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| A New Magsaysay By Antonio C. Abaya Written Jan. 15, 2006 For the Standard Today, January17 issue He made an utter fool of himself when he defended the indefensible during the Senate hearing on the Venable public relations contract last year.. National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales could not give a credible explanation as to why it was necessary for the Arroyo government to hire a Washington lobby group to solicit US Congressional help to promote constitutional amendments in the Philippines. (The only connection I could see was that amending the Philippine constitution to allow foreign [i.e. American] interests to own assets 100% in the Philippines would gain the support of US congressmen whose campaign contributors include precisely those corporations which have those intentions in the Philippines.) Gonzales also declined to name the person or persons who gave the non-refundable down payment of several million dollars to Venable, feigning ignorance, for which he was placed in detention by a disbelieving Senate, which in turn caused him to suffer a mild heart attack and subsequent confinement to hospital. Although he does not have credibility when he dabbles in the maneuvers of the trapos whom he serves, Gonzales can be believed when he sounds an alarm, as he did in the Jan. 16 issue of Standard Today, about the growing strength and aggressiveness of the CPP-NPA in their drive to seize state power. I myself wrote in �Uncle Dick and Ate Glo� (Jan. 03) that �Lately, the AFP has been taking a beating from the NPA, who have learned to use IEDs (improvised explosive devices) with devastating effect against the military�s trucks and APCs, which weapons insurgents have used successfully against the Americans in Iraq�.� According to the Standard Today, Gonzales is �alarmed over the rebel activities� and that �the kill ratio between the AFP and NPA was one to one. But he said the number of casualties on the AFP side was bigger than that of the NPA in the last several weeks. �He also said the number of firearms taken by the NPA from government troops now exceeds the number of firearms seized by the AFP from communist fighters. �This is something that is not acceptable in any part of the world. We have never encountered such a reversal since 1987. There has really been a dramatic upsurge (of CPP-NPA strength), Gonzales told newsmen.� And, as if to prove Gonzales� point, on the same weekend that Gonzales was sounding his alarm to media, the NPA struck twice. In broad daylight, NPA fighters, dressed as policemen and soldiers, raided the provincial jail in the busy port city of Batangas and freed 13 inmates, including nine of their jailed comrades, without firing a shot. Hundreds of kilometers away, near Catbalogan City in Samar, the NPA ambushed an army detachment returning to base from a medical mission, killing four soldiers and wounding eight others, apparently without suffering any casualties of their own. According to Gonzales, �the strategic objective of the CPP-NPA is to coalesce with legitimate political groups, play a major role in overthrowing the civilian government and become a major partner in a coalition government that will replace the Arroyo administration.� This is also credible. The �caretaker transition government� that has been promoted for several months now by Erap�s chief political lieutenant, Boy Morales, as a temporary replacement for the floundering Arroyo government, always includes communists like Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and Dodong Nemenzo. Morales himself is a former communist, having co-founded the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the CPP, and may still be one at heart, even if he is no longer a member of the CPP. Erap himself, who cannot tell Left from Right even when he is sober, does not care one whit about ideology. All he wants is to be sprung from detention and restored to the presidency, even for only three days, which was his deal with the Oakwood mutineers in July 2003. so that he can unilaterally clear himself of the plunder charges pending against him. But the communists want him to lead the post-Arroyo government because they know they can manipulate him for their own agenda, as they used him during the anti-US bases debate in 1991. That is why pro-communist columnists like Conrado de Quiros insist that the only solution to the current impasse is a snap election now, no matter how unreliable the Comelec is, before any shift to a parliamentary system. They reckon that even if the trapos were to cheat Erap, as they certainly would, he would still win in a snap election. After all in 1998, Erap garnered 39% of the votes, compared to second-placer Jose de Venecia�s 17%. No amount of cheating is going to close that gap, especially now that JDV has developed an annoying, whining sales pitch for his favorite advocacy, parliamentarianism, which, he knows, is the only avenue open to him to become head of government, as he has been trying to all these years.. For the middle class, as well as for the Americans (for their own geopolitical reasons), there is an urgent need to find a New Magsaysay. The Americans need a New Magsaysay to restore the poorly led, poorly equipped, poorly trained and poorly motivated AFP and PNP to fighting trim so that they can score a decisive victory against the NPA. If the Philippine military cannot defeat the NPA, even less would they be able to meet the coming challenge from the Jemaah Islamiyah. The Philippine middle class need a New Magsaysay to undercut the appeal of the communist movement, to restore people�s faith in the bourgeois government, to lead a peaceful revolution to transform a debased and corrupted society, to recover the Filipjno�s pride and self esteem after decades of defeat and humiliation, to strengthen institutions that have been weakened and corroded by endemic corruption and stultifying mediocrity, to rescue the political system from the grip of trapos, showbiz fornicators and political dynasties, to come up with fresh new ideas to liberate millions of the poor from grinding poverty, to give the demoralized burgis one good reason for not abandoning this seemingly hopeless country. Unfortunately, the chances of a New Magsaysay emerging from the ruins of our own self-destruction are slim. Ramon Magsaysay was an obscure congressman from Zambales whom the Americans foisted on the clueless President Elpidio Quirino to appoint as defense secretary. Magsaysay�s meteoric rise to prominence in his new position allowed him to eclipse Quirino, then also reeling from charges of corruption, electoral fraud and nepotism. Aside from breaking the back of the communist movement, RM became so genuinely popular that he was a shoo-in for the presidential elections of 1953. But in 2006, it is unthinkable that President Arroyo will allow any upstart, from Congress or the bureaucracy or anywhere, to eclipse her in her own government, as she intends to remain in power not only until 2010 as president, but also beyond, as prime minister. The only way for a New Magsaysay to emerge would be through an extra-constitutional process. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles are archived in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �A New Magsaysay� Dear Mr. Abaya, What you are asking is more of a reincarnation of the original players. Ramon Magsaysay and Colonel Landsdale of the US Central Intelligence Agency to recreate the myth and legend of "THE GUY". You will be asking favor from the CIA to loan an American covert operation expert to bring in a Filipino who may look "ignoramus" but a surefire solution to thwart and discredit any advances gained by the NPA and restore peace and security to the homeland. It will be the responsibility of JUSMAG and Philippine Armed Forces generals to train this "new Magsaysay" basic lessons in drama to win the hearts of the masses in the barrios. And following the script, you need a reincarnated "raul manglapus to compose not a CHA-CHA but a mambo jingle, "ang democracy will die, kung wala ang bagong magsaysay!" Now everybody join the chorus and sing, "ROLL BACK THE HANDS OF TIME, BRING BACK THE HANDS OF TIME" . Jose Sison Luzadas, [email protected] Toronto, Canada, Jan. 17, 2006 MY REPLY. When I refer to �a New Magsaysay,� I do not necessarily mean a complete carbon copy of RM, including his CIA connections. Surely you must admit that the Philippines needs someone who can restore people�s confidence in the government, who can undercut the appeal of the communist movement, who can revolutionize Philippine society out of the despair that it is mired in, etc, as I wrote in the above article. The CIA does not necessarily have to be involved, especially now that they are no longer in the anti-communist business. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I honestly think we can have the society and democracy we Filipinos deserve if we follow Ramon Magsaysay ideals as expounded in his wotrds ; " Those who have less in life should have` more in law." The jury system will equalize our society. The corrupt and the scoundrels can no longer hide in the sanctuary of the government-monopolized justice system that has evolved through the years as a big massive judicial syndicate from the prosecutors to the justices of the highest Magistracy. Vic del Fierro, Jr., [email protected] Jan. 17, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Hello Tony! I am reading your article here in San Diego, where I have been since November last year. I wanted to ask how you 'measure' Sen. Jun Magsaysay. Wouldn't you qualify him as the 'New Magsaysay'? Just wanted to get your opinion. Paul Nino Meim, [email protected] San Diego, Caliornia, Jan. 18, 2006 PS. A relative of mine runs Philippine Mabuhay News here in San Diego. Could I forward your article to him? wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Maybe the CIA had a hand in the persuasion of the Nacionalista Party. Ross Tipon, [email protected] Baguio City, Jan. 18, 2006 MY REPLY. Maybe. But it could also have been pure political common sense. The NP leaders (Jose P. Laurel, Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Sumulong) all knew that Ramon Magsaysay was the most popular public figure of the day and that only he had the capability to defeat the incumbent Elpidio Quirino. It was to their advantage to welcome Magsaysay (a Liberal) into the Nacionalista Party. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I think the Washington neo-cons are thinking of a " New Suharto" rather than a Magsaysay in giving the Communist movement the final solution in the form of the "Indonesian antidote" which cost about a million lives. Who do you think is this new Suharto, who will be ruthless enough to terminate a million communists/leftists? Do you think Ping Lacson has what it takes to do it ? Auggie Surtida, [email protected] Tigbauan, Iloilo, Jan. 18, 2006 MY REPLY. First of all, I do not think there are a million communists and communist supporters in this country. Second of all, the neo-cons in Washington are not interested in any anti-communist crusade. They are focused on Islamic terrorists. Communism has long been dead as an issue in the US and elsewhere in the world. It is only in da istupid Pilipins en in ikwali istupid Nepal that anyone is still willing to kill and be killed to establish a communist regime. Even Ping Lacson will not waste his time with the communists, unless they choose to pick a fight with him, in which case he would probably not hesitate to make the top 100 communist leaders disappear without a trace. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Hi Mr. Abaya, Below is a story about Magsaysay you might be interested in Rodel J. Ramos, [email protected] Jan. 18, 2006 How Magsaysay solved the problems of the nation By Rodel J. Ramos Jan. 18, 2006 Magsaysay was known as the �Man of the Masses�. He was not as brilliant as Claro M. Recto or Carlos P. Romulo, who were his contemporaries and adversaries. But he had the charisma, the touch of the common tao. And he had a genuine compassion for the poor and the oppressed. But he was not as dumb as portrayed. He was a born leader. He was my father�s (Francisco Ramos) classmate in High School at Zambales Academy in San Narciso. They attended school later at Iba, Zambales. Then when my father went to take Agriculture in Munoz, Nieva Ecija, Tata Monching went to study Commerce in Manila. Dad and Ramon were together again at the Try-V-Tran Bus Company (later, Victory Liner). He was the Manager while my Dad became the Head Mechanic. When war broke out, they were the first to lead the Zambales Guerrilla Movement. Monching whose code name was �Chow� was the Commander and my father whose code name was �Ram� was the Intelligence Chief. When the Japanese discovered their identities, they went to Manila to avoid arrest and gathered supplies and intelligence. The two survived working as mechanics to my Dad�s cousin Luis Abiva, who had a printing press. When the Americans landed in Zambales, Magsaysay and his followers had already cleared up the Japanese forces there and so the Americans never encountered resistance. The Magsaysay forces tricked the Japanese at the airport in San Marcelino. They sent in ladies to entertain and wine them. During the night, the guerrillas came and burned their airplanes and killed them. Capt. Alfredo Piga and Bansiong Rodriguez led that raid. Magsaysay fired the flair that triggered the sabotage of all Japanese facilities including telephone lines and attacks of army camps. It was also the Magsaysay boys who prevented the shelling of San Narciso, San Antonio and San Felipe by American warships. They intercepted the ships and told them that there were no more Japanese in Zambales. The Japanese however made a stand at the Zig Zag between Bataan and Zambales. And there is where a lot of fighting took place with the guerrillas in the front line. The earlier work of the guerrillas caused the rapid deployment of American forces and they reached Manila much earlier than expected. After the war, Magsaysay became congressman of Zambales. His rally during the campaign stopped at our house. We had the Nepa Soft Drink Factory then and thousands of people quenched their thirst and hunger at our place. Communism The Huks threatened the nation with a communist rebellion. (Hukbo Ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon) the first Communist group headed by Congressman Luis Taruc and Jesus Lava was gaining ground. It had control over parts of Pampanga, Bataan, Zambales, and Tarlac. The Huks was formed by peasants mostly from Pampanga who fought to have land of their own. There was also the Muslim rebellion in the south with Kamlon as Chief. The government looked for a man to lead the fight against the communists and President Elpidio Quirino saw in Magsaysay the leadership, discipline, principles, honesty and the action man he needed. The Americans had a good experience with him as head of the Zambales Guerrilla Movement, so, he was highly recommended. Pres. Elpidio Quirino appointed Ramon Magsaysay Sr. as Secretary of Defense to stop the communist take-over and to reduce corruption and lawlessness. To fight the rising tide of rebellion, Magsaysay used the �carrot and stick� tactic and the �divide and rule� principle. He knew that the roots of their discontent were the abuses of the landlords and the lack of opportunity for the peasants who worked as the lifetime serfs of their masters. He knew the feelings of being poor, having come from a middle class family in a province (Zambales) where there were so many poor. He had compassion for the poor and one of his well known saying is, �Those who have less in life must have more in law.� Corruption Corruption was also a problem although it is not as massive as today and at the time of the Marcoses and Joseph Estrada. President Elpidio Quirino was only accused then of having a gold bed pan and an expensive bed, and nepotism. Magsaysay exposed corruption without mercy and the media cooperated with him. To install fear in the hearts and minds of government people, he said, �If my father commits a crime, I will send him to jail.� He recruited young students into the army and as one of their duties, they penetrated the ranks of government employees to spy on workers and report those who took bribes or were inefficient at their work. He also recruited his honest and loyal friends and planted them in those offices to report on corruption and abuses. My father was appointed Inspector General at the Board of Liquidators, an agency that took care of disposing of equipment and machineries left by the Americans and Japanese army. He cleaned that department of corruption. Private armies Some provincial politicians also had private armies and Cavite was notorious for its lawlessness under Gov. Montano. Ramon Magsaysay as defense secretary ordered Montano to disband his private army and surrender their weapons, but he refused. Magsaysay led an army battalion to Cavite with tanks and forced Montano to disarm. When Moises Padilla was murdered in Negros, he personally flew there and took charge of the case. He vowed to bring the killer to justice. Gov. Lacson was suspected of that murder and Magsaysay brought him to justice. To discipline the armed forces whom he heard to be abusive of private citizens, he visited an army camp at night disguised as a private citizen. He found the guard on duty sleeping. He fired the soldier right away. When Magsaysay became President, he knew the dangers of being surrounded by a �cordon sanitaire� who would feed a leader only what he wants to hear or what pleases him. Magsaysay left Malacanang Palace at night disguised as a common tao, escaping his guards to find out what the ordinary people think of what his administration was doing. He asked them of their problems and attended to them. He also called his friends to know what they thought of his plans and accomplishments. Ramon made famous the �common man�s day� in Malacanang where people lined up to tell the President or his representatives what their problems were and they were attended to with compassion. One of his famous quote was �He who has less in life must have more in law.� He was loved by the newspaper men/women. He knew when their birthdays were and he sent them gifts during these special occasions and during Christmas. He surrounded himself with brilliant young men who planned and executed his programs. He had Gen. Jesus Vargas, Raul Manglapus, Manuel Manahan, Terry Adevoso, Pacita Madrigal Warns, and many others. Mayor Antonio Villegas, Vicente Naval and hundredsof others believed in his dreams and leadership. Rafael Salas started during his time as a student leader and rose to become Marcos� Executive Secretary and then head of the Population Control Commission of the United Nations. He warned his relatives not to enter politics while he was there. When he died however, his younger brother Genaro (Gene) Magsaysay became a Congressman and later a Senator. His son Ramon Magsaysay Jr. also became a Congressman and a Senator. Governor Vic Magsaysay and Congressman Antonio Diaz and Congresswoman Mila Magsaysay, wife of a nephew took advantage of the name to be in power. He initiated the �Land for the landless program.� He offered those who would surrender and those who did not own a piece of land to have 15 hectares homestead in Mindanao, and many Ilocanos, Cebuanos, Tagalogs and Ilonggos took advantage of this. That is why there are lots of them in Mindanao. To change the image of the Army and gain the trust and loyalty of the peasants, he used them to build schools and feeder roads to the remote barrios and farms. He built artesian wells in barrios and irrigation canals to increase rice production. He gave farmers carabaos (water buffalos) and in fact, prohibited the slaughter of these farm animals to increase their numbers. When there was rat infestation in Mindanao, he offered to pay for every rat the people killed.. But to break the back of the resistance movement, he unleashed the dreaded Special Forces Nenita Unit headed by Napoleon Valeriano. They were trained to survive in the jungle and fight the Huks in their territory. They were sent alone or in twos and penetrated their camps. They did not capture captives but killed them. This alarmed Luis Taruc and he offered to surrender with the intervention of Benigno Aquino who was just starting as a newspaperman during these times. Jesus Lava and his brother were also captured. They saw the sincerity of President Magsaysay in trying to solve the problems of the poor and his sense of justice. He ate with them with his hands in their coconut bowls and kissed their children. He hugged older people like his own parents. He took ex-Huks like Johnny Planas into his trust and used them for the psycho war against the communist insurgents. He heard that the Victory Liner in the Province of Zambales did not stop for older people. One time he disguised himself as an old man in a huge hat and tried to stop the bus. It did not stop and he asked that that driver be fired. He used to be the manager of that bus company before the Japanese war . With the southern rebellion in Mindanao, he assigned battalions upon battalions of soldiers and attacked Chief Kamlon without rest until he surrendered. But he also listened to the needs of the Muslims and provided them their needs. After which, there was peace in Mindanao and the Muslims and Christians lived in peace and prosperity. On the night of March 16, 1957, my father could not sleep. At 3am he took a walk to my sister�s house which was a mile away. My sister asked Dad if he knew what time it was. Dad said he could not sleep and was restless. The next day was the fiesta at Joseph Parish in Quezon City. We were busy preparing for the visitors when we heard over the radio the news that the plane of Magsaysay, Mount. Pinatubo, was missing in the mountains of Cebu where he went to attend a graduation ceremony. Dad cried immediately because he had a feeling then that Ramon Magsaysay, his best friend, was dead. When they confirmed that the plane went down in Mt. Manungal with only Mr. Mata as survivor, the whole nation was shocked and mourned. His funeral was the longest ever in the history of the nation. It was longer than the funeral of Benigno Aquino. He was the most loved of all the Presidents. His life was compared then to a comet that came in the darkness of night to brighten the Philippine horizon but faded fast after only three years in office. After 50 years, we have not produced a leader more loved and greater than he. And we still long for a deliverer like him. We know his examples he set and we can duplicate them, but we have a poor memory and we do not learn from our history. Heroes are made in time of crises. But one has to make the necessary sacrifice and commitment and put the country and our people above self. We can all be the Magsaysays, but we have to acquire the guts, the principles and the charisma to inspire our people to greatness like the �Guy�.***** wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, It was a pleasure to read your articles, especially when you related your experiences touring Europe during the early 60's on a Vespa scooter ( or was it Lambretta?). Your article on a New Magsaysay elicited quite a lot of texts and emails to me, including the forwarding of that article to me these past few days. Just to add to your comment about Ramon Magsaysay, Sr., indeed he was an obscure congressman who was a guerilla during the dark days of the 2nd WW. He was one of many non-lawyers who were elected by their constituencies in the first post-war national elections when Pres. Manuel Roxas won. Ramon Magsaysay was 38 when he won his first election. He was 43 when he was secretary of defense, and 46 when elected president in '53. We need men used to a hard life, hard work, hard times to solve hard problems created by hard and corrupt individuals. At that time public servants were either debased with the 10% kickback, or praised for solving social and economic problems. We need men who are prepared to take the tolls of counterattacks, and not shirk from the risk of losing their position, career and even life simply to serve their fellow men the best they can. God have mercy on our people and may our people in turn start to fight for their God-given basic rights to make their country a decent and good place to live in, work in , and raise a good family in. Jun Magsaysay, [email protected] Philippines Senate wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The following was emailed to us by Mike G. Price Dusting off the Brown-shirts and Jackboots By Mike Whitney January 06, 2006 The spiking gold market is a sure sign that the dollar is headed for the dumpster. Large institutional investors are hastily moving boatloads of cash into precious metals that promise to retain their value while the hemorrhaging dollar goes the way of Icarus. We're finally beginning to see the effects of Bush's profligate spending, "unsustainable" trade deficits, and the economic master-plan to reorder American society. And, don't think that that the poker-faced Sam Alito doesn't factor heavily in this new paradigm of class-division and elite rule. He's the last vital part of the neocon strategy for tossing America's struggling middle class overboard and paddling pell-mell towards the shore of the new world order. Gold had already doubled in less than a year when (two weeks ago) the bad news started to dribble i n. Since then the news of America's burgeoning trade deficit with China, China's plan to move away from the weakening dollar, and finally, the saber-rattling over Iran, have the big-time investors scampering for the exits and gold prices headed through the ceiling. Gold is the canary in the coalmine; it tells us when major investors see structural vulnerabilities in the system and begin to bail out. All I can say is, it took them long enough to figure it out. The Bush team has been spending $400 billion more than it takes in in tax revenues for 4 years, a practice it now wants to enshrine as "permanent tax cuts". Huh? Question: How can anyone argue that the plundering of America is not intentional when deficits are defended as a "permanent" function of government? Deficits are theft; and it is future generations that will have to pay for the criminal largesse of the Bush administration. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow announced just last week that the national debt would have to be raised to $9 trillion by February to keep the government operating. That means that Bush has generated a whopping $3 trillion dollars of debt in just 5 years. Unbelievable! This is a strategy that is clearly designed to undermine the dollar and shift middle class wealth to the lucky 1% that Bush serves. It conflates perfectly Greenspan's plan to sluice zillions into the economy through low interest rates and flawed lending practices ($0 down payments on homes; interest-only loans; ARMs) which create massive bubbles designed to purge the middle class of their hard-earned savings. The stock market bubble alone moved $7 trillion from (mainly) middle class investors in retirement funds and IRAs into the pockets of the cigar-chomping plutocrats in Bush's inner circle. With housing prices on a downward trajectory, energy going up, and the dollar destined for life-support; we can expect to see a growing line at the food-banks and homeless shelters. No kidding. America is marching in lockstep towards a depression that was planned at the highest levels of government. Deregulation has produced a trade deficit that requires an infusion of $2 billion dollars (or 6.8% GDP) every day just to keep the good-ship Bush afloat. When the flow of borrowed money slows, the dollar will crash to earth like Humpty-Dumpty leaving wreckage strew throughout the American heartland. Why else would Bush claim the extraordinary powers of a dictator? In just months Bush has claimed that he has the right to incarcerate citizens without charging them with a crime, torture prisoners, unilaterally declare war, and spy on Americans. Why? Is Bin Laden somehow weakened by the steady erosion of civil liberties? Or, is the White House cabal anticipating massive ci vil disorder from their planned economic meltdown? Even Greenspan has warned that the present path is "unsustainable", and darker days are just ahead. Regrettably, the administration has seized all the levers of power and is prepared for the worst. Alito is the final piece in the neocon puzzle; the cornerstone for an American police-state. If he is approved by the Senate, Bush will have his Federalist "rubber-stamp" on the high court and the Congress will be rendered powerless. No law will be able to check or balance the "unitary" authority of the executive. It may be time to dust off the brown-shirts and jackboots; looks like they may be back in style. ***** Mike G. Price P. O. Box 468 Michigan Center, MI 49254, USA phone 517-764-4517 [email protected] wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The following was emailed to us by Bert Drona THE CHINESE IN THE PHILIPPINES: Power and Prejudice - Globalizing Hate By Amy Chua; introduction by Bert M. Drona WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, we learned about the Chinese being smuggled into our homeland, with payments to certain congressmen. In retrospect, this Chinese diaspora is understandable given the human hardships that arose from the early failures of Chinese communism, i.e. Great Leap Forward, and the proximity, the attractiveness of our freedom and the natural richness of our homeland. Now, the Chinese can be easily naturalized as the native Malay Filipinos, thanks to the Marcos Dictatorship and subsequent regimes who all found profit in doing so. Quietly the Chinese, not wanting assimilation with the natives though sometimes with the established, aristocratic mestizo elite, have thus gained humongous economic dominance and consequently political influence, directly and indirectly, thanks to our many native, corrupt officials. We hear and read ad nauseam about the regression of our homeland versus our Asian neighbors; and for the most part, it is our fault; we Malay Filipinos for allowing this disaster to happen. Our fault because we are not a united majority, not a nation, because of our lack/absence of nationalism. All the while, we prefer to listen to foreigners, especially the Americans and fellow Filipinos, technocrats or not, with Americanized minds , in our homeland who warn us of the dangers of nationalism and who equate nationalism with communism. Any serious student of history, of political economy, will find that all developed nations had strong nationalism on their journey to nationhood, to economic growth and development. America itself, had nationalism in mind when it implemented protectionism as early as the 1780's and did so for over a century. Today, America still does in certain business sectors, but in turn preaches "free market/Laissez faire" to and demands absolute free trade from weak countries like ours (via its supposedly benevolent/objective institutional tools: IMF/WB/WTO). And the American public, without much thought, believe that their economic history is all due to Adam Smith's "Laissez faire." Similarly, all western Europeans and Asian Tigers did not follow that market theory for them to "take off"; else they will not be where they are now. Beyond Economics 101, we ought to know these are all bullshit. Economics is not about "playing fair", nor having an "equal playing field"; economics is between the strong and the weak . And we know where we are then and now, and it's long overdue that we realize that and do something to radically change this arrangement. And all these Asian neighbors: Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Vietnam, have strong nationalism . Japan then with its ultra-nationalism led to WW2 in the Pacific; Communist China with its ultra-nationalism led to taking over Tibet. Ultra-nationalism is nationalism beyond one's territorial/national borders. We Filipinos have to recover and strengthen our nationalism, that is, Filipino nationalism within our borders. We the so-called educated ought to inform ourselves, to understand, should reach to our impoverished majority to help them also appreciate and know "what really is going on" and work towards unity. Let us make "Malay Filipino First", as the late President Garcia did with his "Filipino First" and helped native industrialization (but later thwarted by Diosdado Macapagal whose promised priority was to put back the country to foreign subservience. So did Macapagal's successor regimes: Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and now her daughter, Gloria Arroyo and apparently, whoever comes next among the present contenders/opposition, in whatever form or grouping). Though much, much more difficult now, it is only when we have gained strength through national unity can we then attain national dignity, can we then fight to radically change our perennial socio-economic and political predicament for the common good; it is only when we have a strongly determined nationalist leadership and nationalist majority can we earn respect as a nation and people, can we then look the foreigner in the eye and deal with them as an equal. Else, we will continue to regress at the expense of the present and future generations, to be continually humiliated, ignored and played/kicked around in our own homeland. With our continued disunity, all foreigners encourage us and love us for being continually so, for they are having a field day in our homeland, at our expense... to wallow in ever-worsening misery; praying and waiting for the heaven of the afterlife (as told by the church and therefore unquestioningly believed). Below is a rare, perceptive and honest commentary by Professor Amy Chua, a Chinese from the Philippines, though speaking here as an American. Her book is good reading. THE CHINESE IN THE PHILIPPINES: Power and Prejudice - Globalizing Hate By Amy Chua The inequalities of the free market pit a poor, frustrated majority against a rich "outsider" minority. Add democracy, and the result is often retaliation, violence, and even mass slaughter. One beautiful blue morning in 1994, my mother phoned me from California. In a hushed voice, she told me that my Aunt Leona, my father's twin sister, had been murdered in her home in the Philippines, her throat slit by her chauffeur. My mother broke the news in our native Hokkien Chinese dialect. But "murder" she said in English, as if to wall off the act from the family through language. Angry Indonesian mobs burn cars and Chinese-owned shops as they plundered Jakarta in anti-Chinese riots, May 1998. (� AFP / Choo Youn-Kong) The murder of a relative is horrible for anyone, anywhere. My father's grief was impenetrable; to this day, he has not broken his silence on the subject. For the rest of the family, though, there was added disgrace. For traditional Chinese, luck is a moral attribute, and a lucky person would never be murdered. Like having a birth defect, or marrying a non-Chinese, being murdered is shameful. My three younger sisters and I were very fond of Aunt Leona, who was petite and quirky and had never married. Like many wealthy Filipino Chinese, she had all kinds of bank accounts in Honolulu, San Francisco, and Chicago. She visited us in the United States regularly. She and my father�Leona and Leon�were close, as only twins can be. Having no children of her own, she doted on her nieces and showered us with trinkets. As we grew older, the trinkets became treasures. On my tenth birthday, she gave me ten small diamonds, wrapped in toilet paper. My aunt loved diamonds and bought them up by the dozen, concealing them in empty Elizabeth Arden face moisturizer jars, some right on her bathroom shelf. She liked accumulating things. When we ate at McDonalds, she stuffed her Gucci purse with free ketchups. According to the police report, my Aunt Leona, "a 58-year-old single woman," was killed in her living room with "a butcher's knife" at approximately 8 p.m. Two of her maids who were questioned confessed that Nilo Abique, my aunt's chauffeur, had planned and executed the murder with their knowledge and assistance. "A few hours before the actual killing, respondent was seen sharpening the knife allegedly used in the crime." After the killing, "respondent [Abique] joined the two witnesses and told them that their employer was dead. At that time, he was wearing a pair of bloodied white gloves and was still holding a knife, also with traces of blood." But Abique, the report went on to say, had "disappeared"with the warrant for his arrest outstanding. The two maids were released. After the funeral, I asked one of my uncles whether there had been any further developments in the murder investigation. He replied tersely that the killer had not been found. His wife explained that the Manila police had essentially closed the case. Why were they not more shocked that my aunt had been killed by people who worked for her, lived with her? Or that the maids had been released? When I pressed my uncle, he was brusque. "That's the way things are here," he said. "This is the Philippines�not America." My uncle was not simply being callous. As it turns out, my aunt's death is part of a common pattern. Hundreds of Chinese in the Philippines are kidnapped every year, almost invariably by ethnic Filipinos . Many victims, often children, are brutally murdered, even after ransom is paid. Other Chinese, like my aunt, are killed without a kidnapping, usually in connection with a robbery. Nor is it unusual that my aunt's killer was never apprehended. Police in the Philippines, all poor ethnic Filipino themselves, are notoriously unmotivated in these cases. Asked by a Western journalist why it is so frequently the Chinese who are targeted, one grinning Filipino policeman explained, "They have more money." My family is part of the Philippines' tiny but entrepreneurial, economically powerful Chinese minority. Just 1 percent of the population, Chinese Filipinos control as much as 60 percent of the private economy , including the country's four major airlines and almost all its banks, hotels, shopping malls, and conglomerates. My own relatives in Manila, who run a plastics conglomerate, are only "third-tier" Chinese tycoons. Still, they own swaths of prime real estate and several vacation homes. They also have safe deposit boxes full of gold bars, each the size of a Snickers bar. My Aunt Leona FedExed me a similar bar as a law school graduation present. Since my aunt's murder, one childhood memory keeps haunting me. I was eight, visiting from the United States, and staying at my family's splendid hacienda-style house in Manila. It was before dawn, still dark when I went to the kitchen for a drink. But I must have gone down an extra flight of stairs because I literally stumbled onto six male bodies. I had found the male servants' quarters. My family's house-boys, gardeners, and chauffeurs�I sometimes imagine that Nilo Abique was among them�were sleeping on mats on a dirt floor. The place stank of sweat and urine. I was horrified. Later that day, I mentioned the incident to my Aunt Leona, who laughed affectionately and explained that the servants�there were perhaps 20 living on the premises, all ethnic Filipino�were fortunate to be working for our family . If not for their positions, they would be living among rats and open sewers, without even a roof over their heads. A Filipino maid then walked in with a bowl of food for my aunt's Pekingese dog. The Filipinos, my aunt continued �in Chinese, but not caring whether the maid understood�were lazy and unintelligent, and didn't really want to do much else. If they didn't like working for us, they were free to leave any time. After all, they were employees, not slaves. According to the World Bank, UNICEF, and official statistics of the Philippines, nearly two-thirds of the Philippines' 80 million ethnic Filipinos live on less than $2 a day, 40 percent spend their entire lives in temporary shelters, and 70 percent of all rural Filipinos own no land. Almost a third have no access to sanitation. But that is not the worst of it. Poverty alone never is. Poverty by itself does not make people kill. To poverty must be added indignity, hopelessness, and grievance. In the Philippines, millions of ethnic Filipinos work for Chinese; almost no Chinese work for Filipinos. The Chinese dominate industry and commerce at every level of society. Global markets intensify this dominance: When foreign investors do business in the Philippines, they deal almost exclusively with Chinese. Apart from a handful of corrupt politicians and a few aristocratic Spanish mestizo families, all of the Philippines' billionaires are Chinese. By contrast, all menial jobs in the Philippines are filled by Filipinos. All peasants, domestic servants, and squatters are Filipinos. Outside Manila, thousands of ethnic Filipinos lived on or around the Payatas garbage dump: a 12-block-wide mountain of fermenting refuse known as The Promised Land. By scavenging through rotting food and animal carcasses, squatters eked out a living. In July 2000, as a result of accumulating methane gas, the garbage mountain imploded and collapsed, smothering more than 100 people, many of them young children. When I asked an uncle about the Payatas explosion, he was annoyed. "Why does everyone want to talk about that? It's the worst thing for foreign investment." I wasn't surprised. My relatives live literally walled off from the Filipino masses, in a posh, all-Chinese residential enclave, on streets named Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Armed, private security forces guard every entry point. Each time I think of Nilo Abique�he was 6' 2" and my aunt was 4' 11"�I well up with a hatred and revulsion so intense, it is actually consoling. But over time, I have also had glimpses of how the Chinese must look to the vast majority of Filipinos, to someone like Abique: as exploiters, as foreign intruders, their wealth inexplicable, their superiority intolerable . I will never forget the entry in the police report for Abique's "motive for murder": not robbery, despite the jewels and money the chauffeur was said to have taken, but just one word:"Revenge." There is a connection between my aunt's killing and the waves of global violence and mass murder that we read about with mounting frequency. It lies in the relationship�and increasingly the explosive collision�among the three most powerful forces operating in the world today: markets, democracy, and ethnic hatred. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a common economic and political consensus emerged, not only in the West, but to a considerable extent around the world. Markets and democracy, working hand in hand, would transform the world into a community of modernized, peace-loving nations. In the process, ethnic hatred, religious zealotry, and other "backward" aspects of underdevelopment would be swept away. The sobering lesson of the last 20 years, however, is that the global spread of free-market democracy�at least in its current, raw, for- export form�has been a principal aggravating cause of ethnic violence throughout the non-Western world. The reason has to do with a phenomenon � pervasive outside the West, yet rarely acknowledged�indeed often viewed as taboo�that turns free-market democracy into an engine of ethnic conflagration. The phenomenon is that of market-dominant minorities: ethnic minorities who�for widely varying reasons ranging from entrepreneurialism to a history of apartheid or colonial oppression �can be expected under market conditions to economically dominate the "indigenous" majorities around them, at least in the near to mid-term future. Examples of market-dominant minorities include the Chinese, not just in the Philippines, but throughout Southeast Asia . Most recently, in Myanmar, ethnic Chinese have literally taken over the economies of Mandalay and Yangon. Whites are a market-dominant minority in South Africa and Zimbabwe�and, in a more complicated sense, in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and much of Latin America. Indians are a market-dominant minority in East Africa, Fiji, and parts of the Caribbean, as are Lebanese in West Africa and Jews in post-Communist Russia. Ibo are a market-dominant minority in Nigeria as were Croats in the former Yugoslavia and Tutsi in pre-genocide Rwanda. In countries with a market-dominant minority, markets and democracy will tend to favor not just different people or different classes, but different ethnic groups. Markets magnify the often astounding wealth of the market-dominant minority while democracy increases the political power of the impoverished "indigenous" majority. In such circumstances, where the rich aren't just rich�but belong to a resented, "outsider" ethnic group�the pursuit of free-market democracy often becomes an engine of catastrophic ethno-nationalism , pitting a poor "indigenous" majority, easily aroused and manipulated by opportunistic politicians, against a hated ethnic minority. Consider Indonesia: Free-market policies in the 1980s and 1990s led to a situation in which the country's 3 percent Chinese minority controlled 70 percent of the country's private economy. The introduction of democracy in 1998�hailed with euphoria in the United States�produced a violent backlash against both the Chinese and markets. Some 5,000 shops and homes of ethnic Chinese were burned and looted, 2,000 people died, and 150 Chinese women were gang-raped. Free and fair elections in the midst of all this gave rise to ethnic scapegoating by demagogic politicians, along with calls for confiscation of Chinese assets and a "People's Economy" that would return Indonesia's wealth to the country's "true owners," the pribumi (indigenous Indonesian) majority. The wealthiest Chinese left the country, along with $40 billion to $100 billion of Chinese-controlled capital, plunging the country into an economic crisis from which it has still not recovered. Indonesia is part of a much larger global problem: Whenever free-market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the result is not peace and prosperity but tremendous instability and some form of backlash�even mass slaughter. Sept. 11 brought this same dynamic home to the United States. While Americans are not an ethnic minority, the world now sees us as a kind of global market-dominant minority, wielding outrageously disproportionate economic power relative to our numbers. With just 4 percent of the world's population, the U.S. is the principal engine and beneficiary of global capitalism. We are also seen as "almighty," "exploitative," and "able to control the world" by the world's poor, whether through military power or through the IMF-implemented austerity measures forced on developing populations. As a result, the United States has become the object of the same kind of mass popular, demagogue-fueled resentment that afflicts so many other market-dominant minorities around the world. For the last 20 years, the United States has been promoting throughout the non-Western world a bare-knuckled, laissez-faire brand of capitalism abandoned by every Western nation�including the United States�long ago. At the same time, it has been urging most of the developing world, with the conspicuous exception of the Middle East, to hold immediate majority-rule elections�"overnight democracy" �whereas Western democracies evolved much more gradually. The U.S. attempt now underway in Iraq to install free-market democracy raises grave concerns. Like the former Yugoslavia, Iraq's ethnic dynamics are extremely complex�including long-suppressed hatreds among Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis�and cross-cutting desires for revenge, especially against the brutal Baathist regime and its allies. Post-invasion chaos has made predictions impossible, but many fear that overnight elections could create a fundamentalist Islamic state that is opposed to free markets, to Washington, and to individual liberties, especially for women. Moreover, because the U.S. is the world's most powerful and resented market-dominant minority, every move it makes with respect to Iraq will be scrutinized by hostile eyes. The best strategy for the U.S. may be the same one that market-dominant minorities everywhere would be well-advised to pursue: cooperate openly and fairly to advance a broad public interest, and support a government that ensures that the country's resources and wealth�in the Iraqi case oil�benefit all the people . Amy Chua is professor of Law at Yale University and author of the New York Times bestseller World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (Doubleday, 2003), from which this article is adapted. Source: http://www.amnestyusa.org/magazine/hate.html wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The following was emailed to us by Marcelo Tecson. For: General Manager MALCOLM D. KNIGHT Deputy General Manager HERVE HANNOUN Bank for International Settlements Basel, Switzerland In connection with my two e-mails sent earlier, central bank chiefs failed to find in the BIS-sponsored meeting in Hong Kong in January 1999 the elusive solution to currency speculation, which speculation IMF and central banks addressed through economic-folly high interest rates in the Asian crisis. Why IMF's high-interest-rate prescription to the crisis may be considered an economic folly is expounded on from pages 46 to 52 of my book PUZZLERS/ECONOMIC STING, published last year in the Philippines. In the meantime, herewith is the abridged version of the Executive Summary of the said book which also explains briefly why high interest rates in economic crisis constitute an economic folly. It goes without saying that if BIS, IMF, World Bank, central banks, business schools, etc. cannot refute the proposition that IMF's high-interest-rate prescription--a wholesale subsidy scheme--is an economic folly, then it should not be repeated in future economic crises. IMF has no business prescribing an economic solution that, when harshly attacked as an economic fraud or farce, it would not--or cannot--defend. MARCELO L. TECSON Quezon City, Metro Manila and San Miguel, Bulacan January 20, 2006 All is Not Well in the Management of Monetary Systems Executive Summary of the book Puzzlers/Economic Sting By Marcelo L. Tecson What is the government doing to prevent recurrence of staggering bad loans in the Philippine banking system that eventually visited upon Filipinos for the past sins of their central bankers? What severely wounded borrowing sectors in the Asian crisis was not the crisis itself but its mishandling by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and affected central banks, including the local Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Survival in the crisis turned from difficult to impossible for many borrowers when IMF and monetary authorities fought currency speculation through back-breaking high interest rates. Yet, there were less disastrous alternatives languishing right in BSP's long standing circulars, as proven by BSP itself when it successfully implemented some of the suggested measures after the crisis--but it was too late for many defaulting borrowers. By May 2002, their bad loans had soared to PhP600 billion, twice the capital accounts of commercial banks and 36% of their lending and acquired assets that hovered at PhP1.6 trillion (page 72 of this book). If the Propounded Subsidy and Other Flaws in the High-Interest-Rate Cure Cannot be Refuted, then the Cure is Unsound Economics and, as such, A Challenge to Economists to Come Up with Subsidy-Free Economic Solutions How will victimized borrowers feel if at last they will know that their bankruptcies from high interest rates in the Asian crisis were just due to human errors because this economic solution is an economic folly--if not a sign of evil conspiracy? (pp. xvii-xviii, 46-52). It is merely the product of IMF's and central banks' ignorance of high-interest-rate fallacies and alternatives that spawned monumental errors in the crisis, some of the most damning of which are as follows: � They mishandled the regional crisis by doing the totally unexpected--what present-day economists consider taboo and disgraceful--wantonly violating free market through operating on a grand scale their own hidden subsidy scheme in high interest rates! In economics, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything, including "free" benefit enjoyed by some economic sectors, has a cost that somehow is paid for by other members of society. This maxim is recognized by two revered public finance or taxation doctrines that rationalized the situation, the benefit and ability-to-pay principles, to the effect that those who receive benefit must pay for it according to their ability. Stated differently, it means that the cost of implementing an economic solution that inures to the benefit of the nation should be borne by the nation, not by just a part of it. Alas, it was not to be in the Asian crisis. Through their instituted high interest rates, IMF and central banks forced borrowers to bear exclusively the cost of calming down the economic turbulence for the sake of the nation--composed of borrowers and non-borrowers--thereby activating a scheme of subsidy by paying borrowers to free-lunching non-borrowers! However, subsidies are pass� because these distort market prices, vitiate free market, and encourage wasteful consumption by subsidized sectors. Therefore, as free-market apostles that abhor anti-market subsidies, IMF and central banks violated free market through their market-price-distorting subsidy scheme in high interest rates that were not free market rates (pp. 38-39, 53). It is a uniquely cruel and absurd subsidy scheme--it exacts subsidy BEYOND THE LIMITS OF SANITY and up to the point of loan defaults or even bankruptcies from discriminated borrowers, no matter how poor, yet demands nothing from equally benefiting but freeloading non-borrowers, no matter how rich! (pp. 29-32, 97-102) � They protect the banking system by impairing the financial capacity of the source of its stability, the de facto custodian of depositors' money by way of bank loans--the all-important borrowing sector. The paying ability of borrowers is the foundation of strength of the banking system. No amount of reforms in banks will work if borrowers cannot religiously repay their loans. Hence, borrowers have to be held inviolate and insulated from economic convulsion so that they can amortize their loans even during hard times. In defiance of this common sense, in the handling of economic crisis and protection of banks, IMF and central banks intentionally saddled borrowers with bad-loan provoking high interest rates (pp. 33, 59-60). In response to IMF's 60% high-interest-rate prescription, BSP adopted 30% "middle ground" interest rate that peaked at 38% or higher, compared to generally less than 20% for other Asian countries hit harder by crisis, with accompanying shamefully out-of-line highest bank spreads in the region that reached as much as 25.5% or more-as against 3.9% or less for other crisis-hit countries (pp. 75-79)--despite available less catastrophic alternatives (pp. 113-136), our lack of request for IMF bailout fund, and our having strong economic fundamentals and mere contagion crisis! � They reward with very high interest income rather than punish currency speculators. In response to a baffling international economic problem, they raised interest rates during the Asian flu simply because IMF officials and "central bankers from around the globe have found no immediate solution to currency speculators." (pp. vii, xxii, 103, 119). They could not see, or think of on their own, the available but unimplemented high-interest-rate alternatives mandated right in old Philippine central bank circulars (pp. 130-132). They fight dollar speculation through high interest rates, when all they had to do was punish banks violating old central bank circulars disallowing sales of dollars to speculators--or those without proof of foreign obligations--as was successfully done in the Philippines in August 2001 and March 2003, when BSP finally but belatedly saw the light (pp. 123-124, 188-190). � They resorted to price rationing and totally ignored the lesser evil quantity rationing. In past economic crises, just to minimize borrowing and consequently tighten money supply, IMF and central banks resorted to price rationing by means of high interest rates, a form of credit rationing treated in economics textbooks. They totally overlooked or disregarded the lesser evil quantity rationing, another form of credit rationing, which could have been done through the less calamitous temporary prospective drastic reduction in loanable value of collateral. Price rationing, through high interest rates, will discourage both prospective and existing borrowers, with prospective borrowers having the choice to reject new loans--as in fact they do, as shown by resulting slowdown in borrowing-while captive existing borrowers, who can no longer avoid high borrowing rates even if they want to because they cannot back out from their already invested or spent loans, are caught in the no-choice situation of having to pay unaffordable high interest rates in a market that was free at the time they obtained loans, but is damaged now by those who unilaterally raised interest rates without borrowers' consent, the very people sworn to protect free market-IMF and central bank authorities! (pp. 38-39). In contrast, quantity rationing, through temporary prospective drastic reduction in loan value of collateral, will adversely affect new-loan applicants but not existing old-loan borrowers. It will minimize new loans out of available finite collateral while amortization of old loans continue, thus it will promote tight money supply even without charging high interest rates to both old-loan and new-loan borrowers. Why did IMF and BSP ignore it? (pp. 127-128, 140, 190). High Interest Rates Inflict Long Lasting Damage to Economies And Discourage Investments Out of Borrowed Funds Even After Economic Crisis "Temporary" high interest rates--prescribed by IMF and stimulated by central banks in the stabilization of exchange rates and control of inflation�bring financial disasters to countless investor-borrowers for the rest of their lives. "Just like a couple we know who borrowed P12 million for their poultry contract growing project in 1996. The total indebtedness suddenly ballooned to P18 million because the original 18% interest had escalated to 32%. In (another).case the hike in interest was even worse. The interest increased from the original 18% to 38 percent." (Zac Sarian, "Agri-talk," Philippine Panorama, May 21, 2000, p. 10) The disasters from high interest rates in the Asian meltdown are vividly expressed by unprecedented bad loans and bank recapitalization problems that plague affected Asian banking systems to this day (p. 59). Those who had the capability to borrow capital and go into business had generally done so in the past. When ravaged by high interest rates in the ensuing crisis, many of them defaulted on their loans, lost their collateral, and destroyed their credit standing before banks. It takes time for them to recover from their disasters, or for a new breed of investor-borrowers to fall into IMF's and central banks' ingenious trap�low interest rates now, high interest rates later. So, central bankers may boast today of lowest lending rates ever but these will not bring about immediate and complete resurgence of economic activities. For, if a few years from now high interest rates will recur and wipe out again what will have been gained through hard work in the next few years, why invest at all in business using borrowed funds? With the Lifting of the Veil of Ignorance Shrouding High Interest Rates, IMF-Member Nations' Highest Government Officials Who Will Tolerate IMF's And Central Banks' Sin against a Part of Humanity Will Be Equally Guilty of It If concerned government officials and citizens of IMF-member nations will take a long, hard look at the foregoing propositions and conduct their own independent investigation, including asking IMF and central bank officials to defend their institutions against the totally unflattering propositions against them, they will be shocked at what they will find out for themselves--that countless Asian borrowers suffered huge financial losses, or even bankruptcies, from the high-interest-rate prescription during the Asian crisis under the false pronouncement that it was a necessary evil, whereas it was only a direct result of IMF's and central banks' blissful ignorance--if not malicious disregard in deference to a cartel�of high-interest-rate fallacies and alternatives. Thus, the problem may not be entirely in economics, it may be partly in men. If a few seemingly ignorant IMF and central bank officials commit the grievous sin of impoverishing a part of humanity through fallacious or malicious high interest rates in recurring economic crisis, with all due respect, the highest government officials and economic managers of adversely affected IMF-member nations do not do justice to their exalted positions, for as long as they themselves remain blissfully ignorant of the sin wantonly committed against their constituencies. Then, once they become aware of it, they will become equally guilty--if they opt to ignore it. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |