The chaff from the grain

Gen. Alexander Yano’s retirement as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (CS-AFP) seems to be overdramatized by some opposition quarters these days. They believe that Yano is being retired a month early because he declined to give support to any Cha-cha moves by telling Gloria Arroyo’s representative that he would only follow what is legal and wouldn’t fire upon the Filipino people if ordered. The other story, however, which I think is more credible is that this is merely part of the deal to ease tensions created by an earlier botched plan to appoint Gen. Delfin Bangit of Class ’78 as the next CS-AFP, leapfrogging Gen. Victor Ibrado of Class ’77. As Ibrado is now slated to replace Yano, he is given more time before Bangit slides in by March of 2010, with Yano getting an ambassadorship in time for the CA hearings--hence, the May 1 retirement.

Gen. Yano is indeed the “professional” soldier that he’s touted to be. So “professional” is he that it seems more priority is placed on this career move rather than on saving the nation from the continuing oppression of the ruling class. Predictably, the rest of the AFP top brass are no different either. They have all been in step with Gloria’s game plan: Satisfy the career issues of promotion and PMA class prerogatives, and the country can go hell. Of course, much more is at stake for Yano--a traditional P50 million “pabaon,” as well as, an additional P150-million sweetener Gloria has reportedly arranged as his golden parachute. Yano is no Hugo Chavez, that’s clear.

All this leaves the “transition government” of Chief Justice Puno high and dry. And since Puno can’t win in an election, that leaves his “moral revolution” on the dry docks too. Thus, all options lynch-pinned on a hoped-for Puno-Yano formula are now kaput, demolished by this “professionalism” in the military.

Providentially, it is this same “professionalism” which also separates the chaff from the grain. The few who dared to stand up, going beyond professionalism to uphold patriotism and nationalism, are seen in the likes of Gen. Danilo Lim, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Gen. Renato Miranda, Col. Ariel Querubin, Maj. Jason Aquino, Lt. Dante Langkit, the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalo), Capt. Nic Faeldon, et al.

Yano, in contrast, will only be joining the ranks of the elite while the country he is supposed to serve sinks deeper in the morass of the following worsening exploitative conditions: 1) industrial power rates--already the highest--and residential rates--second highest in Asia--set to go higher with the approval of the larcenous “performance-based” scheme, giving windfall profits to two new Meralco investors; 2) the perverted globalization-dependent economic paradigm yielding zero growth for the Philippines and more unemployment (which we had predicted from the very start of the crisis).

Speaking of our burdensome power rates, the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reform (Nasecore) protested the manner in which Psalm is carrying out the privatization of government’s power plants--including hydro and geothermal. Even as the law intends the sale to be in different power mixes, Psalm is selling off the most economical hydroelectric plants first, then leaves Napocor only with the operationally expensive fossil fuel plants that perpetually keep power rates high. Is it any wonder that only the oligarchs win in either instance? So would Yano still care about this now that he’s about to join the ranks of the filthy rich?

The triumph of “professionalism” over patriotism, as exemplified by this apparent Yano sell-out, gives ample pause to those who believed that the armed forces, like in many South American countries today, can be a source of our patriotic hope. For as long as the AFP mindset continues to be limited to its officers’ “professional” aspirations--with no regard for principles of nationhood, there can hardly be any truth to the Philippines ’ independence and sovereignty. So as I look at the aftermath of the Daniel Smith-“Nicole” case, I can only laugh, because I only see a comedy from the very start. “Nicole” is the quintessential poor Filipino girl, same as any extremely poor African, Thai or Indonesian lass, who chooses to escape from poverty and misery by succumbing to the wiles of a US visa, even at the risk of personal or national pride.

Thank God for the grains of gems in our midst, symbolized by the continuing sacrifices of Gen. Danilo Lim, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and company. They are proof that we can continue to hope in our AFP. Maybe the next time around, we’ll have patriotism triumph over careerism and opportunism for a change. Right now, though, the one benefit we can derive from this Yano letdown is a renewed awareness of our need to wage a continuing political conscientization campaign among our military. And as we cling to civilian leadership for the greater part of this mission, let us bear in mind that President Joseph Estrada and the Edsa III forces are the only ones capable of forging opposition leadership, unity, and eventual victory.

An opposition political convention

Convening an opposition political convention to try to agree on a common set of presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and even a common senatorial slate, is a capital idea. There’s no one else that the public will recognize to convene such an event except for the most well-regarded opposition leader. And no one but President Joseph Estrada has stood out as the undisputed opposition symbol and impresario throughout the past eight years of the corrupt, malevolent, and oppressive rule of force of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her foreign patrons. From his strict adherence to the rule of law to his patriotic economics, Estrada is the antithesis to the Arroyo regime.

In our latest Talk News TV episode with the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) Secretary-General Mr. Milo Tanchuling, one crucial difference between the Arroyo and Estrada regimes was highlighted by a graph in the FDC’s 36-page report entitled, “FDC on the 2009 National Government Budget.” As it correlated “debt per capita” and expenditure on “social service per capita,” it found that only in the years between 1998 and 2000 (Estrada’s presidency) did social spending exceed debt payment. Compared to available data on the rest and especially on Gloria’s years from 2001 to 2007, where debt payment tripled against social service expenditure, it was shown that Gloria, aside from accumulating more debt than her three predecessor-administrations combined, even reduced social service spending drastically!

There are, of course, many opposition pretenders today for there is tremendous benefit in being identified with the opposition. Gloria Arroyo is Public Enemy No. 1 to 80 percent of Filipino voters, so to be against her is to be with that 80 percent. And yet no one else has sacrificed as much to stand against every transgression of law and morality that Gloria Arroyo and her allies have committed as President Estrada has by choosing to suffer detention for six years and six months, and the humiliation from eight years of lies and calumnies against his self and family. No one else but Estrada has herded the opposition slates through the 2001, 2004 (with FPJ), and 2007 elections by mustering disparate anti-Gloria elements, and has raised the necessary funds and provided winning strategies.

No one but Estrada has also helped inspire decent officers in the military to live up to their principles to take action before corruption overtook them, like the young Bagong Katipuneros a.k.a. Magdalos who staged “Oakwood,” as well as, the February 2006 dissenters whose leaders, Gen. Danilo Lim and Col. Ariel Querubin, were closest to him.

Major exposés against Arroyo’s corruption were likewise initiated by whistleblowers who took inspiration from Estrada’s resistance--from Atty. Samuel Ong in “Hello Garci” to Sandra Cam in the Arroyo Juetengate. Protest movements throughout the past eight years were largely coordinated under Estrada as well. Many political bigwigs, as a result, had to re-examine their consciences and take back their support for Edsa II and what it spawned--all because of Estrada’s sway.

A lot of our young and budding politicians today were nurtured under Estrada’s guidance too. While some have shown their debt of gratitude by staying true to their ideals, others have either turned their backs on him completely or have chosen to work with Mrs. Arroyo, albeit clandestinely, perhaps thinking that the public won’t see through it. Some of the latter would even deign talk about Gloria, claiming she’s no longer a candidate, as if her errors and transgressions are irrelevant to the future conduct of this country, and as if there aren’t any issues of justice and rectification involved.

Beyond all these, though, the most important quality that separates Estrada from these self-proclaimed opposition leaders is policy advocacy. One pretender, for instance, claims to champion the poor and shows himself on TV ads shaking hands with a farmer and wiping his dirtied hand on his clean shirt, just as another poses in his jeans and flashes his matinee idol smile, while another champions environmental issues. But what’s the real issue? Is it not the poverty (and hunger) spawned by neo-colonial policies of perpetual debt, of granting sovereign guarantees to private Big Business backed by foreign partners, of dependence on foreign “investors” who are nothing more than swindlers, of servitude to the oligarchy, ad nausea? Just look at the pretenders today. They are either openly courting US sponsorship or are being open and willing tools of Big Business and corporate scam artists--all of whom Estrada fought head on, which is why a conspiracy was hatched against him.

Don’t get me wrong: Opposition unity remains to be ideal. The public should demand it even if only to ensure polarization between what Gloria represents and the change that we want. But in all, it’s not about Left vs. Right ideology, but about genuine integrity vs. corruption, sovereignty vs. subservience, debt control vs. profligacy, democracy vs. cabalism, and the rule of law vs. the rule of force.

Let the candidates face the public’s questions and let the people have their say. If any candidate is found worthy, then President Estrada will be compelled to support him or her. Otherwise, Estrada should continue on with his candidacy. Candidates who are unwilling to participate in such exercise should rightly be exposed as Arroyo Trojan Horses, with giant stamp pads stating so marking all their campaign materials when the time comes.

Sick ‘doctors,’ sick prescriptions

I am down with LBM. The whole family went down with it in sequence, including the househelp. Either the heat triggers some hibernating bacteria or it’s because I didn’t fork over some more money to change our water filters when I already should have. Thankfully, I am recovering faster thanks to my “biozapper,” which positively charges my body’s good bacteria to neutralize the negative ones. I am also upbeat in trying this new, all-natural Chinese powder that’s made up of animal parts, roots, and oils--instead of the cheaper watermelon powder--against another irritant. Stomatitis, which brings out white patches in the mouth, is prevalent in this weather because of how the body reacts to the summer heat. (Since all the males in my family have consistent bouts with it, it’s probably genetic as well.) Coupled with mentholated virgin coconut oil, I’m sure this powder will beat all the western medicines out there by a huge mile!

You’re probably wondering why I am discussing herbal medicines. It’s because former Mayor Jun Simon, in our Saturday radio program, made a parallel between economists prescribing solutions and doctors prescribing medicines.

If so-called doctors and their prescriptions fail, we immediately replace them and their approaches to our illness. But in the nation’s case, RP economists, whether academics from UP or the Ateneo, or those in media and government, like Solita Monsod, Cielito Habito, or Victor Paderanga, have all been advocating failed economic “medicines” that have presided over the deterioration of the Philippine economic well-being and brought it to the ICU. Looking back the past 28 years, their economic prescriptions have been nothing but bitter pills which the country has swallowed, but which have only made us sicker and sicker. Yet mainstream media continue to laud their “expert” economic advice, by giving them various platforms (columns, TV or radio programs) with which to continually spew the poisons that kill our economy.

What are these latest poisons? One, the World Bank (WB) prescribes the Philippines to again increase its tax on fuel to balance the budget. Every Juan, Pepe and Pilar knows by now that more taxes would only rob more money out of the people’s pockets and siphon these off to the big oil companies and banks. Withdrawing money from circulation, in times of economic crisis, is poison to the economy. Even if government collects the tax, it won’t be going to the state anyway but to debt amortization, which would run up to P700 billion, amounting to half of the total national budget of P1.4 trillion. The WB says the new taxes will improve the RP’s standing with the “credit ratings agencies,” but these, like Standard and Poors or Moody’s, are the very same ones that have been discredited because of the US financial collapse by being blind to the many crimes of Lehman’s, AIG, et al.

Second, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas chief is welcoming as a good sign the news that “hot money” is starting to pour into the Philippines again. With US Dollar interest rates at historic lows, money speculators are using these dollars anew to “invest” in RP stocks, currency and money markets. When you match this with the general nature of Gloria Arroyo’s “sell-out” economic policies that fatten corporate profits for banks, privatized utility companies, power and water generators and distributors, as well as, give fantastic yields to speculators, hot money coming in only means more looting of the Philippine economy. In fact, we are losing billions in this manner when we should be tightening up as Malaysia and Thailand have done, by requiring residency durations for such “hot funds” so as not to “burn” our nation’s economy.

The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), in examining the 2009 National Budget, has exposed many anomalies, including new taxes such as the rVAT and excise taxes, of which a whopping 70 percent presently go to ever-increasing debt repayments. It found that in 2006, for the first in Philippine history, the debt repayment amount exceeded the collection of revenues, which means that our debt is increasing by leaps and bounds. Because of this, there will come a time when “banksters” (bankers cum gangsters) will pull the rug from under us, as what they had done to Argentina in 2000, then blame us for defaulting. My prescription has always been to default way before they do us in. Of course, the US and Britain will be angling to get everything else of value from us, with the charade in Mindanao, involving the Abu Sayyaf and their “white” hostages, just being the latest.

I have said on my radio programs that the Abu Sayyaf will not behead the whites as they’re only capable of beheading their fellow “brownies.” Moreover, the kidnapping was timed for Blair’s arrival and his message of “a-peace-ment,” as well as, for mainstream media to extol the US Balikatan forces before the Filipino public, with daily news of their house-painting and medicine distribution for poor Filipinos. Similarly, human rights abuse issues are being lobbed against one of the few who have stood up against the VFA, Mayor Rudy Duterte. Although many may not like him because he is, no doubt, a “trapo,” the more important issue is his willingness to stand up to the imperialist’s claws, coupled with his peace and order record, of which majority of Davaoeños hold Duterte in high esteem.

Just as there are illnesses of the body, and of our economic and political well-being, that have been dealt poorly by countless prescriptions, suffice it to say that if the present situation persists, we are really hopeless. But, as we continue to live, we continue to breathe hope, and that will be the subject of Friday’s column.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Sulong Pilipinismo, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Monday with Atty. Alan Paguia, Wednesday with former Mayor Jun Simon, Friday with Ver Euistaquio / May Pag-asa, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday; Talk News TV, Destiny Cable, Channel 3, 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Tuesday, with FDC on “Rising from Debt: The Imperative for Survival;” also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

Injustice upon the Thai people

What happened in Thailand recently between April 11 and 14 is not very different from what happened here in Edsa Tres from April 29 to May 1, 2001. The forces of the Establishment (which include the elite, oligarchy, plutocracy or specifically, in Thailand ’s case, the monarchial cabal) ordered their captive armed forces to shoot on unarmed citizens of their own land. Like in Edsa Tres, scores of Thai anti-Establishment “reds shirts” were mowed down and carted off to be hidden from view and only two deaths were reported. As it was in Edsa Tres, pictures or videos exposing these atrocities, which Thaksin Shinawatra in his cable TV news interview tried to point out with futility, were deliberately suppressed by mainstream media. These historic injustices against the respective peoples of these “twin sister-nations” must therefore be addressed by these two together.

Let us clarify the real issues by looking at the timeline of events that led to the present crisis. Thaksin Shinawatra was legally elected as prime minister in 2001, and again in 2005, with the largest voter turnout in Thai history. As chief administrator of Thailand , he introduced the first-ever universal health care system and boosted rural agricultural and cottage industry economies--by extending unprecedented investment funding and by writing off un-payable farmers’ debts to jumpstart economic recovery. He made decisive moves to quash the endemic drugs trade, wiping out 2,000 drug dealers, which earned him the enmity of so-called human rights advocates. He put Thailand ’s economy on the map by driving hard bargains with the Asean for his country’s truck manufacturing program.

Because Thaksin’s actions on the privatization programs imposed by the globalists were neither here nor there, as the privatization of the electricity generation and distribution sectors became long-drawn-out, such elicited the latter’s displeasure. What followed was that the controversial sale of the Thaksin family’s Shin Corp. to Temasek Holdings of the Singapore government was charged by opponents as corrupt. However, some view this merely as a case of rivalry with other interested buyers, including the royal family and its allied business groups--not excluding the Western conglomerates. A campaign of demonization against Thaksin then ensued and the “civil society” of Bangkok , composed of urban professionals employed in the financial sector, went into action, much like our local civil society did from mid-2000 to early 2001.

A prime mover of the “yellow shirts” in their siege of the Thai airports in December 2008 (which the police and military did nothing to control), failed media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul, had his shrill anti-Thaksin tirades carried prominently by the Dow Jones-owned English newspaper, The Nation. His protracted rallies, meanwhile, funded by bankers to the tune of $25,000 a day, as he later admits, became the platform for their demands to shift from an elected parliament to one selected by the crown to their complaints against what they branded as Thaksin’s “fiscal irresponsibility,” all because the popular leader was well-loved for having distributed funds to poor communities for their development. Limthongkul, thus, led a coalition of activist, labor, professional and Buddhist religious groups--much like our evil civil society, composed of Catholic priests and laity, Makati business groups, leftists and labor movements.

Foolishly, some western media anchors opined that now it seems that only the Thai King can resolve the crisis, overlooking the simple truth that the Thai monarchy has been the root of the problem. For one, the King’s Privy Council, led by US-trained ex-general Prem Tinsulanonda, staged the coup against the twice-elected Thaksin in 2006. Plus, the monarchy not only acquiesced to the sabotage of the economy via the yellow shirts’ occupation of Thailand ’s premier Subvaranabhumi airport, but it tacitly supported the rabble-rousers wherever they went.

The Thai royalty still gets good press from the West; that’s true. But this shouldn’t be surprising anymore as the West is still actually controlled by the monarchies of old, through their control of the western financial system, as evidenced by the Bilderberg group.

Domestically, there is absolutely no criticism of the monarchy too because Thailand is probably the only country in the world to have a lese majeste law that criminalizes any form of insults against the sovereign (the King or Queen, as the case may be). For instance, Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer, was sentenced to three years upon setting foot in Thailand for allegedly insulting the Royal family in a novel which isn’t even much read anywhere.

I can’t imagine anyone defending such a state of affairs in any modern society, but several columnists in the Philippines are precisely doing that--maybe for fear that they may not be able to do their viajero buy-and-sell of cheap Thai goods anymore.

Truth to tell: Aside from fomenting political instability in Thailand through the outright suppression of the will of the people in two elections (which sounds familiar to Susan Roces’ “Not once, but twice” charge against Gloria Arroyo), the Thai monarchy is responsible for even worse offenses against its own people:

(1) Thailand, with its 64-million population, ranks third in the world in prostitution, with NGO estimates of up to 1.8 million women and children engaged in the officially-sanctioned trade linked to the promotion of its tourism industry that has spawned one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world; (2) up to 20 percent of the population have no sustainable access to clean water, and (3) amid the 30-percent poverty rate, the King is reported by Fortune magazine to be the world’s richest monarch with $35 billion in wealth.

These conditions of injustice have thus led to the call among many for the abolition of the Thai monarchy. What is unfolding in Thailand is a struggle of the people versus the aristocracy--not different from the struggles of the Filipino people against the “elite” and of the people of the world against the global oligarchy--that’s responsible for today’s system of global financial and economic oppression.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Sulong Pilipinismo, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Monday with Atty. Alan Paguia, Wednesday with former Mayor Jun Simon, Friday with Ver Euistaquio / May Pag-asa, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday; Talk News TV, Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

US-UK’s one step forward in Mindanao

Of the many urgent subjects that have piled up over the week, there’s one that mustn’t escape our full and undivided attention: The latest in the US-UK’s drive to take away the richest parts of Mindanao . While the MILF “Ancestral Domain” (AD) ruse suffered a setback when practically the whole nation stood up against it, the US-UK plots have not seized at all. Blair’s visit to Manila to sell “a-peace-ment,” for instance, was one such step, but the more sinister is the recent “human rights” campaign against one of Mindanao’s most militant law-and-order stalwarts: Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. 

Last April 6, 2009, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) suddenly charged Duterte for being behind the “Davao Death Squads.” The Human Rights Commission of the Philippines, in turn, kowtowed by acknowledging the report posthaste, producing nothing but a propaganda windfall for Duterte’s would-be rival Nograles in the next local election. 

Just what is the HRW? Birmingham University -New York Prof. James Petras says it is “a US-based group claiming to be a non-governmental organization, but which is in fact funded by government-linked quasi-private foundations and a Congressional-funded political propaganda organization, the National Endowment for Democracy…” 

HRW has been at the forefront of the destabilization of states such as Yugoslavia and Venezuela. It published a report critical of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez which was shot with “blatant falsifications and outright fabrications.” It also defended the criminal gang in Kosovo--the KLA--which the West used to sow terror in Yugoslavia to justify its destruction and subsequent break-up. 

It builds up credibility through such campaigns as the ban on land mines, but also uses this to undermine countries that are unwilling to yield to the West’s imperial demands. 

To my mind, the reason why Duterte is suddenly on the HRW’s radar is the heightened drive of the US-UK tandem to press the MILF-MoA-AD in a more radical fashion--that is, through the increased use of terrorism and the strategy of tension to justify internationalization of the issue for more intervention. Tough patriots and crusaders like Mayor Duterte will be a major stumbling block to the “Balkanization” of Mindanao by the West. All Filipinos should therefore take this struggle very seriously for the future is in Mindanao, with its oil, gas and natural deuterium in great abundance. 

Meanwhile, our apology for the slip-up in last Monday’s column; something got lost in the transmission. We touched on two of the four measures of Barack Obama and Gordon Brown in the recent G20 summit. These were: 1) a $1.1-trillion for the IMF, and 2) a re-regulation of the financial sector. The first is just to ensure continued flow of Third World (including Eastern Europe ) debt with many strings attached. The second, meanwhile, remains useless for as long as USURY is the name of the game. As what American artist Jim Kirwan, in Usury Remains Untouched, argues: “We have dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury… We have not focused enough on the big deregulation… (on) the amount of interest that banks can get… (And today,) banks can charge 17, 18, 19, 30, 35 percent, not to mention payday lenders charging 200, 300, 400 percent in states like Illinois (and) California.” 

The main point against re-regulation sans de-institutionalizing usury is: “If you’re able to charge 30 percent... You (will) want people to go into debt… This addicted the financial sector to very, very, very high rates of return compared to what investors were used getting in the real economy, the manufacturing sector, General Motors…” 

Now, on to the third and fourth measures that were cut out--climate change issues and a clamor against “protectionism.” It is quite funny that Obama and Brown stressed the issues of man-made global warming, in spite of the fact that the weather these days isn’t agreeing with them, as cooling patterns are everywhere--from US cold spells to nice cool evenings in Manila . Marina Litvinsky, writing for the International Press Service, headlined: “G20 Leaders Wrangle over Kyoto Successor,” to stress that there is no consensus over this proposed new climate protocol.  

World leaders know that the US-British aim in the global warming scare is to institute the “carbon tax” scheme, to tax everything from power plant emissions to methane from cows’ dung (a greenhouse gas, as reported by The New York Times--I’m not kidding--which would make milk more expensive). Carbon credits trading has already reached $59 billion in the first half of 2008. Once they fool more countries like the Philippines into accepting it because the G20 and the UN say so, it’ll run to the trillions globally, stunt Third World industrialization, and enrich global carbon traders. 

Carbon credits trading has already reached $59 billion in the first half of 2008. Once they fool more countries like the Philippines into accepting it because the G20 and the UN say so, it’ll run to the trillions globally, stunt Third World industrialization, and enrich global carbon traders. 

The fourth proposal--the G20’s warning against protectionism--is, of course, to be expected. Clearly, the US , Britain , China , India , and even Brazil , are all eager to keep markets open for their agricultural and industrial exports. But this would only perpetuate the centralization of the global economy around a few giant economies that want to be super-rich and super-powerful. What we, instead, should do is democratize the global economy by fostering a Nationalist Development Economy (NDE) model for every nation, making each one a positive contributor to the global economy in a trickle up fashion, and reduce their dependency on the global superpowers. We, Filipinos, should champion this NDE paradigm and lead the world into genuine global democracy.  
(Tune in to 1098AM: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. / Saturday, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

NDE versus G20 globalization

The G20 summit in London was a great show, but what did it set out to achieve? It promised to solve the global financial and economic collapse but ended with an agenda that only threatens to worsen the crisis. 

Danny Schechter of Global Research says, “Unemployment is climbing. The real estate contagion is now claiming condos and even shopping malls. It’s bad and by most accounts, getting worse. And, all the ‘leaders’ of the world can do is devote ONE DAY to a forum that must have cost millions to stage?” 

All in all, it was a G7 show, with 13 others, including China , India , Brazil , Indonesia , and South Africa , keeping a polite silence as supporting cast. Throughout the summit, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama kept hamming it up with: 1) a $1.1-trillion fund to poor nations through the IMF; 2) re-regulation of the financial sector; 3) climate change issues; and 4) a clamor against turning to “protectionism.” 

Let’s examine the measures closely. First, the $1.1 trillion is ostensibly for the poor, developing countries’ stimulus investments--this, notwithstanding the IMF’s need for massive replenishment after bailing out Ireland, Iceland and the new US satellites in Eastern Europe. Remember that the IMF is mandated to extend loans only to stabilize a country’s exchange rates and assist in its balance-of-payment problems. Funding real stimulus projects for infrastructure or industrial development are therefore not part of it. 

So, here we have another con game that is being played on the rest of the world: The IMF will lend this money to Third World countries hardest hit by the present global crisis only to help pay for their old debts. 

As Michel Chussodovsky explains, “The IMF will lend two more dollars so (that) poor countries can continue to pay their four dollar debt amortization every year”--which naturally, will go back to the banks again! 

For sure, this new money will come with the usual “structural adjustments,” such as more deregulation, liberalization and privatization. Although Brown and Obama believe that they can help their crashing economies this way, it certainly won’t help the poor countries. 

Second, while the two leaders promise, on one hand, to re-regulate the financial sector, they, on the other hand, continue to feed the bankers’ swindle of the world. Such re-regulation is, thus, meaningless as it avoids confronting the fundamental problem that causes the global financial system to run amuck endlessly--the mother of all Ponzi schemes: Usury. 

The Bretton Woods system set up after the Second World War mandated not only fixed exchange rates for the world’s currencies but also a stable interest rate regime limited to 8 and 9 percent. The deregulation of interest rates, however, since the 1970s, simultaneous with the dollar decoupling from gold--making it a fiat currency, spun off the spiraling of interest rates, then pushed these even higher through the entry of creative financial instruments. What we call here “5-6” by “ Bombay ” lenders started happening all over the world. 

As American artist Jim Kirwan, in his Usury Remains Untouched, says: “We have dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury… We have not focused enough on the big deregulation that precedes all other deregulation, and that’s the ceiling that (is)… the amount of interest that banks can get… In the 1970s we began to deregulate this… And we have today, taken as common, that banks can charge 17, 18, 19, 30, 35 percent, not to mention payday lenders charging 200, 300, 400 percent in states like Illinois, California.” 

His main point then follows: “If you’re able to charge 30 percent... You (will) want people to go into debt… This addicted the financial sector to very, very, very high rates of return compared to what investors were used getting in the real economy, the manufacturing sector, General Motors…” 

Thus, the single biggest stumbling block to the resurgence of the Philippine economy is the foreign (and domestic) debt it is endlessly paying to the bankers’ mafia. As of August 2007, RP’s outstanding debts were placed at $81.9 billion or P3.871 trillion--not including the contingent liabilities conservatively placed at over half a trillion. 

We are taxed more and more to pay for these debts, including 70 percent of the rVAT, with less than 10 percent going to the Katas ng VAT dole-outs of the DSWD, touted by Arroyo ignoramuses as a solution to the crisis. Still, they want to tax us even more--on tobacco and alcoholic beverages, and now, on text. Even if the Philippines is not among the Highly Indebted Poor Countries--as many in Africa are--as yet, we’re headed toward that. 

Quite simply, the G20 did not address the debt bomb because the G7 won’t allow it. Instead, it will exacerbate the problem with this new IMF loan to indebt countries like us even more. 

Third, Obama and Brown stressed the issues of climate change or man-made global warming, in spite of the fact that the weather these days isn’t agreeing with them. Cooling patterns are everywhere--from US cold spells to nice cool evenings in Manila . 

Marina Litvinsky, writing for the International Press Service headlined: “G20 Leaders Wrangle over Kyoto Successor.” There is thankfully no consensus over this proposed new climate protocol because every nation knows the US-British aim in the global warming scare is to institute the “carbon tax,” to tax everything from power plant emissions to methane from cows’ dung (a greenhouse gas, as reported by The New York Times). 

Carbon credits trading has already reached $59 billion in the first half of 2008. Once they fool more countries like the Philippines into accepting it because the G20 and the UN say so, it’ll run to the trillions globally, stunt Third World industrialization, and enrich global carbon traders. 

Fourth, the G20 warned against protectionism--of course! The US, Britain , China , India , and even Brazil , are all eager to keep markets open for their agricultural and industrial exports. But this would only perpetuate the centralization of the global economy around a few giant economies that want to be super-rich and super-powerful. Instead, we should democratize the global economy by fostering the Nationalist Development Economy (NDE) for every country, making every nation positive contributors to the global economy in a trickle up fashion, and reduce dependency on the control of global superpowers. 

Continued Friday... 

From slaves to servant-leaders

When the Philippines imported “amahs” for its elite families and the US indentured Chinese coolies by the tens of thousands to work on its railroad system in the 18th Century, the term “nation of servants” could have been hung on the necks of the Chinese people. But then a revolution transpired in China after a few hundred years, and today, no one can describe the Chinese as a “nation of servants” anymore. 

The Chinese know that Filipinos are a nation of servants because they see them in this role everywhere--from house maids in Hong Kong to lounge act entertainers in mainland China . How then can we Filipinos argue against this fact? Why, we even tout with pride the millions of our countrymen slaving away in foreign lands as our national “heroes.” So if we don’t relish such an image, we should have our “revolution” first, as the Chinese did, and set up a strong, independent economy. 

It is, thus, silly for some sectors to protest that “insult” from a Hong Kong columnist since they have done nothing to raise the standing of our nation in the world stage. Looking especially ridiculous is the Blas Ople Institute because the late labor minister and senator was one of the architects of RP’s “labor export” industry. Another one that doth protest too much is Sen. Pia Cayetano, who has only jogged for pet causes (like breast-feeding and cancer awareness) and stood as product endorser for a fabric conditioner, but has totally not championed any legislation to industrialize our economy to create employment so that OFWs may return home. 

Filipinos have been insulted ever since the first white man stepped on our island shores. The Spaniards called our natives ladrones while the Americans labeled us as “monkeys.” From the US media, we can come up with an almost endless list of anti-Filipino insults as well. In recent memory, American radio sensation Howard Stern said that Filipinos “…eat their young and sell their daughters for sex,” which riled local radio anchor Rene Sta. Cruz, who challenged Stern to a square off in the US of A. However, this Rene, whom I have partnered with on DZXL, was always the first to denigrate Filipinos too with his “Only in the Philippines ” tag for every fault he saw. The Congress of Filipino-American Citizens, meanwhile, had filed a $65-million lawsuit against Stern, but 16 years later, nothing has really changed--except that now, a Filipina chef serves the White House kitchen. Then, there’s the Desperate Housewives TV series, which, in one of its episodes, cast aspersions on RP medical schools churning out phony doctors’ diplomas, which we all know has basis in fact. 

In all these instances, Filipinos would rage yet do nothing about the roots of the continuing economic crises that have led to the deterioration of jobs and the erosion of our social and moral fabric. Even though we’ve had some leading lights in the cultural scene, like Freddie Aguilar with his opus “Anak,” they seem to be all but forgotten today. 

  
If Filipinos want to finally end the insults to our nation and race, we should wage a social and national revolution; and not just stay on the level of rage without addressing the main reasons for our low self- and global-esteem. If not, then we’re just stuck in a sadomasochistic theater of the absurd. To assert our national dignity, we must hoist the flag of revolution by installing genuine Filipino public servants or servant-leaders such as President Joseph Estrada, Gen. Danilo Lim, Sen. Sonny Trillanes, Gen. Miranda, the Magdalos or Bagong Katipuneros, Maj. Jason Aquino, Capt. Nic Faeldon, and the like. 

If we want radical change in our society, we have to reject all insults to our intelligence, such as the coming farcical 2010 elections and all such exercises under prevailing neo-colonial conditions--which limit the field of aspirants to only those who kowtow to the neo-colonial system. 

Just taking a look at the present instance, from the advancement of the date for the filing of candidacies, to the SWS survey that deceptively solicited three multiple choices for a single presidential post, we can see how everything is being set to block the return of one genuine alternative leader, President Estrada. This recent survey, despite being presented as a non-commissioned, “academic” exercise, is especially insidious given the track record of SWS, which, in its 2004 exit poll made Gloria Arroyo lead FPJ in Metro Manila, only to be debunked by FPJ’s overwhelming win except in Villar’s Las Piñas. 

All these, however, will be under the water as the real plan of the GMA regime, as floated by National (In)Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, is a “transition (read: holdover) government” to pre-empt the elections. I am not automatically against a transition government per se. In fact, we have been pushing for it since 2005. But that can only come after a “regime change,” which all patriotic Filipinos have desired since “Hello Garci.” If we are ready to transition from a state of servitude to a noble nation of servant-leaders, then let’s do the revolution now! 

The US-Gloria cha-cha

If we are among the poorest in Asia today, it is because external forces have suffocated the internal, nationalist impetus toward development and progress. Our potential for greatness, with the wealth of our national patrimony and the talents and drive of our people, has been repeatedly stymied by the powerful forces of globalization, capturing the State, its instrumentalities and other vital social institutions--all for the plunder of our nation. What we have today is a political regime that continues the onerous payment of usurious debts to globalist bankers and Filipino businesses, economists who offer up the Philippines to the feeding frenzy of transnational corporations, and a national armed and police force that undermines our sovereignty and basic freedoms. 

This pillage of our nation has been done on the altar of globalization. One of its high priests, tall and beaming with blue eyes, has just suddenly descended on our shores out of the blue, to consecrate another round of supposed “peace” negotiations between the MILF and the Philippine government. Despite being in a position to know the real issues, “Hallelujahs” are all that can be heard from our Establishment media, buttressed by acolytes from the Ateneo, as well as, top honchos of Big Business groups, who have waved palm fronds and thrown rose petals along his path. 

Of course, even if Tony Blair was invited to speak on “The Leader as a Nation Builder in a Globalizing World,” nothing was said about his propagation of the US-British lie on Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that was later used as justification for the war on a sovereign Iraq . Even if this was subsequently modified as owing to the murders committed under Saddam such as the Halabja poison gas attack, from which 5,000 were killed and 10,000 were injured, the irrefutable fact remains that the “Second Iraq War”--which has caused up to a million Iraqi civilian deaths, along with an additional four million displaced, plus over 2,500 of targeted killings against Iraqi scientists, academics, artists, and physicians—has turned out to be the 21st Century’s first real genocidal rampage, reminiscent only of the massacres at Balangiga (here in the Philippines) during the 20th Century. 
  
Last week, we reported on the indictments against Blair by the Movement for the Advancement of International Criminal Law and the International War Crimes Tribunal (also in The Hague ) for war crimes including the “Killing and Injuring [of] a Defenseless Population throughout Yugoslavia ” and “[The Use of] Depleted Uranium, Cluster Bombs and Other Prohibited Weapons.” This time, we add the accusations against Blair by the Athens Bar Association for “The repeated, blatant violations by the United States and Britain of the stipulations of the four 1949 Geneva conventions, the 1954 convention of The Hague as well as the charter of the international criminal court, [constituting] war crimes and crimes against humanity,” in a case it filed before the International Criminal Court on Bush’s invasion of Iraq and his massacre of civilians. 

Indeed, Blair’s illegal wars have spanned the Clinton and Bush administrations, but there’s more. Blair has gotten himself embroiled in other equally damaging scandals including the mysterious death of David Kelly, UK adviser on Iraqi arms programs who had exposed the WMD lie; his financial donations scandals involving racing promoter Bernie Ecclestone, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and investor Srichand Hinduja; and the “cash for peerages” affair involving his right hand man Mandelson. Despite all these, by simply being the darling of the globalist elite clustered around the Bilderberg Group of the world’s super-oligarchs, which recruited him in its 1993 Athens secret meeting, something that Blair lied about until exposed by members of the British Parliament, this dirty politician was still able to rise to the rarefied heights of international prestige. 

By the way, Bill Clinton attended the Bilderberg meet of 1991, too, two years before Blair, and the two soon became leaders of their respective powerful countries which led to their “wars for peace” all over the globe. Now, Blair visited the Philippines to promote “peace” between it and the already defeated MILF, which had to run to Uncle Sam to offer its vassalage. 

Wherever I hear Blair speak of peace, I recall two British SAS soldiers in Basra dressed in Arab garb setting up a car bomb in that city in 2005, where they were caught by Iraqi police and jailed--only to be sprung by British tanks and forces. Another is in Baghdad , where two Americans disguised in Arab clothes were caught by Iraqis when the two tried to blow up a booby-trapped car in the Ghazaliyah district. 

Blair and the Americans may not need to have their soldiers and operatives do these black ops in the Philippines anymore as there are enough locals--in the military, the police, and the MILF--to do it for them. 

I don’t know if we’re going to still be able to save Mindanao from dismemberment in this process of “a-peace-ment.” Mindanao ’s wealth is in the vital interest of the world’s globalist forces and they’ll settle for even an extended Gloria term if necessary, and probably most conveniently. They have a mutual interest in the Cha-cha as Gloria needs her extension and the globalists need the repeal of the protectionist provisions that would enhance the strength of their “ancestral domain” doctrine. 

The fait accompli could be a failure of elections in 2010 whereby Gloria goes into hold-over mode and dances off to a Cha-cha with the religious and opposition sectors stymied. 

In the face of such schemes, Blair and Obama can easily activate their good old black ops, behead a few more civilians, bomb a few buses and churches or mosques, and pummel the Filipino psyche into acquiescence--unless patriots from the Armed Forces of the Philippines unite with nationalist forces to end this neo-colonial charade once and for all. Only a truly nationalist agenda can defeat the globalists’ evil designs. 

For truth and justice

“It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.”—Aristotle 

If we are a topsy-turvy society today, it is because justice has been overtaken by power politics and the use of force and deception. This is what can be observed in many of our most celebrated crime mysteries, from the Ninoy Aquino, Lean Alejandro, and Popoy Lagman assassinations to the present and highly charged Dacer-Corbito case. Even though all have been marred by still many unanswered questions, accusers in the present instance do not have an open-and-shut case because of one very fundamental problem: The absence of a corpus delicti (or the body of the crime). 

For one, DNA examination of the alleged Dacer-Corbito bone fragments by the University of the Philippines Natural Sciences Research Institute stated thus: “Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis targeting the 121 bp intergenic region of the COH and tRNAlys genes of the mitochondrion gave NEGATIVE RESULTS for the presence of human DNA.” 

This was the official report submitted to retired general Reynaldo G. Wycoco, the NBI director at that time who was also a political appointee of Mrs. Gloria Arroyo. These results were strangely never given emphasis by subsequent reportage. Instead, dental plates not found by the NBI composite team--composed of dozens of investigators who scoured the crime scene for 31 days--but allegedly retrieved by the hired forensic expert of the Dacer family in a subsequent four-hour search were given more weight. 

On the evening of March 25, 2009, after the side of the accused, represented by Atty. Alex Avisado—who also appeared on my “Talk News TV” program the other day, started airing on major TV networks, a Dacer family member finally reacted to the pivotal question of the “corpus delicti.” I was surprised, though, that Karina Dacer did not bring out any solid evidence to counter Atty. Avisado’s presentation. 

Let me clarify that I am not defending Sen. Ping Lacson. Most who follow my column and programs know that I have not been sympathetic to him ever since he served as an Arroyo spoiler against the imminent victory of FPJ in 2004. All these are in the interest of justice and truth. 

A reopening of the Dacer case should look into the other angles we raised in Part 1 of our column-series on this issue. I would like a thorough inquiry into the claims of Fr. Baldostamon, parish priest of the Dacers, who said he heard Almonte offer to connect the family with the kidnappers while continuing with their mourning. Moreover, former president Fidel V. Ramos’ role in all this should be another priority because, in truth, a great many of our people believe that he had a lot to gain from Dacer’s disappearance and are intrigued by his Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) in announcing it even before the family showed any alarm. Then, of course, the Almonte connection to FVR and the Baldostamon claim should not remain hanging. 

Ultimately, though, our call to reopen the Dacer case can only be rhetorical as there’s no hope of getting to the bottom of it while the Arroyo regime stays in power. Among many reasons, it is primarily not in its interest to lift the “Sword of Damocles” over its adversaries who are accused in the case. That sword, however, has gotten duller and duller by the day, as the evidence contrary to the prosecution’s case, which heretofore have been restrained for being subjudice, has now been repeated over media. In fact, a backlash may have already started against the Arroyo regime; or, at the very least, skepticism has grown over the government’s case against the accused. After these three weeks of sensationalism, all these should rightly return to the processes of the courts--and wait for the Arroyo regime to be changed before justice is realized. 

Certainly, the Aristotelian ideal of a just society is also the Filipino ideal. Yet, we are hurtling farther away from it because of the machinations of transnational Western powers through their local minions in government and the oligarchy. 

Justice demands that the people be sovereign, with the integrity of our national boundaries and the sanctity of our national patrimony intact. Sadly, there has not been a moment in this nation’s history that these have been held paramount. So today, that peril is again at its height, with the arrival of war criminal Tony Blair, whom the idiotic Philippine mainstream media touts as a “peace maker.” 

If only they opened their eyes, they’d know that Tony Blair’s mission in the Philippines is to merely push US-British oil interests by glorifying appeasement to secessionist demands, disguised as peace with the MILF—which, on its own, has already turned on its cause since it kowtowed to US President George W. Bush in 2003. 

Also, they’d better learn that the Movement for the Advancement of International Criminal Law already handed a 40-page dossier to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague , charging Blair with serious violations of international humanitarian law in Yugoslavia , subsequently declaring him a “war criminal.” Plus, Carne Ross, former key British negotiator at the UN, exposed Blair’s other war crime lies in an inquiry, saying: “At no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests.” 

At best, the US-British powers serve as the only remaining prop in the continuation of the unjust and oppressive Arroyo regime, which the Filipino electorate have rejected twice--for which Gloria had to cheat to push through. This regime has faced at least three major military revolts--aborted only by admonishments from the US Embassy, notwithstanding surveys pointing to the overwhelming disgust of the populace against it. But Blair and Obama still rely on Gloria to give to their oil companies our national patrimony in Mindanao --something that should be stopped at all cost if we are to secure this country’s economic future. Our next focus is on the US-Gloria Cha-Cha. 

Cui bono?

The same media outlets that led the campaign against President Estrada in the run-up to Edsa II are again taking charge of spinning the so-called “twists and turns” in the Dacer-Corbito case. Not that they’ve had a “balanced” track record to begin with, but the fixation of Newsbreak and the Inquirer on the currently revived murder mystery more than begs the question: Cui bono? 

In all their articles, the assumption that Estrada is the chief beneficiary of the twin-crimes is being held as gospel truth. Yet they have never explored other angles seriously, nor have they truly presented to the public the identities of those who clearly benefitted since this Dacer-Corbito case became fodder for Estrada’s overthrow. 

Undoubtedly, the past eight or nine years should have clearly impressed upon anyone that Estrada had the least to gain for doing Dacer in. First off, Estrada never felt his administration to be under any real danger of ouster since he had an incontrovertible mandate from the people; thus, one alleged scandal would not have fazed him, much less led him to contemplate murder. Proof of this sense of self-assurance and equanimity was his pacifist response to the “evil society” mob’s incessant threats of violence, as arrogantly relayed by then Edsa II gofer Renato de Villa. 

Then, despite his being the repeated target of slings and arrows throughout his long, distinguished career in film and public service, President Estrada has not once known to have responded with violence. If ever he’d gotten involved in some fisticuffs one way or another during his youth, these were only for his protection of the weak, like in his stance against a burly foreign student in the Ateneo to defend a bullied classmate, or in his fights with a gang that blackmailed his movie industry colleagues (for which he teamed up with FPJ). Moreover, looking back at Estrada’s record, one will see that he has been a stickler for the law--from his election cases in San Juan where he was cheated out of victory once but eventually won on a recount, to his detentions under Marcos’ rule. 

So did Estrada have anything to gain from Dacer’s “disappearance”? The insinuation is that Dacer knew a lot about the alleged BW stock manipulation scam and was about to spill the beans. However, if, after seven years, the Sandiganbayan--a Kangaroo court at that--and the prosecution were unable to turn up anything solid, what could Dacer have had? 

If we grant that Dacer really did have something on Estrada and thus, feared for his life, as FVR’s consigliore Joe Almonte claims from a Dacer letter he supposedly received, wouldn’t Dacer have had this “proof” tucked away in some safe place, only to be released if something happened to him? Plus, if Estrada had any taint of guilt in the sordid crime, wouldn’t he have grabbed the twice offered exile to any country of his choice extended by Arroyo through then DoJ chief Nani Perez? 

If the Inquirer’s Volt Contreras or Newsbreak’s Aries Rufo were really intent on getting to the bottom of the Dacer-Corbito mystery, shouldn’t they also have looked into all these other angles? By the way, the public might also want to ask the owners and funding sources of these two news organizations the same “cui bono” question because haven’t they also benefitted immensely from Estrada’s fall? Could this be the reason why these two outfits are not intent on pursuing any other angle? 

My NBI sources reminded me that the bones retrieved from the alleged site of the Dacer-Corbito immolation-murder, as well as, DNA tests of the samples attest to the fact that these are not human skeletal remains. The substitution of skeletal evidence has had a long history in the PNP, such as the “1980’s Leyte Killing Fields” used to prosecute Satur Ocampo but which a self-confessed police asset cum Rajah Solaiman “jihadist” cum Norberto Gonzales special ops agent exposed in 2007 as bones dug up from a Manila cemetery. For sure, the “fake” Dacer-Corbito bones issue will be brought out by the Ping Lacson camp in the legal counter-offensives to come, as with the other contradictions my previous column raised. 

Additionally, “cui bono” may also be asked of former president Fidel V. Ramos. Wasn’t he under investigation for a long list of crimes against the Republic--from the Centennial Scam, to the AFP Modernization Fund disappearance, to the PEA-Amari scam, to the Smokey Mountain construction scam, ad nausea? Wasn’t Dacer also operating for him and for the forces aiming to destabilize and depose the Estrada government? In colloquial Filipino, Dacer was what was described as “lagareng hapon” or a two-edged cutting saw who played both sides. Estrada insiders say that at the Dacer-Estrada meeting, the two long-time compadres renewed their bosom friendship and Dacer had resumed his duties for Estrada. If this scenario is true, then it is quite likely that it was FVR who felt grievously betrayed by Dacer. 

FVR did “protest too much” and too early, even before the Dacer family got alarmed by their father’s “disappearance.” As for Dacer’s letter to Almonte expressing fears for his own safety, that Newsbreak list of letters should show just how paranoid Dacer was in conjuring real or imagined persecution from a long list of people. When Dacer disappeared, the destabilizers of Estrada went to town with the sensational crime and suspense case. So who benefitted from that? Certainly not Estrada. Think about it… 

To be concluded on Friday 

  

The forgotten angle

Our volunteer researcher Zaida Sonsona e-mailed us some very important items on the Dacer-Corbito case, which she picked up from politicaljunkie.blogspot.com. 

The first, from April 2001, undoubtedly a high point of media frenzy over the alleged kidnap-murders, involved an exposé of parish priest Fr. Gabriel Baldostamon of the Our Lady of Rosary church in Sun Valley Subdivision--where the Dacers reside--that at a breakfast meeting with the Dacers around 10 days after their father’s disappearance, he heard FVR henchman Joe Almonte “consoling” the family that should they recover Dacer or “arrange” for his release, he would be spirited out to the US to make it appear that he was still missing. 

Strangely, eight years since that episode, Almonte has never reacted nor has this angle ever been properly looked into. According to the same item, “Almonte earlier came out with a letter in which Dacer wrote apprehensions over drawing the ire of Joseph Estrada and former PNP chief Panfilo Lacson.” But where did he get that letter? 

The next item was my Tribune column a few days after that exposé entitled, “Investigate Almonte,” which similarly saw print in Bishop Ted Bacani’s column. It echoed the calls we made for people to uncover mysteries behind other brutal incidents like the December 2000 “F-I-D-E-L” LRT bombing, where a security guard of the LRT and the father of bombing victim Crisel Acusin claimed that bomb-sniffing dogs were pulled out a week before the attack, which was also no different from the Al Ghozi murder under police custody, as with other unsolved cases by shadowy military and police operators. 

These questions become even more relevant because FVR was at the Manila Hotel, where he allegedly was supposed to meet Dacer for a breakfast meeting. Yet, only after an hour of waiting, he already announced that Dacer had disappeared and called police. Let me emphasize: After only an hour. 

What’s equally strange is that the announcement was made even before the Dacer family suspected of anything amiss. I then recall thinking that FVR should be a primary suspect because Dacer knew many of his secrets and it was well known too that Dacer had already reconciled with his “kumpareng” Erap, just days prior to that meeting. 

Such a suspicion is further bolstered by incontrovertible historical facts which point to their efforts at destabilizing and deposing the elected Estrada. The F-I-D-E-L bombings may have been blamed on the usual suspects--Muslim “terrorists”--but when one asks, Qui bono (or who benefits), the finger always points to Edsa II beneficiaries. 

The ruthlessness and sinister efficiency of these groups--powerful police and military individuals (and syndicates) over whom FVR has great “influence”--are now well known. However, we must not forget another big beneficiary of the destabilization of Estrada--the US corporatocracy. As we know, FVR has close links to the Carlyle Group, a chief purveyor of US imperialism today. 

Next on the list was Ninez Cacho-Olivares’ article of April 16, 2001, which raised a number of crucial questions: “First, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announces to the public that the case has been solved… (but then) a bag of charred bones… still had to undergo DNA testing for positive verification… Then one witness showed the media a pair of brown loafers which he claimed belonged to Dacer… It was later discovered that (it) could not have belonged to Dacer or Corbito. And forensics still had not determined whether the charred bones were human bones… 

“But NBI chief Reynaldo Wycoco continued to peddle the story and came up with the ridiculous claim that in the case of Dacer, the corpus delicti was not the body but the killing itself. Duh!… It was clear that the Arroyo government, its Justice Department and the NBI were more than willing to frame their foes with a murder rap… Other questions (thus) arise: Why was the skull never found? Why weren’t other pieces of jewelry, which Dacer normally wears, found in the site where he and his driver were said to have been burned to a crisp four months ago?… 

“A priest suddenly surfaced and claimed he had overheard Fidel Ramos’ man, Jose Almonte (doing what we narrated above)… The same priest also went to the ‘murder’ site and concluded that given the report that Dacer and his driver were burned to a crisp, the site would have shown a bigger burnt area. Not too long after, the children of Dacer suddenly called a press conference claiming they have accepted the fact that their father is dead, as they had the bones and dentures checked by a private physician. They also claimed that found in the same murder site were the dentures as well as pieces of jewelry that belonged to their father… How is it possible for the family to have gotten another set of dentures and bones after the NBI had already been through the site with its ‘evidence’?… What does this make too, of the Dacer children who claim to have found the jewelry in the same murder site… (Were) the murderers… generous enough to give away a pair of shoes… (and) the jewelry Dacer was wearing?” 

Besides all these unanswered questions, we ask: Why has the US opened the way for the “return” of Mancao and Dumlao at this time? Of course, we know that the US has always meddled in our affairs. But why this particular case? 

Reliable military intelligence sources we talked to insist that the affidavits of Mancao and Dumlao will implicate Estrada, as what Michael Ray Aquino’s will later do. They are convinced that this campaign, which involves the US, vividly betrays Uncle Sam’s fear of Estrada as being the only serious obstacle to its 2010 plan of installing a new Gloria Arroyo puppet--in the guise of someone invited to Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast no less? (More next column…) 

The power of truth and humility

For weeks, Gloria’s Justice Secretary has been firing up speculation around the return of Dacer-Corbito slay suspect Mancao by circulating rumors and histrionic news, such as the stashing of the deposition in a steel vault. With the witness still alive and kicking, and with such legal documents usually in quadruplicates, why should putting a copy in a vault be such an important matter? Rumors and texts then linked President Joseph E. Estrada, the bane of Gloria’s political existence, to the Mancao testimony. The Philippine Star’s resident Estrada demonizer, Billy Esposo, for one, texted Linggoy Alcuaz that Erap was indeed implicated. Unfortunately for all of them, a most unexpected witness, erstwhile Estrada nemesis, retired police colonel Reynaldo Berroya, has come out to vouch for Estrada’s complete innocence. 

President Estrada had kept silent in the face of treacherous attempts to sully his image by connecting him to the Dacer-Corbito case. It was only late last week that Sen. Jinggoy Estrada rose to defend his father and his family’s name, denying any truth to the insinuations. President Estrada himself finally spoke out and said that the Estrada family does not stoop to such deeds. Truth to tell, I have been going around among friends and acquaintances in different social circles, getting feedback on the Arroyo regime’s underhanded campaign to taint Estrada. One career government official and former newsman told me that Dacer and Estrada had always had good relations, and he also knew that days before Dacer’s disappearance, the two had met on the friendliest of terms. “Estrada is not the type,” many invariably opined. 

The big surprise was Berroya stepping forward to clear President Estrada in the Dacer-Corbito slay, a speculation that has persisted to a limited degree over the past decade. It is a very significant turn of events as far as Estrada is concerned and a very big setback to those who have long hoped to implicate him by hook or by crook. 

Truth has triumphed, as it has always had throughout the trials of Estrada in and outside the court. Although I still can’t fathom why Berroya would come to the defense of someone whom he once had accused of unjustly persecuting and prosecuting him, and sending him to prison. 

One said that Berroya is simply narrowing down the target to his greater nemesis, a former colleague in the police force and the Philippine Military Academy--his tormentor Sen. Ping Lacson. But I argued, that still does not explain why Berroya had to go out of his way to help Estrada clear his name. Linggoy Alcuaz opined that it may be because Berroya is investing in goodwill with President Estrada in case the latter really does get back to power in the 2010 elections. But Estrada is not yet a clear frontrunner as he was in the 1998 elections, so isn’t Berroya betting too early in the game? Or could it be that the power of truth and Estrada’s humility simply had something to do with it? 

The past decade chronicled President Joseph E. Estrada’s rise and fall, demonization and reconstitution, exaltation and humiliation, incarceration and liberation. The final outcome of it all, though, has been the triumph of truth--that Estrada was not only not as bad as his rabid detractors made him out to be, or that Gloria Arroyo and many others turned out to be worse, but that he is actually better than most ever thought he could ever be. A string of “mea culpas” started with Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias’ birthday mass for Erap in April 2006, six years after his incarceration, which was followed by many others, and climaxed with President Cory Aquino’s apology to Erap at Joe de Venecia’s book launching recently. Estrada’s truth became a beacon for honest hearts because Erap’s humility disarms even those who otherwise would have remained his enemies. 
 
Erap’s humility was born of his exultant rise and ignominious fall, and final vindication by his unflinching faith in truth and justice. “Six years and six months,” Estrada would often say--that was how long he was incarcerated. Yet it was the price he had to pay for his humility, made even worse because his son had to join him in detention for several years, with his family insulted and disgraced without justifiable cause. Rage gave way to enlightenment over the years, and Estrada, upon reflecting on the past, would often say: “I was overconfident.” Enlightenment then became forgiveness, which grew to become humility, and such humility made even his sworn critics laugh at his self-deprecating humor, and melted even the hardest of hearts. Maybe Berroya is just like the rest of those who have been touched by this and succumbed to the plea of truth, to speak it and save the innocent. 

In the months to come, we will be facing an opportunity for peaceful change and transition toward a new government leadership. I don’t know what better leader this nation can have than one who has shown and shared the power of humility with the rest of the nation--healing it with the balm of truth and compassion--while promising wisdom not only in our disengagement from the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime, but also in our quashing of the decades-long plutocracy of the global and local oligarchy. I hope we shall have in the nation’s service, this wisdom and power from truth and humility, to prevent the redux of a younger Gloria Arroyo by way of a plutocracy-backed puppet. 

(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. / Saturday, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with Bp. Deogracias Yñiguez and Jimmie Regalario on “Genuine Change That We Need;” also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

From elections to nat’l transformation

My long-time friend, Nonoy, who left the Philippines for greener pastures in the US after Edsa II, sent me an e-mail a few days ago, involving an article of David Leonhardt on a research paper made 16 years ago by noted economists George Akerlof and Paul Romer. In it, a case was made that several financial crises of the 1980s, like the Texas real estate bust, resulted from private investors borrowing huge sums, extending reckless loans, making risky investments while reaping big profits in good times, and then leaving the predictable losses for government to salvage later on. They wrote: “The investors acted as if future losses were somebody else’s problem.” And they were right! 

That paper was prescient in describing exactly what the present collapse of the western financial system has wrought, which is dragging the rest of the world except for Asian countries like China that are resisting this western contagion. 

Fast-forward to today’s financial looting in the US , Professor Noriel Roubini declares, “The process of socialising the private losses from this crisis has already moved many liabilities of the private sector onto the books of the sovereign. At some point a sovereign bank may crack, in which case the ability of the government to credibly commit to act as a backstop for the financial system--including deposit guarantees--could come unglued.” 

My friend Nonoy has made plans to come back home to Manila within the year as his entire family hates everything about the US right now. Although he had decided about it much earlier, even before the fall of Bear Stearns, Lehman’s and AIG, the collapse just strengthened his resolve. 

Nonoy’s experience reminds me of my advice to my family: Not to run away from our problems but to solve them; not to seek the clean, manicured roads and parks of the Mall of America but to someday make our own “Philippine Public Mall” at the heart of our Metropolis--that is, after we junk the corrupt elite of this society for better national leadership. 

Nonoy, like many other Filipinos, is looking forward to the 2010 elections. But with the unresolved questions about the integrity of our Comelec commissioners, more so the Automated Elections System (AES) pushed by its chairman, and his inability to assure the integrity of the elections--arguing that he has no control over many factors, it is now highly doubtful if the 2010 elections will produce credible results that will reflect the wisdom of the Filipino people. 
  
Systems expert Manuel Alcuaz raised important arguments about Melo’s AES: It is 10 times more expensive than the Abalos P1.5-billion voting system; plus, it won’t work. The shading of small circles in place of the writing of candidates’ names alone already makes the manufacture of pre-filled, fraudulent ballots 15 times faster, and there is no longer any verifiability since any handwriting by which we can compare and expose multiple ballot-fillings by one hand will be non-existent. 

As yet, the Comelec has not instituted any audit procedures for these machines. While it boasts that its voting machines will photograph each ballot for security purposes, this merely increases the cost and eliminates for consideration other machines that do not carry this superfluous feature. 

Since election returns (ERs) are read and canvassed before hundreds of watchers in the old manual system, with this proposed electronic mode of transmission, the integrity of ERs is not assured at all. 

Furthermore, the Comelec does not provide for transparency and accountability in its electronic transmissions to the municipal level or in its provincial certificates of canvass (COCs) to the national canvassers. It merely claims that national results will be known in 3 to 4 days. But isn’t it more important to gauge whether those results are true or not? 

Alcuaz concludes: “In Comelec we trust? Don’t. We will suffer a double whammy! More than P10 billion will be wasted and rampant electronic dagdag-bawas may take place.” 

Another computer expert, Obet Versola, says: “Automated election systems tend to be much less transparent than manual systems… Errors continue to persist… (and) automation does not address the root causes of electoral fraud… (In) the US for example, citizens are becoming increasingly concerned about the trustworthiness of voting machines and their results.” 

Versola thus prescribes a double entry tabulation for both automated and manual elections, where the number of allocated ballots is listed in one column, and cast, unused, spoiled, and missing ballots in another, with all the totals of the left and right columns having to match. 

Such advice, unfortunately, won’t matter, given Comelec’s attitude of shunning experts with a track record of integrity and reliability, along with its arbitrariness--as seen in its unilateral advancement of the date for the filing of candidacies (which everyone sees as a move to bar the possible run of President Joseph Estrada). 

What’s worse: The flaws of Melo’s machines are so obvious that some believe they’re designed to lead to a failure of elections upon which Gloria Arroyo will declare for herself a transition government. 

I still don’t know what to tell Nonoy about his hopes for this country. There’s no guarantee that life will smell of sampaguitas when he comes back, but I will be together with him in his sufferings, just as I hope that he too will join those who are striving for genuine change. The year 2010 is merely a tactical situation toward our strategic goal of “The Last Revolution.” To lay the groundwork, we must continue to expand the awareness of both the middle class and the masa about the people’s struggle versus the oligarchy, and of our need to install a populist, nationalist leadership for the reconstruction of society, for the “cooperativization” of our nation’s wealth, and for the democratization of power. 

(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. / Saturday, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

Frenzied feeding on Meralco and power

Like wolves or sharks going for the kill, the Philippine oligarchy has once again descended upon the power industry; this time for its piece de resistance—Meralco. With its owners weakened after their face-off with Malacañang and the global financial collapse, a hovering dark angel is now about to capture this luscious prey in whole. But, just as quickly, a vulture has also swooped down from the perches of Mt. Cartens ( Indonesia ’s highest peak) to join the fray. What has brought about this frenzied grabbing?

Meralco has had the lion’s share of the Philippine power industry with its control of up to 60 percent of the country’s most lucrative distribution franchise. It enjoys the highest prices of industrial electricity in the entire Asian region, and is second only to Japan in residential rates. As such, Meralco has been fattened by the blood, sweat, and tears of at least 4.5 million electricity consumers. Yet despite this huge base, it still bills upwards of up to P10/kWh compared to the much, much smaller Davao Light’s P6.44/kWh, or Bacolod’s P5.22/kWh, or Visayan Electric’s P6.92/kWh.

Certainly, this predatory battle for the control of Meralco is all about these enormous profits--profits that are unmatched by any other businesses in the world, and way better than the menacing drugs trade because of its specter of legality. Question is: Why are we giving all these excessively rich profits to these predators when Meralco is a public utility and is paid for by consumers?

I am afraid that the Filipino may have become hopelessly resigned to the idea of allowing the oligarchy to exploit our public utilities for their personal gain. I hope this short article will help rekindle public indignation.

Just recall how Meralco shares were apparently crashed by the largest government stakeholder to lower the base price for the entry of new bids. Now that share prices are rising to irrational levels because of this frenzy, what does it mean for Filipino electricity consumers? Will a new dominant management mean lower rates or, as I believe, will we just end up with even higher rates after the battle for control is over? Of course, the new winners will have to recoup their investments fast!

It is in this light that we have to see the entire energy sector being cut up for various factions of the oligarchy. In fact, as large a prize as Meralco (or even larger) is Transco, which has been awarded to the Carlyle Group-China State Grid-Monte Oro consortium, with the last owned by a crony capitalist cum port services operator who charges the highest rates in the world.

Despite having these fat chunks of the unimaginably lucrative energy industry divvied up among the oligarchs, contentment is still far beyond reach as they crave for more by concocting the myth that a power shortage looms within the next two years if the country doesn’t tax consumers again for the revival of the mothballed nuclear power plant!

And they believe that this con game, which started with the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira)--made easier by the intertwining control of profits from the power industry with control of political power--can go on without end?

Edsa I saw the transfer of Meralco and other formerly public or quasi-public power assets to fully private hands, and the beneficial owners became the power behind the throne in Malacañang. Edsa II saw this rising to even unprecedented heights; that is, until Gloria Arroyo found a new ally, with a common protégé they can groom and “say cheese” with till Kingdom come.

Even prior to Edsa II, this column has been almost a lone voice in anticipating events and problems that would face the nation and the world. As I have warned about the fraud that Gloria Arroyo was to be, as with the dire impacts of the Epira (in its many incarnations), and as I’ve hammered into Philippine nomenclature John Perkins’ “corporatocracy” to alert the nation to the perils of the overarching power of financial cabals, along with many others, I am informing everyone once more of another danger that lies ahead. And it is more of the same privatization and corporatization of our basic utilities, and the grooming of the oligarchs' surrogate young politicians to be a new Gloria Arroyo, which, if left unchallenged and unchanged, will doom us all.

Today, I pin my hopes on middle class forces that have had many rude awakenings--from the shock of Gloria Arroyo dashing their false hopes, to that of “venerated” financial icons cheating them of their educational funds and life savings, to the crash of the US financial system--supposedly the paradigm of “corporate responsibility,” down to the failures of globalization, liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. These forces, as gallantly typified by Mr. Phillip Piccio, are the ones who can lead the country to adopt genuine professional and social principles that are dedicated to the welfare of the people, over and above profits.

If these forces help liberate public utility services such as power, water, toll ways, and financial services from oligarchic control; and convert these into consumer cooperatives with socialized rates and people-driven management, then we would have successfully sent the message that “The People are not food for predators!” loud and clear.

(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. / Saturday, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with computer expert Mr. Mano Alcuaz on “Evaluating Melo’s Voting Machines;” also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)

Cornerstone of a true democracy

Democratic jargon saturates our national news but very little is discussed about its principle’s very foundations. All those talk about the Edsa “people power” revolutions, the 2010 elections, as well as, who will be the best candidate for president are all meaningless unless the cornerstone of a truly democratic edifice is present--economic democracy.

Economic democracy, or the power of the people over “the production, development and management of their own material wealth,” is the sine qua non for genuine political democracy. In a society such as ours where the economy is directly controlled by a dozen families, there is no hope for genuine democracy; only an oligarchy or plutocracy by a super-wealthy few.

While it is true that a plutocracy under neo-colonial subjugation has always been the prevailing political-economic reality in the Philippines after World War II, there have been ebbs and flows in our economic democracy--or in efforts toward it.

The two relatively fundamental facets of economic democracy--national economic sovereignty and popular economic independence--have seen meager successes in RP’s modern history.

During the period of President Carlos P. Garcia’s “Filipino First Policy,” national economic sovereignty was purposefully asserted--an effort which could have made us the first Asean “Tiger economy.” This was later aborted when the US and the American Manufacturers Association succeeded in their $200,000-support for Garcia’s rival, Diosdado Macapagal.

Macapagal then brought Philippine economic democracy to its lowest point with his “Decontrol” program that removed currency and capital controls on the nation’s money, paving the way for luxury importations to quadruple RP’s national debt to a high of $360 million from Garcia’s $80 million while leading to the “deconstruction” of our budding manufacturing sector.

Marcos beat Macapagal alright, and later, Sergio Osmeña Jr., in very expensive elections. And it appears that he planned to govern in two phases: the first, with an economic program based on a combination of Japanese war reparations for construction of transport and other infrastructure, and IMF-WB funded programs for tourism facilities, upon which he piggybacked the second phase, which was to be his national development program for economic self-sufficiency.

This supposed second phase still held out the best prospects since Garcia’s “Filipino first Policy” for the nation to keep pace with the rising tiger cubs in the region-- Taiwan , South Korea , and Singapore --while we were still ahead of Malaysia and Thailand .

A national oil company was established; a diversified energy program stressing indigenous and alternative sources was initiated (geothermal energy started under Marcos, as were thousands of mini-hydros); cotton and ramie were being grown in Mindanao; synthetic textile fibers were spun by Filsyn; grapes were being grown in Cebu and Ilocos; integrated aluminum, copper and steel mills were commissioned; and in the economic crunch of 1983 after the Ninoy Aquino assassination, Marcos even instituted informal currency and capital controls through the so-called “Binondo Central Bank.”

Marcos’ fall meant the scuttling of the foundation of our economic sovereignty, and the privatization regimes of Aquino, Ramos and Arroyo gave away the state’s established strategic industries and public utilities--in oil, energy, power, telecommunications and water; in steel and copper; in shipbuilding--all toward the radical erosion of public ownership and control of the economy, to increase the concentration of economic power to the western-backed old economic elite, with familiar mestizo names like Lopez, Aboitiz, Alcantara, Razon, and the almighty Ayalas.

The Tsinoy tycoons who had equal footing with the rest during Marcos’ time, lost ground when he fell; but resilient as they are, they were later restored equal footing with the traditional elite.

The 2010 elections will be influenced as never before by the economic oligarchs. Among the front-runners are two puppets of a consumer products magnate, a real estate billionaire, a scion of another old real estate family, a talking head of a media conglomerate, with the rest controlled by a combination of two or more of the oligarchs.

Only President Estrada stands out as a truly independent candidate because, as veteran politician and former Ambassador Ernie Maceda says, he doesn’t have to spend billions to win. At the same time, since the middle class and the masses are never as dependent on government “stimulus” spending as before because of the collapsed economy, the sway of money will be even more powerful than ever.

Popular economic independence, meanwhile, can be best realized in smaller scales, down to the community and personal level. Striving toward one’s individual sovereignty and independence, and maintaining a degree of political independence, is an achievement in itself.

Thus, I maintain a diversified source of livelihood for my family--from a small business to a few consultancies, some media projects, and a farm where I am beginning to grow crops.

Anticipating a worst case scenario the next five years, I am also moving to a smaller residence near work to cut down on the costs of living, particularly, power and fuel. Such a frugal lifestyle may not be easily accepted by my older children who’ve lived in the best of times, but the younger ones adapt more easily.

As a media practitioner, I have maintained my political and journalistic independence because of my comparative economic independence.

With economic skills and the right leadership, the Filipino people can fast become sovereign and enjoy genuine democracy. In certain cases, a slow evolution through collective empowerment also works.

Ralph Nader, for instance, reports that despite the financial crash, the remaining American financial institutions that are doing well are the credit unions. He says in February 26, 2009’s CounterPunch: 85 million Americans belong to credit unions which are not-for-profit cooperatives owned by their members who are depositors and borrowers… 91 percent of the 8,000 credit unions are reporting greater overall growth… They are well-capitalized because of regulation and because they do not have an incentive to go for high-risk, highly leveraged speculation to increase stock values and the value of the bosses.”

Taking all these together, a personal and community drive for economic independence will best ensure a better, genuine, and politically democratic society for our nation.

(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. / Saturday, 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Destiny Cable, Channel 3, Tuesday, 8:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)