over Gloria’s malevolence in the run up to Edsa II are all paradigms of hypocrisy. Her record from the Garments Board to the Pinatubo Commission had already displayed her amoral greed. It’s just that “civil society” used her greed and evil for their own greed and corruption, as what Villar did.

The electoral process in the Philippines, like in the US, is a circus keeping ordinary folks enthralled while exploiting rulers perpetuate themselves through electoral and campaign laws, which are only meant to be violated.

This early, Villar is already buying media time and has gotten Joe de Venecia’s endorsement -- though a kiss of death by any standards. The NPC, meanwhile, waits to field candidates who will do its oligarch-master’s bidding. As for the Comelec, Chairman Melo has failed yet again, presiding over the farce that was last ARMM elections despite the promise of automation.

Without doubt, “The Last Revolution” is the final option. As Ding Lichauco calls for a non-electoral manner of re-installing President Estrada for his open declarations against Gloria and foreign interference, Gen. Danilo Lim, Senator Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros are also ready to lead. Then, and only then, can the Agustin Chan’s of the land finally rest in peace.

(Tune in to: Talk News TV on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 3, tomorrow at 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with guest, His Excellency, Amb. Manuel Perez Iturbe of Venezuela; Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station)

Western-led assaults on RP and Thailand

It is easy to get confused about what’s going on in Thailand . But one thing’s clear: A self-styled democratic movement called People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has forcibly occupied an elected Prime Minister’s premises, and blocked airplane and train stations, which have started to cripple the Thai economy.

Ostensibly, some distinguishing features of PAD’s leadership are: 1) they speak good English, 2) they are moralistic, white collar, intelligentsia and lay religious types like the Edsa I and II “civil socialites” here, and 3) they look down on the Thai “masa” especially rural folk who have resoundingly given Thaksin and the current Prime Minister Samat their electoral mandates. But what's lesser known is that they are wards of Western ideological and financial sources like the National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros.

Amid all the hoopla, the PAD’s real target has been Thaksin, charging him with massive corruption. His personal and family fortunes are, however, known to precede his stint as prime minister. Thaksin built his multi-billion dollar Shin Corp. telecoms empire before he sold it to Temasek Holdings, a Singaporean firm with a bevy of Chinese investments, according to some sources.

That sale exacerbated his political troubles as Western and traditional domestic aristocratic interests were incensed that the sale did not benefit them. However, the start of his troubles preceded that as two of Thaksin’s policies already ran counter to powerful geopolitical forces in the Indochinese peninsula.

The West has long used Thailand as a trading post for opium grown by historic British clients such as the Karen in Myanmar , as well as, the US ’ cohorts like the Kuomintang-led Khun Sha Army in the Golden Triangle.

As a former Thai police official, Thaksin had committed to eradicate illicit drugs in Thailand with a serious iron fist policy. In 2003, he ordered summary justice against suspected drug dealers, which “human rights” groups all over the world protested.

Human Rights campaigners, though, can serve double purposes as they protect the so-called “rights” of drug dealers (something which Opium War victim China doesn’t care to appreciate). As we all know, the opium trade was pioneered by the Brits.

The nationalist US publication EIR sent an article by Michael Billington, which we quote: “The Soros-linked mobs on the streets today against Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, as in 2006 against the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, are but a continuation of Soros's brutal economic destruction of Thailand in 1997 on behalf of his British controllers…It is also no coincidence that Prime Minister Thaksin's ‘war on drugs’ in Thailand in 2003 was a major target of the global Soros-funded human rights mafia, building towards the 2006 coup, nor that Prime Minister Samak has discussed reviving the war on drugs this year.”

Drugs from the Indochinese peninsula have been Western imperialism’s currency in this region, like Colombian drugs in Oliver North’s Iran-Contra operations.

Meanwhile, the other policy of Thaksin contrary to the West’s agenda was the massive rural development initiative of his Village Revolving Fund (70 billion Baht for 70,000 villages), which boosted rural production, incomes and spending. Although this was vote-buying, as alleged by the PAD, even the Economist magazine had to grant this as a positive boost to the Thai economy.

Like the PAD, the IMF-WB painted it negatively too, claiming it was “subsidizing” the poor, which to my mind, should be appreciated as plowing money to the sectors where it is needed most, which makes “trickle up” economics most effective. But then, this naturally didn’t sit well with the traditional power elite in Thailand as political power tended to be diffused away from the center.

Interestingly, Asia Times’ Shawn Crispin has another perspective: “While the US maintained strong ties with Thaksin's authoritarian administration, particularly through cooperation on counter-terrorism issues, there were concurrent concerns in Washington that the ethnically Chinese Thaksin was gradually moving Thailand closer to Beijing at the United States’ strategic expense.”

Among other issues, Crispin cites the role of Thaksin in arranging the first satellite link with Myanmar, which the West adamantly opposed.

My point in writing this piece is to help the Filipino observer of the current Thai crisis see through the PAD and Western reportage of alleged “corruption,” and appreciate the underlying pressures exerted by Western imperialism, using well-funded “civil society” lackeys.

At the same time, we must note how the Thai military is behaving, as it is unwilling to crack down on the economic sabotage being committed by PAD because of the role of US-controlled retired military officers. Like Fidel V. Ramos in the Philippines who maintains a special relationship with the US military-industrial complex, there are numerous Thai generals in the same league.

The revered Thai monarch, too, has an enigmatic role in the Thai military inaction, but has apparently shirked in his duty to maintain law and order in the current crisis. No doubt, if the demonstrators were poor rural folks, the Thai military would have cracked down on them, and cracked skulls and bones or even started mowing them down as they have done in the past -- like the massacre of our poor in Edsa III.

Truly, Western imperialism is still the main issue today. In Thailand , the West wants to overturn the democratic vote and establish a 70-percent appointed parliament. In the Philippines , the US is supporting a Kosovo Liberation Army-type MILF to create a new state in Mindanao .

But through it all, only one Filipino political leader has stepped forward to tell it like it is, instructing the US Embassy to “keep off our Mindanao conflict,” and he’s none other than President Joseph E. Estrada.

He is the same democratically-elected leader whom the US deposed with the help of local “civil society” in order to pursue the plunder of our country and the Balkanization of Mindanao.

As Sun Tzu once said, “…know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”

In Mindanao, the real enemy is not the petty MILF but the US ; in Thailand , it is not the PAD but the British opium network. As nationalism and genuine mass-based democracies grow in response to Western imperialism; so should a third most important principle for this part of our world -- “ Asia for Asians.”

(Tune in to: Talk News TV on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 3, Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station. Also, check out: http://hermantiulaurel.blogspo

Revolution Precedes Good Governance

While apologists of appeasement from mainstream media, government, and foreign-sponsored NGOs on the MoA-AD obfuscate the issues, other tentacles of Western imperialism continue to rape our economy and deceive our people. The Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (Wesm), for instance, will raise power rates by P1 per kilowatt-hour, at a time when it should be drastically lowering rates because of much lower fuel costs. At the same time, while the people awaken to US imperialism as they witness its manipulation of the Arroyo-MILF MoA-AD swindle, the US-sponsored Ramon Magsaysay Awards is propagating false hopes and palliatives through do-gooder “icons” to counter the nation’s rising revolutionary consciousness.

The Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) created the Wesm supposedly as a market clearing house to promote competitive pricing (or lower rates), as well as, prevent market manipulation. But the truth should now be obvious to all -- the Wesm has brought about the reverse of all that it had promised. What it has only succeeded to remove is any regulation on the power sector, whereby Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and distributors now charge the highest rates possible under “prevailing” supply conditions.

Take the most recent rate increase excuse: Low-cost coal and natural power plants tripped and broke down, causing the average price to rise due to purchases from high-cost, fossil-fueled generation plants through the Wesm.

Under ideal circumstances, Meralco, for instance, should buy straight from the National Power Corporation (Napocor) where electricity prices are always cheaper. But the Epira prevents this because it mandates all electricity supplies to be bought only through the Wesm, where power distribution and IPP companies have interlocking participation -- meaning, control and interests beyond the purview of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). This is how Meralco manipulates prices by buying from its sister IPPs instead of Napocor. Furthermore, the Wesm also adds a layer of profit for electricity traders -- another one of the many abuses now part of our system because of Epira.

In contrast, during pre-Epira days, the now defunct Energy Regulatory Board had real power and ensured public review as the State monopoly averaged electricity rates from its broad generation mix.

Meanwhile, there’s been much hoopla over the Ramon Magsaysay (RM) Awards. I wonder, though, if the great Asian anti-colonial, independence leaders and nation-builders would have gotten such awards. As I reviewed the RM Awards list from 1958 to the present, I could not find the truly great Asians there, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mao Tse Tung, Chou En Lai, Deng Xiao Peng, Ho Chi Minh, Sukarno, Rahman, Mahathir and others. Sure, there are a lot of Asian do-gooders who are worthy of awards for their individual achievements and good deeds, but to project this award as a standard for leadership for the nations of Asia is stretching it too far. At its worst, it is used as a platform for launching US mascots for political leadership in the region, especially in the Philippines .

The headlines ensuing from the present RM Awards is “good governance,” as if that motherhood statement is the complete, definitive final answer to the crises plaguing many Asean nations like the Philippines . The proposition identifies itself both as a definition of the problem and the solution: There is bad governance; therefore, the solution is good governance. But it skips the middle question: What prevents good governance from happening? The standard answer as always is corruption. Yet China , India and Vietnam all have corruption. So why are they registering fantastic growth rates while the Philippines languishes? With its so-called “free press,” the Philippines certainly cannot be more corrupt than those countries!

Truth is, progressive Asian countries have patriotic and revolutionary leadership. There is no benefit to a nation if the much-touted “good governance” is tailored to foreign interests with a domestic exploitative clique in tow.

Would the RM Awards recognize advocates of actions such as: 1) rejection of unjust foreign debt; 2) protection of the national patrimony and economy from foreign exploitation; and 3) pursuit of an independent international policy?

Surely, can any good governance succeed if 70 percent of a country’s revenues go to debt payment? Can a nation grow if it is a net capital exporter because foreign and local corporations are siphoning huge profits out? Can a nation survive while being subservient to foreign interests and international relations?

We started this column by citing the electricity sector because it typifies the foreign corporate control and abuse of Philippine wealth. Then we shifted to the RM Awards for its questionable standards.

Grace Padaca is a good human being and an honest local leader, but whether she will be a paradigm for national leadership as the US-funded RM Awards and Joe Almonte’s “Kaya Natin” project is grooming her to be remains to be seen.

Or will she be just another Cory Aquino, an immaculate Western-supported figure who started this nation’s march to collapse?

Perhaps expectedly, keynoting the awards was Big Business scion Augusto Zobel de Ayala, big captain of the Ayala group that raised our water rates by 2,000 percent, on top of the billions in tax holidays it obtained from the Arroyo government, which it helped install in 2001. The Ayalas’ feigned role in nurturing “good governance” reminded me of Keynes’ words: “Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.”

Philippine society needs a complete overhaul with its system turned inside out -- its rulers and institutions subservient to Western, corporate and feudal interests completely replaced by patriotic and revolutionary leadership that kowtows only to the nation and the people’s welfare.

In specific terms, the new leadership must: Free the nation of its Debt Trap; pursue its self-reliance and self-sustainability, as well as, reserve all public utilities and natural resources for national development, and never for profit; build a strong and independent defense system, including a people’s army; pursue an independent foreign policy with emphasis on relations will anti-imperialist nations such as Venezuela; and support a multi-polar world that gives more room for smaller nations to grow.

Revolution or systemic change -- one that’s peaceful or otherwise -- precedes good governance. The present crises we face, from the economic collapse to the continuing threat of Mindanao ’s dismemberment, should awaken and galvanize all Filipinos to gravitate toward the leadership of patriots, from political leaders like President Estrada to nationalist intellectuals like Ding Lichauco, to soldier-leaders like General Danilo Lim, Senator Antonio Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalos).

(Tune in to: Talk News TV on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 3, tomorrow at 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with guest, Cuban Amb. Jorge Rey Jimenez; Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station.)

Intellectual Cowardice and Treason

“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely” – Hunter S. Thompson

That quotation, taken from the Uniffors (Union of Filipino Foreign Service Officers) website, shows the truth long known by career diplomats in the Department of Foreign Affairs: that the swines and pigs who are rising in the institutional ladders of power and fame are the ones ruling the country today.

By extension, the intelligentsia is no different since these spokesmen for the ruling system are ensconced in high and mighty positions, and are quoted and propagated by mainstream media.

I note two of these intellectual emissions of the ruling class’ mentality who are attempting to find a way out of the national, political and economic dilemma they’ve put this country in by their sponsorship of Edsa-style “people power,” particularly Edsa II.

A recent headline report by Felipe R. Salvosa in Business World entitled, “RP’s fight vs poverty lags in Asia” from baseline year 1994, cited Vietnam in 2006 as doing vastly better with only 16 percent classified as poor against the Philippines’ 29.5 percent based on a $1.25 poverty line.

In it, Vietnam was found to have reduced its poverty level by 4 percent each year compared to the Philippines ’ half-a-percent, which is pathetic even when compared to Indonesia ’s 2 percent.

What is the difference between the economic policies of these three countries that makes the Philippines the laggard? Well, Vietnam is socialist, nationalist, protectionist and a self-sufficiency-striving economy while Indonesia still protects its people through subsidies and controls. The Philippines , meanwhile, is only full of…liberalization and free trade.

Salvosa’s report, which quoted “esteemed” Edsa I and II economist Solita Monsod, cited the latest Social Weather Stations poverty survey and estimates of UP economist Arsenio M. Balisacan “who found that poverty worsened between 1997 and 2006 with even lower thresholds…(with) estimates pegg(ing) the number of poor people at 26.9% of the population in 2006, from about a quarter in 1997.”

Monsod, in response, blurted: “That starts from the Estrada administration” -- a factually twisted, blame-shifting ploy that betrays a real but still suppressed sense of guilt, which also reeks of intellectual dishonesty, given the fact that President Joseph E. Estrada only won in 1998 and moreover took office in June of that year!

Clearly, the spike in Philippine poverty was due to the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, which occurred under the administration of Fidel V. Ramos. Philippine growth plunged to zero as the economy imploded. It was even Estrada who brought back four percent growth in 2000, only to be unconstitutionally deposed in a coup disguised as “people power” in January 2001 before momentum could ever pick up.

Plus, less than six months before that, Estrada had already succeeded in his “all out war” against the MILF, reclaiming authority over its 46 camps.

Still, in another historical twisting of facts, Philippine Star columnist Billy Esposo denigrates this now widely-acclaimed decisive victory of Estrada against the MILF. His ludicrous “Listen to Estrada and lose Mindanao ” piece forwards the view that the MILF had not really been defeated by Estrada.

Yet even an idiot knows this cannot hold water as the Mindanao situation back then steadily pacified after Camp Abubakar ’s fall, with MILF chair Hashim Salamat running to Kuala Lumpur for refuge.

Nonetheless, as if wanting to make all the AFP men and civilian fighters who died in the past turn in their graves, Esposo now argues that Filipinos cannot defeat the “US-backed MILF.”

By saying that “a US-supported MILF can wage a war that we can hardly afford to fight -- especially if there is no superpower to support us,” Esposo exposes himself as a coward in every sense of the word; a coward who moreover hides in the face of imperial oppression and subversion; and a coward who limits his imagination in the midst of vast diplomatic imperatives, such as alliances with Venezuela and other anti-imperialist South American countries, which I have written about at length -- among other options to counter US domination such as strengthening ties with China, Russia and India.

As for Esposo’s “utak polvora” tag, shouldn’t it apply more to the MILF than the government forces under Estrada? It’s been the MILF using violence -- a fact that has long stripped Murad or Eid Kabalu of any moral basis for protesting the “all out war” against their atrocities. What’s more, Estrada was able to wage a successful campaign while suspending offensives during Ramadan -- a far cry from the policy nowadays.

In all, Marcos and Estrada defeated the rebels; it was Edsa I and II that brought them back to life.

Up to now, Esposo has never accepted my challenge to a public debate. But then, why should he when he is the “star” columnist of an Edsa tradpol-owned mainstream paper who lobbied for the passage of the Epira by handing out millions in grease money to his fellow greedy tongressmen?

I’m telling you: The scenario in Mindanao today has been cooked up right after Edsa II, just as the 2003 Iraq War was planned by the neocon Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 1997-98 -- developments that had been the crux of my “Kosovo in Mindanao ” article as early as 2003.

So I’m telling you this now: A huge atrocity against both Muslims and Christians in Mindanao is in the works by neocons for this September’s Ramadan to serve as basis for accelerating international intervention by Blair and the OIC, and the entry of “international peacekeepers.”

Thus, our response with other nationalists is to prevent the Filipino people from losing out completely in this battle against Balkanization. Armed with truth, we, the descendants of Bonifacio and Rizal, can get out acts together -- over the carcasses of the swines of intellectual cowardice and treason.

(Tune in to: Talk News TV on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 3, Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with guest, Cuban Amb. Jorge Rey Jimenez; Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station. Also, check out: http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

Discernment and Nationalism

The past week of skirmishes between the AFP and so-called “lost command” elements disowned by the MILF shows the inanity and futility of negotiations with these so-called “insurgents.” The MILF will not even feign control because these groups are clearly moving in cadence with its political agenda -- this time committing atrocities so grave as to make the international headlines. Moreover, the MILF has never consolidated under its wings other Bangsa Moro factions such as the MNLF, the Ampatuans and the Dimaporos, because they have all objected to its claims. So what is there to negotiate with the MILF then? Verily, capitulation calls by such miniscule groups as the “Black and White Movement” only serve to follow the US-MILF-GMA conspiracy.

As the days pass and debates rage over the Arroyo-MILF MoA issues, the stronger the arguments against appeasement and capitulation become. The MILF has been exposed as an empty phantom claiming as its “force” elements that it cannot command, and the “ancestral domain” proposition has been shown to be a vacuous conception, indefensible in moral and historical terms. The best argument we have heard is from our reader and radio volunteer Ka Ferdie who said: “If we are trace the ancestors who first established a high level of civilization in this archipelago, (these were) the Sri Visaya and the Majapahit empires in the first and second millen(nia) that were not Muslim nor Christian but Buddhist, Hindu and Animist in religious orientation.”

Domains and property concepts mutate through historical evolution but in the end, these are fixed by the social, economic and political imperatives of the times. The original migrations to the archipelago tens of thousands of years ago, like those of the Aetas and Negritoes, do not count in the “ancestral domains” claims at all because these have become impotent cultures. As new migrations arrived taking over the rich agricultural lowlands, the old communities retreated to the hinterlands, which had no value until the Industrial Revolution started the rush for minerals and ores. And now that even marshes and seas are coveted for natural gas and oil, Western energy and political powers have begun to redefine such domains to circumvent the need to deal with national entities.

The main question for the Filipino people in the aborted Arroyo-MILF MoA is: Shall we allow hundreds of billions of dollars of natural resources that form part of this nation’s wealth to be taken away from the many citizens of this country and given to foreign greed and a few self-serving bandit-leaders for their own aggrandizement? We should have asked this question even earlier, when the Mining Act was being reviewed by the Supreme Court, which finally decided to give it away to foreign interests. But the issue was not as highlighted as the Arroyo-MILF MoA because it did not involve a bandit group passing itself off as a “state” and claiming large tracks of land where Christians had properties and interests, like in Zamboanga and other cities, which really inflamed the Christians there.

From all accounts, the MILF is only a paper kris as shown by the numerous times the AFP has demolished this so-called force. But behind it is a real power in its staging of the geopolitical wayang kulit on the Mindanao stage -- the US . And so the paper kris waves about menacingly even when it signifies nothing. Time and again, history has shown that the so-called Muslim insurgency cannot sustain itself without direct support from the US and its agents as in the Michael Meiring episode, which implicated the CIA in the Davao bombings of 2003 and Operation Greenbase, where junior officers were ordered to grenade Muslim mosques. Thus, the real enemies of peace and stability in Mindanao are the foreign powers.

I am deliberately repetitive in citing the Michael Meiring incident, where the FBI whisked off the American bomber back to the US, prompting Davao Mayor Duterte to tell Ricciardone, “I just would like now to make it clear, to inform…the US Ambassador and some morons there in the national government who are handling these FBI agents that you better not do that again here or I will have you arrested,” as well as, the Operation Greenbase exposé as these are crucial to discern what is really happening in the tense areas of Mindanao. Those preaching capitulation to the MILF never discuss these pivotal moments of subversion and terrorism because the only power that can overcome this foreign menace is the power of nationalism.

On my Destiny Cable TV interview last week with retired Commodore Rex Robles, he said: “I know this will sound corny but the answer to all the problems is ‘Love of Country’.” Right away, I caped it off with, “When the Filipino people begin to think of country in terms of their bunso (the youngest child in the family), their grandchildren and great-great grandchildren and their future, then it will not be corny anymore.”

The Sabah we lost to the Malaysians gave them the wherewithal to build the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur , so let’s not lose the Liguasan Marsh and the Sulu Sea wealth this time around. I also make this appeal to the AFP leaders and men for in the end, it is they who will help decide if we remain an impoverished vassal or become a rich and free nation.

Grudgingly, the AFP is still cause for both hope and frustration. For if there are nationalist military leaders like Gen. Danilo Lim, there are also careerists and opportunists who have surrendered their souls to foreign powers, repeatedly abandoning their nationalist comrades whenever the US bars real change by throwing its support to any one of its corrupt local puppets.

We must henceforth learn from South American military-backed nationalist movements, like in Venezuela , which engaged their civilian populations in decades of political education and have now won their liberation from US imperialism. For this reason, the November 29 Movement and this columnist are starting the “Free Danny Lim” movement to symbolize the new AFP and its nationalism.

(Tune in to: Talk News TV on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 3, Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with guest Atty. Alan Paguia on the MoA-AD; Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station. Also, check out: http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

Crushing their “Plan B”

Mabuhay and congratulations to the nation for thwarting the underhanded Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between the Arroyo government and the MILF -- both US puppets -- to dismember parts of Mindanao and steal our immense patrimony.

These conspirators, led by the oil powers behind the US establishment, saw their plots in disarray from the enraged reaction of the Filipino people. But they will soon regain composure and shift to “Plan B,” which is to sow fear and chaos, and sensationalize local and international news by way of deliberate and planned atrocities or bombings leading to two directions: (a) Cha-cha and variations of it for Gloria, and (b) deployment of “international peacekeepers” pursuant to the strategic plan of the US and MILF once the latter gains “belligerency status.”

Inasmuch as we have read the moves of these conspirators to dismember Mindanao long before, as evidenced by our “Kosovo in Mindanao ” piece five years ago, we are more than able to calculate their next moves today.

Truly, we’ve kept pace with these conspirators’ every move in the past decades, such as their patterns in “Balkanizing” Yugoslavia and in breaking away Kosovo, and their oh-so-similar move of separating East Timor, which eventually led to “invited” Australian “peacekeepers” acting as referees in a brewing civil war, but in actuality, are there clamping down on nationalist elements that demand their birthright to the East Timorese continental shelf oil.

Knowing the plans of these conspirators can also help us avoid the traps they have set to sink us further in a quagmire of “perpetual fraternal war.”

During my interview with retired Commodore Rex Robles for our Tuesday Talk News TV show, I was educated on the various modes of destabilizing a country. He narrated a session with some American intelligence officers who said that one of their methods is just to start giving free arms and ammunitions to various local communities, which invariably find their way to domestic quarrels to criminal and political-ideological conflicts.

This then led me to Operation Greenbase, where junior officers were instructed by military top brass, apparently working under US State Department direction, to lob grenades into mosques to trigger ethnic tensions, as exposed by Senator Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalo) at Oakwood.

I also recalled the episode with Michael Meiring, the American who was severely injured by a bomb he was assembling in Davao ’s Evergreen Hotel, which coincided with the series of bombings in Davao , including the one at Sasa Wharf , which were then blamed on “Muslim separatists.”

Meiring was subsequently rushed to hospital for treatment, but when Mayor Duterte et al. were about to launch an investigation, the US Embassy swooped down on the facility, paid Meiring’s bills and sent him posthaste back to the US.

Mainstream media in the Philippines has been quiet about Meiring, but we’ve always reminded everyone about this. Google “Michael Meiring” and you will find many articles on the “CIA operative” living alternately in Houston and in Colorado .

But just the same, the US now has the MILF and its “lost command” to do these bombings and other atrocities.

The evil and subversive operations of the US and the MILF would be easy to quash if the Philippine government were genuinely after establishing stability and order. Yet the greatest tragedy today is the fact that the Arroyo regime is in cahoots with these forces that seek to dismember Mindanao .

After failing to slip the MoA past people’s attention and scrutiny, Gloria Arroyo and her various minions are now obfuscating, creating smokescreens by alternately claiming the MoA has been “aborted” or to be “renegotiated.” The latest statement from Ermita, however, that there will be a “review” only means Gloria will still ram the agreement down the throat of this nation, using the argument that peace is still “cheaper” than waging war -- a really cheap argument that harks back to ex-presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao’s remark in 2002 that returning the camps to the MILF and reviving “peace talks” was cheaper than war.

What these knuckleheads still refuse to admit is that at that time, the MILF was no longer a threat! Ah, but maybe that’s why Michael Meiring had to enter the picture -- to give the “Muslim insurgency” a shot in the arm.

Seriously, though, after eight years of Arroyo’s “appeasement” but still with countless lives lost, including that of 41-year-old PMAer Col. Benitez, how can the cost of her “peace” be accounted for?

Perhaps, one only has to dig deeper to realize that the Arroyo regime, like the Cory Aquino government, is contaminated by agents of influence of foreign governments like Norberto Gonzales, who twice brought back to life dead rebellions -- those of Nur Misuari and Hashim Salamat. Not surprisingly, he has had the “red carpet” in Sabah since his “Light-a-Fire” days, courtesy of Malaysian intel.

To defeat the dismemberment conspirators’ “Plan B,” we need to first demolish the MILF leadership as President Estrada did in 2000, to strip the US, Malaysia and Gloria of one of their pawns. We must invigorate diplomatic ties with rising anti-imperialist governments in Venezuela , Bolivia , Paraguay , etc. and evolving “multi-polar” world powers such as Russia and China to counter US domination and subversion. We must accelerate development of the wealth of Mindanao and democratize its fruits. And with the region’s natural resources so plain to see, every bank in the world will scramble to be the first to extend it loans. But for these to happen, regime change must first transpire. Above all, we must not allow the situation to become a Christian-Muslim fight but focus instead on the nation’s crusade against the three-headed US-MILF-Gloria hydra.

As our OFW compatriot Lourdes Ceballos said: “This ‘deal’ you say between the US and Gloria to sell out ‘Philippine sovereignty’ is food for thought that calls for action by Filipinos wherever they are, such as the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) scattered all over the globe…There (lies) the danger of separating the rich natural resources in Mindanao from the total wealth of the Philippines as one nation. Peace and progress in Mindanao should be worked out by Filipinos without the dangers posed by viewpoints involving religion, ancestral territorial domain, and foreign influence.” Hence, our clarion call, “Pilipinas para sa Pilipino!”

Saving Mindanao … and the Nation

It is now popular knowledge that the US has struck a deal with Gloria to sell out Philippine sovereignty in exchange for its silence over her bid for term extension. At stake here are: 1) control of at least $570 billion in gas and oil reserves, and 2) the Filipino people’s right to choose its leaders and periodically vote on issues of national concern. Specifically, the oil and gas wealth alone means P273,888 for each Filipino man, woman and child -- the value of which will increase in the future. Such a scheme will likewise perpetuate the kleptocracy and plutocracy of Gloria Arroyo’s ilk and US-backed oligarchs for years and years to come.

For over a decade now, the US has pursued a program of setting up physical and social infrastructure in key cities and provinces in Mindanao -- a process which has accelerated the past five years. Filipinos often wondered and joked about these huge US projects in places like General Santos. Highways were built so wide and thick that engineers say they can accommodate the landing of the largest air transport vehicles.

It’s been a puzzle, really, why such an area known more for its tuna and sardines would need a highway that could land a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. Clearly, the US has been making very strategic, long term investments in Mindanao for purposes that have never been fully revealed.

In the cloak-and-dagger of international geopolitics, few things are really what they seem. The motives for “magnanimity” of US physical and social investments in Mindanao , as well as, those of other parties, however, have begun to be revealed -- thanks to the national blowback on the Arroyo-MILF Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD).

It began with Hashim Salamat’s 2003 letter to the war-monger Bush which marked the change in the MILF’s standing from a mere rebel group to a front for US imperial and economic hegemony.

The US dangled the “terrorist” tag on the MILF until that pleading letter gave the two common cause in the “ancestral domain” supposition, which in effect cedes a third of Mindanao of over twenty-million people to the MILF, which does not even have any basis for claiming to represent over two million Muslims in the country’s third major island.

While some official Muslim population estimates reach four million, doubts are raised by the likes of former QC Mayor Jun Simon, whose experienced reckoning halves the bloated Comelec voters’ list, which gives a more accurate real figure. But then, a nation-state is still not a cake to be cut up for each party to own; for if it were so, there would be no nation and republic to speak of.

Also, given that modern society favors meritocracy in social standing and stewardship in land use, the concept of inherited “ancestral domain” is most repugnant because it is, in essence, archaic and feudal. The historical fact is that Philippine “ancestral domain” was long demolished by the arrival of the conquistadores and the prayles.

Incidentally, the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) is at the forefront of pushing the “peace process” on the basis of the MILF’s “ancestral domain” and is headed by former Ambassador to the Philippines, Richard Solomon, who also heads the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation -- an institution branded as “America’s University of Imperialism” by Chalmer Johnsons, University of California professor and CIA analyst.

Thus, the MILF forces have become mere mercenaries of the most oppressive force in the world.

Aside from exposing its own paucity and losing whatever respect is left of it, the MILF, along with its tactical allies like the NDF and some groups of the “rejectionist” mold have been caught in their own web of contradictions.

Many have wondered why Satur Ocampo graced the Arroyo-MILF signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur and his subsequent tepid responses as the nation raged in anger.

Last Saturday, too, a picture of a certain Sister Arnold with placards signed KPML and SNLK came out in a newspaper front page reporting their support for the MoA-AD. When I called Prof. Dodong Nemenzo to clarify, he attributed this to the groups’ “tactical alliances” with the MILF.

From its end, the NDF has always pursued a “destroy the national government and AFP at all cost” policy as it allies with the MILF and gets trapped by the US ’ global divide and rule ploy. As a result, the NDF and some “rejectionists” have been caught in the dilemma of supporting the dismemberment of Mindanao and the nation, and unwittingly supporting the real US interest of sustaining military bases and exploiting the rich resources in Mindanao .

Mindanao can only be saved if the AFP leadership, the Muslims and Christians of Mindanao, and the entire Filipino people unite to drive off the almost fully entrenched talons of the foreign predator in Mindanao .

My position is to win over the AFP and government rank-and-file to act as one against US hegemony and corrupt domestic instruments such as Gloria Arroyo, and liberate the wealth of this country from foreign hands, earmarking them for nation building and people’s prosperity.

Arguably, this is the only window in our history where this is possible as the US is at its weakest.

The appeasement of the likes of Jose Montelibano’s “peace at all cost” column is deceptive because the MILF peace pact will just be the root of a wider perpetual war, in the same way that the good works of Billy Esposo in exposing US imperialism are being negated by his continuing bigotry against the national leader who had already solved the MILF problem in his re-claiming of Camp Abubakar in 2000.

Let us draw inspiration from the recent South American victories over US imperialism, like the electoral win in Paraguay of the anti-US former bishop Fernando Lugo, that country’s newly-inaugurated El Presidente. Let us all realize that unity -- among our people and the AFP -- is what it takes to save Mindanao and the rest of our nation!

The Daily Tribune
8-18-2008