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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| The Defeat of Revolution By Antonio C. Abaya Written Nov. 15, 2005 For the Standard Today, November 17 issue Now to the social and political reasons for our economic failure and thus the persistence of the communist insurgency. It is bad enough that we earn the least from export activities and attract the least in tourist arrivals, among the eight competing countries in East Asia. Our woes have been compounded by our runaway population growth rate. I have written about this many times. Suffice it is to mention now that, according to the 2005 World Almanac and Book of Facts, the population growth rates in East Asia in 2003 were as follows: Singapore 0.56%, China 0.61%, South Korea 0.62%, Taiwan 0.64%, Thailand 0.91%, Indonesia 1.49%, Malaysia 1.83%, and the Philippines 2.03%. Guess which country is the poorest among the eight.. Even India (1.44%), Vietnam (1.34%), and North Korea (0.98%) are doing better than us in managing their population growth. The Philippines is in a race to the bottom with Bangladesh (2.15%), Pakistan (2.25%), Laos (2.44%) and Afghanistan (2.62%).. Unless the growth rate slows down significantly, our population will double to 160 million in 25 to 30 years. More than 70% of the Filipinos now living, including your children and grandchildren, will experience that quasi-Standing Room Only condition.. That prospect does not seem to make any dent on the thinking of the Roman Catholic bishops, who continue to oppose any and all artificial methods of birth control, following the diktat from the Vatican. Because the question arises or should arise as to how these additional 80 million warm bodies can be properly cared for, given our poor choices in economic strategies, I suggested in an earlier article, only half-jokingly, that we should start an �Iwanan sa Simbahan� program under which all undernourished children in squatter colonies are left in the sacristy of Roman Catholic churches, for the sanctimonious bishops to feed, house, clothe, educate and give jobs to. I would consider that The Perfect Squelch. As for the political reason for the persistence of the communist insurgency, it has to do with our having been the only American colony among the eight countries. That means we inherited what our seven competitors did not: the American traditions of absolute freedom of the press and political liberalism of the pre-neocon variety. This was explored in my earlier articles �Good News versus Bad News� (Oct. 25 2002) and �Even Raul Roco Would Fail� (Dec 15 2002), archived in www.tapatt.org. As I mentioned during an interview with Karina Constantino in ANC Ch 27 last week, modern Philippine media traces its origins to American media, which had its beginnings in the struggle against British imperial rule in the 18th century. Philippine media inherited the built-in anti-government bias of American media, hence its fierce and daily attacks on government, no matter who the sitting president may be. This was/is simply not true in Malaysia or Suharto�s Indonesia or Singapore. I was in these three countries in the 1990s and the relationship between government and media was explained to me. In Malaysia, journalists have to observe 12 or 13 Rules � which Filipino journalists would rebel against and bristle under � otherwise they would lose their jobs. In Suharto�s Indonesia, journalists were licensed and any anti-government reportage or comments were grounds enough for the license to be revoked or suspended. In Singapore, as Lee Kwan Yew wrote in his memoirs, government had the standing policy to sue in court any journalist, local or foreign, who alleged wrongdoing on the part of any government official or agency. Such allegations have to be proven in court, otherwise the offending journalist would be fined, or thrown in jail, or both. Mr. Lee reasoned that if these allegations were not challenged in court, people would tend to believe them and thus lose confidence in government. If this were Malaysia or Singapore or Suharto�s Indonesia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer � and some other Manila publications - would long have been padlocked and some of its editors and columnists thrown in jail. Who can forget that memorable Inquirer banner headline: �PIMENTEL: GMA RECEIVED JUETENG MONEY�, with the subhead �But says he does not have proof.� Or words to that effect. I am not a fan of GMA, but such blatantly abusive journalism, done under the rubric of �absolute freedom of the press,� was unfair and would never be allowed in Malaysia or Indonesia or Singapore. Or even in the US, except perhaps in the gutter press of Greenwich Village in New York or Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. Onli in da istupid Pilipins. What does �absolute freedom of the press� have to do with the persistent communist insurgency? It is no secret that many of our practicing journalists � including some editors and columnists � were/are partisans of the communist movement. That is their prerogative. But one of the core beliefs of Marxism-Leninism is that the eventual transformation of society into that pure state called Communism is inevitable because it is historically determined by the unchanging and unchangeable scientific laws of history. If you believe in that inevitable future, you will do everything you can to help make it happen - a self-fulfilling prophecy � whether you are a KMU militant, or the president of a state university, or a party-list congressman. Or an editor or columnist in the Inquirer.. The (pre-neocon) political liberalism that we inherited from the Americans � which our neighbors did not � has given the communist movement here the hospitable �democratic space� in which to organize and propagandize, which their comrades in the neighboring countries never enjoyed. In the confrontation states � South Korea confronting North Korea, Taiwan confronting Mainland China, and Thailand confronting Vietnam-Cambodia � the ruling military generals used draconian measures in the 1960s-1980s to totally suppress their communist movements, with the approval of the US, giving their governments the peace and stability to concentrate on economic development. Indonesia was not a confrontation state, but the Parti Komunis Indonesia (PKI) had been allowed by the populist President Sukarno to grow into the biggest communist party in the world outside China and the Soviet Union. In September 1965, supremely confident of their numerical strength, PKI militants attempted a coup by machine-gunning to death the top brass of the Indonesian armed forces or ABRI (Angkatan Bersanjata Republik Indonesia) while they were holding a command conference at Halim Air Base outside Jakarta. Unknown to the PKI militants, one general, Army Gen. Haris Nasution, managed to survive the massacre and escaped to safety, to lead a military counter-coup against the PKI that lasted well into the late 1970s. Most conservative estimates put at 300,000 the number of communists and suspected communists (as well as, no doubt, innocent bystanders) killed by the military in summary executions. Before and even after they became independent in 1957/59, Malaysia and Singapore also had to struggle against a communist insurgency. The British general who led the counter-insurgency war � I think his name was Gen. Gerald Templar � reasoned that the war against the insurgents could not be won unless and until their front organizations were also dismantled. That meant hauling off to jail their lawyers, their media allies, their �legal� organizers and propagandists, their labor activists, etc. Malaysia and Singapore inherited from the British colonial government the Internal Security Act or ISA which gave the state the right to throw in jail � indefinitely and without trial � anyone suspected of being a �subversive�, i.e. a communist or a communist sympathizer. Thus did Malaysia and Singapore enjoy the peace and stability that they needed in order to concentrate on economic development. But our own tin pot dictator Ferdinand Marcos, in typical Filipino fashion, was satisfied with half-cocked half-measures. He outlawed the Kabataang Makabayan (of which I was a member), but gave the KMU, Bayan, etc free rein to organize and propagandize against him, which proved to be his undoing. What was he trying to prove? That he was at heart a liberal democrat? Perhaps because he was a lawyer, Marcos wanted to cloak his authoritarianism with a fa�ade of liberalism, no matter how thin. By contrast, the non-lawyer generals who were in power at the same time as Marcos � Gen. Park Chung Hee in South Korea, Gen. Chiang Ching-kuo in Taiwan, Gen. Prem Tinsulananda in Thailand, Gen. Suharto in Indonesia � were not swayed by liberal niceties and bore down on their communist militants with total ruthlessness.. Mr. Anno�s comrades should swallow their knee-jerk xenophobia and thank the Americans for having blessed this country with �absolute freedom of the press,� and pre-neocon political liberalism, which they have used with devastating effect against the namby-pamby bourgeois state itself, and without which they would all have long been thrown in jail, there to rot indefinitely in total anonymity.***** Reactions to [email protected] or fax 824-7642. Other articles in www.tapatt.org. NOTE. 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| Reactions to �The Defeat of Revolution� Dear Mr. Abaya, I think your suggestion, IWANAN SA SIMBAHAN PROGRAM, wherein children of the lumpen-proles and other squatters, be left at the sacristiya so that the sanctimonious clergy should have something to fend of, is an excellent idea. At least the clergy would be putting the money where the mouth is. About the Indonesian solution to the communist/leftist problem, do you think Ping Lacson, if elected president, can up the ante ? Thank you very much for the three-part series. I'm learning a lot. Auggie P. Surtida, [email protected] Tigbauan, Iloilo, November 17, 2005 MY REPLY. If elected president, Lacson would be capable of �upping the ante.� But the time for an Indonesian solution is probably long gone. World public opinion would be aghast at such a bloodbath. Communism having become a non-issue in the rest of the world, the suspicion would be that �communism� is just being used as a cover for some kind of ethnic cleansing. The only way now to defeat an obsolete idea like Communism is to confront it with a better, newer idea. I doubt if Lacson has that alternative idea. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Why did the government of the great US of A approve or support the confrontation states but made an exception 'only in da istupid Pilipins'? Because its security was not directly threatened? Excellent article... should be disseminated to the militant or pseudo-militant organizations as widely as possible, first and foremost to Mr. Anno, JOMA and their ilk, who profess to love our country. Tom & Ruth de Guzman, [email protected] November 17, 2005 MY REPLY. You may be right, but probably, also, because it could not very well have contradicted the very legacies it left in this country: absolute freedom of the press and (pre-neocon) political liberalism. That would have made their 48-year stewardship of the Philippines all for naught. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I would say that you are perfectly right about your comment on journalism in our country. I agree that journalists should be required to have license and therefore, there should be jurisdictions and policies for them to know their limitations and to be able to write factual and authentic news and stories. Journalists in the Philippines are going overboard in their write-ups just to sell their papers. Genny Ferrer, [email protected] November 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi, Are you sure about your conclusions about the relationship between " Economic activity and population growth? Which comes first 'the chicken or the egg'? The Roman Catholic Church's contribution to the situation may be less than you imply. Consider these facts: -Parents tend to have larger families when they need laborers to work on the family farm or business, when they want to ensure that they themselves will be cared for in their old age. -One of the most successful strategies to reduce birth rates are to ensure that people have government services that help protect them when they are old , which cannot be sustained by a government of a country with low GNP. (which incidentally several communist governments have discovered to there cost in the past) -The highest population growth rates are in the poorer countries regardless of the majority religion of the country. -The European country with the lowest birth rate is Italy (Full of devout Roman Catholics) So I suggest, Tony, that it is primarily the social pressure that keeps the birth rate high in the Philippines and if the econonic situation improved (regardless of what the Catholic Priests had to say) the birth rate would fall. Find a way to ' go for economic growth' and the population growth problem will vanish. D. John Adams, [email protected] United Kingdom, November 18, 2005 MY REPLY. The low population growth rates in Italy and other predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Europe � in some cases, it is negative growth � despite the admonitions of the Vatican, merely means that religious thought has been overwhelmed by secular thought. The reverse is true in most conservative Muslim countries where secular thought is suppressed in varying degrees by religious thought: Jordan (2.01%), Pakistan (2.25%), Syria (2.40%), Afghanistan (2.62%), Saudi Arabia (2.71%), Iraq (2.72%), Oman (3.22%) and Yemen (3.44%). The major exception seems to be Iran (1.15%), which had a secular regime under the Shah for several decades before it was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini. In the Philippines, the Catholic bishops reject even the notion of equal accessibility to info on natural and artificial methods of birth control. They want only their methods to be accessed by the public, and many politicians, fearful of the supposed clout of the bishops, acquiesce. But, you are right, prosperity will lower birth rates because under prosperity secular thought will overwhelm religious thought, as it did in Europe. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Please continue with your very interesting dissertation� Paul Dalde, [email protected] Houston, Texas, November 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I agree with your observation regarding the impact of uncontrolled population to a country. Uncontrolled population stresses the limits of the country to provide the quality of life to its citizens. Uncontrolled population puts a strain on the resources of the country; it encourages the oldest profession to flourish and illegal gambling to grow and many more. It is high time that taxes be raised to those who bring more children (legit or not); make baby products (like diapers, baby clothes, baby foods, etc) prohibitive; reward those newly married couples who put on hold raising a family by giving them progressive tax credits; and make abortion available. Of course the Church will protest but the greater good must prevail. Dr. Nestor Baylan, [email protected] New York City, NY, November 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I suggest having this and other selected essays printed, bound and have as reference reading material in high schools and colleges in the Philippines with questions at the end of each chapter for discussion with students. I am sure donors for the printing are plentiful considering your distinctive reputation as a true Filipino and Journalist by now. Have the pamphlet circulated also via online website to be down-loaded by anyone in the world interested. Tony Joaquin, [email protected] Daly City, California, November 18, 2005 MY REPLY. My articles have been archived in www.tapatt.org since 2001. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya, Sometimes your writings disappoint me and sometimes they enthrall me. "The Defeat of Revolution" is absolutely enthralling! Even if some of the statistics need corroboration, in one word my comment to this column is - "BRAVO!" This piece is a must read for all of our government officials (in both camps) and most especially for all the members of media. There is a crucial need to re-invent media's objectives. I was appalled to listen to the media guests of DEBATE stating that the supreme purpose for which media exists is to serve as the "watchdog of government". While this is probably a corollary purpose (arrogantly arrogated by some self-righteous media pricks), the true purpose of media should be to dispense the truth -- not half-truths, innuendo, speculation, allegation, etc. AND furthermore, the more sublime purpose of media should be "developmental." Media should be a tool to inspire, to motivate, to educate, its readers and our people. What do we have today? Pardon me for saying this, but practically all my friends agree that media today, particularly the INQUIRER, is very de-motivating, depressing, and even destabilizing!. Willy Segovia, [email protected] November 19, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I�m a great fan of your columns, which I get to read through the e-mail circulation. I refer to your most recent 3-part piece on the lingering communist insurgency. During my university years, no more than a decade ago, I had my own share of being infected with the communist ideology and its sclerotic interpretation of history. But I feel a bit shortchanged from reading your analysis of our country�s insurgency problem. It leaves too many questions unanswered. Your article puts the blame of missed opportunities squarely on the economic strategies that our nation has adopted, but failed to ask who engineered those strategies on the first place. To say that we Filipinos wrought them ourselves is to suggest that we, as a nation, have always been collectively deciding on which direction our economy should take. But that is too far out an assertion. (If you�re looking for people to blame for the missed opportunities and the wrong choices in economic strategies, then blame the incumbent presidents: Ferdinand Marcos for giving in to the communists on exports, Cory Aquino for not knowing what to do, and Fidel Ramos for failing to take advantage of the tourism boom and for embracing free trade prematurely. And the Catholic bishops for opposing artificial methods of birth control, and the Americans for having blessed this country with absolute freedom of the press and political liberalism. But it really is too late for the blame game. We should focus instead on what can be done, despite our handicaps above. ACA) If even our electoral system is too easily prey to manipulation, so that not even our leaders are truly our deliberate choice, how much more economic programs, which we must admit is more abstract to the ordinary man? You put too high an emphasis and importance on the minimum wage law enacted in our country. Is it really why we failed to attract direct foreign investments during those early decades? If history tells us anything, we err on being too hospitable; we had it all spread out for our Big Brother. After all, the minimum wage didn�t seem to deter the Americans from putting up their mining and agribusiness in our country, the reason why, as you say in your article, our country was initially an export giant, and if I may add, is now an ecological disaster. Singapore enjoys one of the highest wages in Asia, and it is a magnet of foreign manufacturing and other investments. Strong labor movements? South Korea has them, so had Britain, where they could be pretty bellicose as well, even without the accompanying red banners and the International, yet they didn�t seem to factor against these countries� progress. What was omitted in your mention of export-oriented nations is their abiding protectionism, abhorred by the West and its liberal trade instruments, but essential in growing their precarious industries into full-fledged ones. It would have been difficult with the Filipinos, who were and are still suffering from a hangover of anything isteytsayd. Wouldn�t it be correct to say that our sordid lack of nationalism where it truly matters is mainly accountable for our abject failure? Seen in such a context, our nationalistic frenzy would seem mere fits in this slumbering subservience. (But lack of nationalism is a political condition that only tangentially explains the economic failure. North Korea does not lack for nationalism, but without the economic strategies of South Korea, it has remained dirt poor. I agree that protectionism is important to protect national industries against foreign competition, but who embraced accelerated free trade and globalization? None other than then President Ramos and then Senator Gloria Arroyo. You can add them to the list of persons to blame. ACA) I�m surprised that too many things have been left out in your article. Where in your analysis of our economic malaise is the issue of debt burden? Where are the venal and corrupt political dynasties that continue to wreak their havoc on our rural population? (The debt burden is the direct result of failure in exports and tourism. Having failed to be a major player in these two lucrative sectors, the Philippine government could not raise adequate revenues for infrastructure and basic social needs, and therefore had to borrow more and more. (Corruption, though morally reprehensible, does not impede economic progress if the right economic strategies are followed. The best proof is the People�s Republic of China, which experienced the highest growth rates [up to 12% per annum] in the early 1990s when it was adjudged to be the most corrupt country in Asia by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. of Hong Kong. ACA) Even more surprising is your equation of civil liberties with poverty. Is it really your conviction that the late dictator Marcos should have gone farther in suppressing dissent? And if press freedom, for all the space it enjoys so freely in criticizing government, has gone too far in this country and must therefore be curtailed, where would that put our Tony Abaya and his eloquent call for genuine revolution? (From a purely historical point of view, the empirical evidence in East Asia is that those countries that limited press freedom and political rights also enjoyed the most dynamic economic progress: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Suharto�s Indonesia. This was not coincidental or accidental. (Having suppressed their communist movements with draconian measures, their governments enjoyed the peace and stability to concentrate on economic development. Now much more prosperous than we are, most of them have liberalized their politics. But Singapore and Malaysia still retain the ISA and continue to muzzle their press. As the solitary economic laggard, the liberal and democratic Philippines does not have the moral clout to castigate them for having sacrificed some political rights in favor of their broad-based economic success. (In the present era, however, it be may too late to harken back to those bad old days of unfettered authoritarianism. The global climate has changed. As I explained to Reader Surtida (see above), Communism has become a non-issue for the rest of the world. The only way to defeat it now would be to defeat it with a better idea, a better revolution. Do our national leaders have that better idea, that better revolution? I doubt it. ACA) It is a sad affair that this largely discredited and anachronistic movement continues to be the bogeyman to hound us in this modern time. It is true as you say that poverty continues to feed its morbid revolution with warm bodies. It is also true that our dysfunctional state has neither the political maturity to accommodate the communist apologists in dialogue and debate (in which, they should of course intellectually fizzle out), nor the political will to overcome their armed counterparts militarily. This is a movement that is no more part of our society�s cure as an opportunistic infection is to a patient suffering from AIDS, and which, if anything, can only quicken our demise. But like good doctors, we need to look beyond this chronic malady to what truly ails Philippine society; only then do we root it out for good. Bernardo Vidal, [email protected] November 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I enjoy reading your articles and agree with most of your analyses. You mentioned "the basis of our insecurity." Well, one thing that has always caused me insecurity is the LACK OF VISION AND FORWARD STRATEGY in our various presidential administrations. The question of poverty, our lack of competitiveness in many fields, our dismal reputation internationally cannot be resolved with a laissez-faire, ad hoc attitude. Moreover, if government has a strategy, it should communicate it. Like you and others, I welcomed Cory Aquino's triumph. But I was turned off by her refusal to develop a "vision" that could be translated into a strategy for development. F.V. Ramos had one (Philippines 2000) but, since it was articulated in English, the masa could not understand it. He loved catchy words like "empowerment." But how do you translate that into Filipino? J. Estrada had no time, in between carousing, to develop a vision/ strategy. I had been hoping from Day 1 that Gloria, being a Ph.D. in Economics and a seasoned technocrat, would finally articulate a vision to inspire the country. Roosevelt, Churchill, De Gaulle were able to lead their countries through their darkest years because they had a vision which they readily communicated REGULARLY to their countrymen. Not Gloria. Her 10 point program may be action points but they do not constitute a vision. No rationale is given as to why only those 10 points are chosen and not others. What do we do about the environment? About our decaying cities? About the rise of China? About our imperiled electronics industry which constitute most of our exported manufactures? As a student of culture, I think there is a common pattern of behavior in the Philippines which we can call "Hyper-pragmatism." Pragmatism, the need to be practical and efficient, is important. But it becomes a disease when it ignores the need for reflection and long-term planning, or when it contents itself with ad hoc solutions. Unfortunately, hyper-pragmatism is at work at all levels of government -- with notable exceptions. Many of our city government seem not to have a vision for the future. Look at the relentless decay of many parts of Metro Manila. The government seems not to have a vision for research in science and technology. My natural scientist colleagues complain about this. What to do? What do you think? Butch Zialcita, [email protected] November 20, 2005 MY REPLY. What you call hyper-pragmatism is very much a part of our electoral-system in which popularity (or �winability�) is more important than political vision or intellectual maturity. Hyper-pragmatism is also part of our media environment in which media trivializes our problems and idiotizes our population, by immersing readers and viewers in endless singing, dancing and laughing, as well as in the most trivial news. Sad to say, I doubt if all this can be changed except through a revolutionary government that is aware of our basic ills. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony- In one of your earlier columns you wrote about how exaggerated rhetoric from the Left justified exaggerated rhetoric from Right - if only as a (re-) balancing act. But now in "The Defeat of the Revolution" I think you have gone way over the top, pushed it too far the other way! As you know, I quite agree with you that rampaging population growth has been a terrible burden and major source of the country's severe economic, political, and environmental problems. I see the environmental problems up close and very painful in my own research in Iloilo where it means massive and desperate over-fishing, rapid depletion of resources in the Visayan Sea, and smaller and smaller catches of smaller and smaller fish. But to claim that "the political reason for the persistence of the communist insurgency" is the freedom of the press, seems to me to be going off the deep end! Clearly, Philippine newspapers can be irresponsible, and often are in their efforts to sell papers; they are business enterprises looking to maximize their profits, and its not surprising if they cut corners, try to treat news as entertainment, and at time produce outlandish headlines. Then again, that is true all over the world. But given the acknowledged levels of government incompetence in policy making and program implementation, politicians constantly braking their promises, failed delivery of services, and endemic corruption, it seems to me essential that the media take a critical, skeptical, investigatory stance towards the regime - and the opposition, as well (often hardly any better). (If it were only to sell more copies, the excesses of Philippine media would be pardonable. But the Inquirer, already the most widely circulated paper in the country, did not have to sell more copies. (Until I called attention to it, the Inquirer was deliberately giving free publicity to communist revolutionaries. A group of eight or ten would put on balaclava face masks, stage a �lightning demo� in a public market, unfurl their hammer and sickle flags and their streamers, and then disappear after ten minutes. Not by coincidence, the Inquirer photographer would be there to record the lightning event and the pictures would appear in the Inquirer the next day. (I also called the Inquirer�s attention to a picture they published of one of their rabble-rousers, on the front page below the fold. She was pictured at a lectern, delivering a speech somewhere. The caption did not say what she said to whom, and there was no accompanying story to justify the picture. It was just a freebie for the communist movement. (Can you imagine this type of editorial behavior, done consistently over time, being allowed in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan or South Korea? I can�t. ACA) Again, this is variously but largely true everywhere in the world, not just the Philippines. We all know, all too well, that "power corrupts," and societies need some more critical institutions like the media (and the universities) to point out when it gets too bad, when the current emperor has no clothes. This is certainly not just an American viewpoint, and of course the critics will sometimes get it wrong. But given the power of governments to control and manipulate information and dis-information (e.g., Bush and WMD), it seems to me essential that somewhere in the society there must be countervailing institutions. Furthermore, to assume unfairly under estimate the public's critical capacities and skepticism about both government claims and media critiques. Furthermore, that it is lingering communist sympathies or continuing commitments that accounts for the critical skeptical stance of many columnists and editors has to be a gross over-generalization. Journalists everywhere are supposed to look beneath the surface, expose the realities, criticize the status quo in order to get people thinking about improvements, not just report government announcements. But that does not make them communists or communist sympathizers. Of course some are partisan, one way or another. We also know that some are on government (propaganda) payrolls. No institution is perfect, but people, the people, eventually learn to see through that. But far more important, certainly from my experience in Iloilo, the basis for "the persistence of the communist insurgency" is the terrible and growing poverty of so many people. (Poverty that can be partly blamed on the communist movement who vigorously opposed an export-oriented economy, which was the biggest single factor that created the prosperity of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Suharto�s Indonesia. ACA) Most of whom, of course, never read - indeed can't read an English language newspaper. The young, un- and under-educated, unemployed rural men and women who see no future for themselves and who are the easy tinder for the NPA, do not read the columnists in the Inquirer, the Star, or the Standard Today. Their motives and commitments come from their direct experience of poverty, various forms of injustice, perceived and real exploitation, and the growing separation of the poor from the middle class, the elite, and the trapos who promise much and so consistently fail to deliver. Sure, some of the local NPA leaders have read some Marx (but probably not very much). And its always handy to have a book and a dream to point to (the Catholic Church does that very well, too). But "the persistence of the communist insurgency," derives fundamentally from the sad often desperate conditions on the ground in the lives of too many people in the rural areas and the urban slums. And not from what elite urban English language newspaper columnists write. (All true. But do not forget, David, that what comes out in print media, especially in the Inquirer, is picked up by the more than 100 radio commentators nationwide, who mostly do not know any better than the Inquirer, and who reach a much wider audience in the grassroots than print media does. ACA) And finally, that Singapore and Malaysia placed tough restrictions on journalists is not why the countries succeeded. Rather, its because, as you yourself have so eloquently argued, those countries had far better economic, social, and population policies and programs, and they actually implemented them. Sad to say, "the persistence of the communist insurgency in the Philippines" derives from the Philippines' lack of comparable policies and programs, and the failure to implement those that they had. And for that you cannot reasonably blame a handful of critical editors and columnists. (But the bottom line, David, is that neither South Korea nor Taiwan nor Singapore nor Malaysia nor the generals� Thailand nor Suharto�s Indonesia needed absolute freedom of the press and pre-neocon liberalism to achieve widespread and broad-based economic progress. Only the Philippines was blessed with these embroideries and look how it bombed out. (While it is indeed unreasonable to �blame a handful of critical editors and columnists� for our malaise, it is reasonable to blame those among them who believe in the inevitable triumph of Communism: they are doing all they can to make that self-fulfilling prophecy come true by making their readers lose faith in government, no matter who the sitting president may be. ACA) David Szanton, [email protected] Durban, South Africa, November 21, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I definitely want to continue to get your articles. You are one of the most insightful and thought-provoking analysts in the country. I need your inputs. I fully agree with you on the Church and have been long advocating that they provide the sustenance and jobs for the excessive population. I've also suggested (and written to Bishop Capalla) that with 40,000 classrooms short in the country the Church allows the churches to be used as classrooms during the week. He referred it to someone else, who hasn't responded to what should be a very Christian action. Peter Wallace, [email protected] November 21, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww A Discussion of the Thermal Aspect of Hades. The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well. Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities: 1 . If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God." THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A" wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Mr Abaya -- I sent you a msg. earlier from my own yahoo address but misaddressed it, hence my forwarding (which you said you couldn�t access). I'm sending it to you again below from another e-mail address. I.hope you receive it this time . A journalist friend in Manila has occasionally been forwarding your work to me here in Hong Kong [I don�t always have time to look at the web]. I found your two recent pieces on Why the Philippines is Poor and The Defeat of Revolution particularly brilliant, and sent it to people who may not have seen it. Some years ago when I was living in Berkeley, I met Sonny San Juan who teaches at a university in the US east coast. Ever since then he's been sending me e-mails on issues he's been pushing I thought I'd send him your two pieces, and his comments were: On "The Failure of Revolution,: he wrote: "Everyone can see this piece is full of cold war cliches and generalizations that don�t apply to the current conditions in our country. Can anyone really believe our press, or any press, is free? There may be relative permissiveness back home, but media anywhere remains controlled by the business elite, families, CIA, religious sectors and various interest groups, etc. His piece is an example of how difficult change will be." On your "Why Are We Poor?," he said: �Can anyone seriously believe tourism will be the magic trick for the Philippines, to become a "tiger" like Taiwan, South Korea, etc.?" Incidentally, I used to go to your Erehwon Bookshop years ago while still living in Manila (I've been in HK for over 20 years now) and have always found your writing stimulating -- when I get a chance to read it. Best wishes. Isabel Escoda, Hong Kong, November 22, 2005 MY REPLY. Harvey�s name is familiar. Wasn�t he a correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review, my favorite newsmagazine before it folded up? And isn�t Isabel Escoda also Gootie Taylor, sister of Dick and the other Taylors? I have read your occasional pieces from HK in the PDI. Thanks for your kind words. I have put both of you in our distribution list. My articles are archived in www.tapatt.org. If you want to read my readers� reactions, for and against, to my articles, without having to access the website, join our tapatt yahoogroup by following the e-instructions appended at the end of each article. As for Sonny San Juan, he of the impenetrable prose, he has been proclaiming, for the past 30 or 40 years, the victory of the Revolution from the safety of beautiful New England. Storrs, Connecticut, I believe. Opacity seems to be contagious. His wife writes in the same turgid and incomprehensible style. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Through the tapatt yahoogroup) Hi Mr. Abaya, You might have read some stuff I wrote on other websites sometime ago about a rather practical and HUMANE solution to the Communist problem: SENDING THEM TO THE SPRATLEYS to set up their own state... Rather than have them languish in prisons as political prisoners, why not let 'em prove that their pudding is worth eating... Round up all those Utrecht-based lazy-bones, their front-org leaders, and captured NPAers, and send them to one of the bigger and more inhabitable islands in the Spratly group and give them artesian wells, and one years' worth of canned goods, 50 boars, 50 sows, 50 hens, 50 roosters, chicken feed, hog feed, fishing rods, fish nets, and anything that'll allow them to survive for a year on the biggest of the remote Spratly islands... And tell them that we'll be back in 10 to 15 years to check up on them to see if they have been able to set up their Communist Utopian Paradise... And give them the warning... "We hope we don't find skeletons when we come for a visit in 10 to 15 years... GOOD LUCK!" No one can and will accuse the Philippine Government of human rights violations. If anything, the Philippine Government will be giving those abusive Communists FREEDOM with which to practice their Communistic religion, practice Communist Politics, practice Communist centrally planned economics, and prove to us bourgeois capitalist running dogs that their system "works best." We'll be giving them enough LEBENSRAUM and zero political interference. They're basically ON THEIR OWN. And heck, they'll also be able to prove to us whether or not their silly isolationist xenophobia and anti-Western, anti-foreign rhetoric really works. It's better than machine-gunning idiots like them. Besides, with them in the Spratlys, other countries will covet those islands less, since the only reason that they're coveted right now is that they're UNINHABITED and not SETTLED by anyone. Let the commies have "the FREEDOM" to practice their Communist Ideology, free from bourgeois influence... Orion Perez Dumdum, [email protected] November 22, 2005 MY REPLY. Fine. But suppose they discover oil and gas under the Spratlys. What then? wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hello Tony. I think you'll enjoy this: it relates to your "Revolution" series. Rene B. Azurin, [email protected] November 22, 2005 The Little Red Hen - Modern Version Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered quite a few grains of wheat. She called all of her neighbors together and said, "If we plant is wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?" "Not I," said the cow. "Not I," said the duck. "Not I," said the pig. "Not I," said the goose. "Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. And so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen. "Not I," said the duck. "Out of my classification," said the pig. "I'd lose my seniority," said the cow. "I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose. "Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did. At last it came time to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake the bread! ?" asked the little red hen. "That would be overtime for me," said the cow. "I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck. "I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig. "If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose. "Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves." "Excess profits!" cried the cow. "Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck. "I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose. The pig just grunted in disdain. And they all painted "Unfair!" picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities. Then a government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy." "But I earned the bread," said the little red hen. "Exactly," said the agent. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle," And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand," But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the "party" and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled. 'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared.....as long as there was free bread that "the rich" were paying for. Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs. Hillary got $8 million for hers. That's $20 million for memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn't remember anything. IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT? wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Dear Mr. Abaya: Let me make comments on your article. First let us tackle the issue of population growth. Lest you forget, it was under the auspices of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines that both Marcos and Estrada fell through a People's Power revolt. Due to the republican nature of our government, the influence of the Catholic Church cannot be discounted. Since they do influence a significant percentage of our electorate, no politician could ignore the wishes of the Catholic Church in our country. Because of the eagerness of the opposition during Marcos time to effect a change of government, they readily accepted the support of the CBCP to call a People's Power revolt to effect a change in our government. During the elections of 1983, it was the first time that the opposition got 43 % of their candidates elected into the Batasan Pambansa and the first act that these opposition assemblymen did during the first day of session of the Batasan Pambansa was to file an impeachment complaint against then President Marcos. Only one opposition assemblyman refused to sign the impeachment complaint against Pres. Marcos. (It was not the CBCP, but Cardinal Sin personally, who called for people to support the mutiny of Enrile, Ramos, Honasan, etc. in February 1986. Lest you forget, too, it was the middle class who spontaneously congregated in EDSA in December 2000-January 2001, to protest Erap�s blocked impeachment trial, without the CBCP urging them to do so. ACA) The People's Power government has consistently refused to enact measures that would offend the Bishops in our country. For example, they refused to legalize divorce. All previous administrations before the People's Power government has also kowtooed to the Bishops of our country and this included President Marcos. For as long as the CBCP opposes birth control, the government will be lukewarm in implementing birth control in our country. As I understand, the policy of birth control was insisted by the IMF- World Bank. With pressure from the IMF-World Bank, the government was caught in between the claws of the IMF-World Bank who controlled the loans given to us from abroad and the Bishops who had considerable influence on our voters. In order to please both parties, the government instituted a birth control program but was lukewarm in implementing it in deference to the opposition of the CBCP. (But some people had more guts than others. Juan Flavier ran for senator in 1995 and won, sixth in a field of more than 50, despite the campaign of Catholic bishops against him for supporting artificial methods of birth control. Whatever the reason, the facts remain that a) we have the highest population growth rate among the eight competing countries in East Asia; and b) we are also the poorest. ACA) On the question of the liberality of our government on our press, the issue was decided when there was a change of government during the ascendancy of Cory Aquino as President. During the time of Marcos, the government instituted many programs to curb the abuses of the press. This is one of the reasons why Marcos was called a dictator because many people did not like the measures that Marcos undertook to curb press abuse. In fact, Marcos is still being called a dictator up to this day. The measures instituted by the Marcos Administration to curb press abuse was very tame compared with the measures instituted by our neighbors, yet in spite of the leniency that Marcos undertook to curb press abuse, he was still labeled a dictator by people who thought that he went too far. (Marcos was a dictator but he was not able to give the people broad-based economic prosperity in exchange for diminished political rights, as the other dictators around us were able to. And this failure can be traced directly to his failure to build an export-oriented economy. (Those loudest in criticizing Marcos� treatment of the press were a) the liberals used to American-style absolute freedom of the press, and b) the communists who knew that restrictions on the press, where they had many allies, would deprive them of the platform from which to rail against the bourgeois state and government. ACA) During the Oakland Mutiny, Pres. Arroyo broadly hinted that if there is a widespread mutiny in the AFP, she will not hesitate to muzzle the press to protect the Republic contrary to all the guarantees of freedom written in the 1987 Constitution. Because the Oakland mutineers did not fight back when they were disarmed by the AFP, there was no reason for Pres. Arroyo to resort to extreme measures in muzzling the press. If you think that the government is too lenient on the press, pray that there would be mutiny that would resist bloodily the government. At least under the rightist administration of Pres. Arroyo you can be sure that there will be an extreme muzzling of the press. This government will ignore all the precautions of the 1987 Constitution against authoritarian rule. (There would be an �extreme muzzling of the press� whether the next government is rightist or �leftist.� The communists do not believe in �absolute freedom of the press,� either, once they are in power. They support it only while they are out of power as it serves their revolutionary purpose to have people lose confidence in bourgeois government through daily scurrilous attacks on it in media, under the rubric of �absolute freedom of the oress.� ACA) This is the first time that I heard that many journalist were former communist. Thanks very much for that information. (Again, where have you been all these years that you know nothing about Tony Zumel or Satur Ocampo or Luis Teodoro or Argee Guevara or Conrado de Quiros or Pete Lacaba or Tato Constantino or Dodong Nemenzo or Malou Mangahas or Mon Isberto or Walden Bello or Pete Daroy or Joel Nolasco, etc? ACA) During the time of Pres. Marcos, some hotheads in the military establishment suggested that Marcos simply execute all the political opposition that were detained when Marcos placed the country under martial law as a way of instilling discipline in our country. Pres. Marcos refused to listen to these hotheads and instead released all the political opposition detained during the early days of martial law. A considerable number of officers in the AFP were in favor of using harsh measures to instill discipline in the country and this harsh methods included execution without any trial. The fact is that there are plenty of hotheads in the military establishment. The verdict of the military court of having former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. face a firing squad together with Bernabe Buscayno, alias Commander Dante, and 1st Lt. Victor Corpuz is a reflection of the thinking of these hotheads in the military. The only time these hotheads would have their way is when there is a bloody mutiny or rebellion in our country in which the AFP faces horrendous casualties in battle. There is no question that plenty of heads will roll when this happens. At any rate I already wrote the fact that our press has been taking their lessons in democracy at heart. Two shocking events occurred in our country and this is the declaration of martial law and the ascendancy of the People's Power government. Both caused the closure of many newspapers in the country. Before the declaration of martial law, it was unthinkable for somebody in the press to suggest that the government take draconian measures to prevent abuse. The fact that you are suggesting these draconian measures shows that our press is maturing. If people in the press would just be frank and honest with themselves, perhaps these draconian measures need not be implemented at all. People could be persuaded to behave through reason and not terrorism. (I am not �suggesting these draconian measures.� I was merely responding to the question on why this country still had a communist insurgency when it had long been extinguished in other countries around us. I answered that one difference, among several differences, between this country and its neighbors is its �absolute freedom of the press� which the other countries did not enjoy. This freedom allowed the communist movement here to organize and propagandize to an extent not known in those other countries. (I think it is possible to convince Philippine media to exercise self-censorship and restraint as long as the national leader asking them to do so is credible. ACA) Ramon A. del Gallego, [email protected] November 26, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Hi again,
I hope you don't mind me sending you a follow up comment, but I still think that there is more to the social change that goes with relative economic prosperity than you imply. Your final line of comment: "But, you are right, prosperity will lower birth rates because under prosperity secular thought will overwhelm religious thought, as it did in Europe" . I live in Europe (UK) but socialize mainly with Pinoy families who have come here to work, and although I do notice a slight tendency towards more secular thought due to mixing with people like me, the main change that I observe is their realization that in this society, children are very much a financial liability. They don't love them any less individually, but quickly realize why two or three is plenty if you intend to keep working for your living. People in the Philippines with a family income of say 20,000 pesos (gross) per month can afford to have a 'live in' nursemaid etc. Here people with a family income of �4000 (gross) per month cannot dream of employing anybody for more than an odd hour or two, because here, due to the social security system, it is not 'worth' taking a low paid job, especially if it involves unsocial hours. I happened to speak only this week to a Filipina who has raised a family of three here during the last twenty years while working herself in the family (all Pinoy) business. I only know them from a business point of view, and have not socialized with them, but they show the trappings of economic success. However while discussing 'how was business', she suddenly said to me "The main problem is that this is such a terrible country to live in!" I thought; did she mean the cold or racial prejudice? But no she continued "I have to do all my own cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking because I can neither find nor afford anybody to work for me". I suggest, Tony, that it is not much to do with religion/secularism, but the pragmatic realization that in a society where the poor are not told to 'work or starve', but are given social security, if you want to rear kids, you have to do it all yourself (or never work at all and let the social security system rear your kids!). D. John .Adams, [email protected] United Kingdom, November 29, 2005 MY REPLY. But being forced to reduce family size because of difficulties in hiring domestic helpers � rather than because it is a moral issue, as the Church insists - is a corollary of secular thought. Your Filipina would rather risk going to hell in the next life, assuming it exists, than endure the hell in this life of �doing everything� for a bigger family. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |