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| Quotations from Chairman Tony
With Apologies to Chairman Mao On the Abu Sayyaf: �When the Abu Sayyaf bandits abducted some 21 persons, including about a dozen Caucasian tourists, from the Malaysian resort island of Sipadan in April 2000 and then transferred them to their lairs in Sulu and later Basilan, the response of the Philippine military, under the command of then AFP Chief-of-Staff Gen. Angelo Reyes, was to send an invasion force of 6,000 troops accompanied by 105mm howitzers, Simba APCs, helicopter gunships, OV-10 Bronco light bombers, navy patrol boats and the kitchen sink at GHQ Camp Aguinaldo, in pursuit of a force of no more than a hundred scoundrels. �When the same bandit group kidnapped another dozen or so people, including three Americans (one of whom they later beheaded) from the Palawan resort of Dos Palmas the next year, the response of the Philippine military, under the direction of Secretary of National Defense Angelo Reyes, was to send another invasion force of 6,000 accompanied, as before, by 105mm howitzers, Simba APCs, helicopter gunships, light bombers, navy patrol boats and the kitchen sink, to run after the kidnappers who obviously had not been terrified by their first brush with the AFP. �Angelo Reyes should get a patent on his unique method for dealing with hostage situations lest somebody else be dumb enough to copy it in a third Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom operations. �Anyone with some common sense knows that hostage situations are best dealt with by relatively small groups of commandos (now known as special forces) who stealthily crawl up to their prey without announcing their presence and who strike usually in the wee hours before dawn when everyone else is asleep. Not by an invasion force of 6,000 noisily preceded by artillery barrages, naval gunfire and air strikes from safe distances while the infantry are still five kilometers away from their quarry�..� Abu Sayyaf: Why the AFP Failed, January 31, 2002 On Constitutional Amendments: ��In the Philippine context, with its debased personalistic politics, a shift to the parliamentary system has to be accompanied with drastic measures to prevent or penalize political turn-coatism, to dismantle political dynasties, and to require political parties to have program-specific platforms and to enforce party discipline among their members. �At the same time, the electoral system has to be drastically revamped to free it from the clutches of Big Money, to clean up the voters� list (through an electronic national ID card), and to strictly enforce electoral laws with a Comelec that has teeth. �All these drastic measures and more would be fiercely resisted by most of the trapos in power. For that reason, they should not be the ones to rewrite the rules��..� What Is To Be Done?, November 07, 2002 On Constitutional Amendments (2): ��The scenario favored by House Speaker Jose de Venecia is for this shift (to the parliamentary system) to occur before 2004, the scheduled elections postponed for two to three years while a constituent assembly, made up incumbent trapos, diddle with the Constitution. In my opinion, this scenario is not attractive because it preserves the prominence of the trapos (who are one of the causes of our political malaise and cannot therefore be part of the cure). �The scenario I favor�is one in which the incumbent president forms a government of national salvation sometime in 2003, with members drawn from both the administration, the political opposition AND concerned citizens from the non-trapo communities, including the communists (if they are willing to join), which will draft the changes necessary over the next two or three years, on condition that the incumbent president disqualifies herself from running for any office in the emerging new order. �For President Arroyo, this should be an attractive alternative. Given that her rating is going down and is likely to continue going down, a second term is becoming less attainable by the day. If she continues on her present course, she will exit in 2004 as another lackluster president, another failure of liberal democracy, forced from running for a second term by a hostile press and an ungrateful electorate, who must hand over power to another More-of-the-Same government dominated even more by predatory trapos and illiterate showbiz fornicators��.� Chacha: Shall We Dance?, December 11, 2002 On COPA: � (Peping) Cojuangco and (Boy) Saycon both claim principal authorship of EDSA Dos which installed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacanang and, as a reward, expected to be appointed to Cabinet positions in the Arroyo Government. When that reward failed to materialize, Cojuangco and Saycon allied themselves and their COPA with the Communists of Sanlakas, under the late Popoy Lagman, whose battle cry in 2001, before and after EDSA Dos , was the grammatically tortured RESIGN ALL! Meaning that not only Joseph Estrada but Gloria Arroyo as well, and everyone else in government, should resign from their positions. �How can Cojuangco and Saycon now claim to be the bulwark against both the Left and the Right when they thought nothing of aligning themselves with the Communists out of mere spite for being left out of the Arroyo Cabinet?��� Collective Leadership Means Junta, April 24, 2002 On Corruption and Politics: � So we learn or should learn in 2001 that the root cause of graft and corruption in Philippine society is in the very nature of the political system itself, in particular the flawed, American-style electoral process which demands the commitment of huge financial resources for the capture of public offices which legally pay salaries barely enough to pay the winning candidates� monthly grocery bills. And this built-in corruption factor is unwittingly preserved and perpetuated by an enfeebled justice system and a Comelec that is glaringly a toothless, spineless and brainless wonder�..� 2001: Have We Learned Anything?, December 12, 2001 On Coups by macho men: �On August 21, 1987, the fourth anniversary of Ninoy Aquino�s martyrdom, I wrote in my column in BusinessWorld that unless President Aquino resolved the disquiet in the military � that her government was too friendly with the communists � she faced a military revolt that could topple her government and render useless the sacrifice of Ninoy. �Exactly one week later, on August 28, Col. Gringo Honasan and members of the RAM staged their first serious coup against the Aquino Government. Although it failed to dislodge her from power, the message got across to her and she fired her entire Cabinet less than three weeks later. �In my column in the Manila Chronicle of December 1, 1989, I warned Gringo Honasan, then in hiding, that it was not time for another coup attempt. By an uncanny coincidence, the midnight before that issue hit the newsstands, Honasan and the RAM staged their second serious coup attempt which�. almost overthrew President Aquino�s government, were it not for the intervention of two unmarked US Navy F-4 Phantom jets which swept the rebel air force off the skies above Metro Manila�..� Coups and Rumors of Coup, October 29, 2001 On Coups by macho men (2): ��Gringo Honasan wrecked the Philippine economy with his (second) failed coup attempt in December 1989, pushing the GDP into decline, from six percent in 1989 to three percent in 1990, to a big fat zero in 1991, costing the economy billions of pesos worth of lost production and foregone investments, and tens of thousands of people their jobs and their future. �Pagbabago, Ngayon Na?� More like �Ako Naman! Ako ang Nagsaing, Iba ang Kumain!� �Juan Ponce Enrile has been trying to be president of this country since at least November 1985 when his prot�g� Honasan and the RAM plotted the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos. Their mutiny was meant to install JPE as head of junta, and later as elected president. But the mutiny was almost crushed by Marcos and was saved only by People Power of EDSA 1. JPE�s presidential ambitions, moreover, were side-tracked by the unexpected rise to power of Cory Aquino, against whom Honasan and the RAM consequently attempted several coups, none of which, mercifully, succeeded. �Pagbabago, Ngayon Na?� More like �Ako Naman Bago Ako Mamatay!�.............. Pagbabago, Ngayon Na!, May 01, 2002 On EDSA 1 and EDSA 2: � My three children, all of whom took part in EDSA 1 and EDSA 2, have given notice that if there is going to be an EDSA 4, they are not interested in joining it. They will stay home instead and watch their DVD movies, or surf the Net with their computers, or sleep. �They have grown extremely cynical of all politicians and they see no one in the horizon or even below it who can fix such a broken down country, so why should they go out of their way again to rally in the streets for someone, anyone, who will just disappoint them again in the future as two other icons disappointed them in the past��..� Sweet Bird of Youth, November 14, 2002 On EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 (2): ��People Power 1, a.k.a. EDSA 1, gave us, the postwar generations, the sense of nationhood, the feeling that we shared a common destiny, which has eluded us in the past of our living memories because of decades of cannibalistic politics. That our People Power uprising failed to translate into revolutionary changes as it did in South Africa and Eastern Europe is to our everlasting shame. �Why it failed to do so is best explained by the kind of leaders that the spontaneous event threw to the fore. Profoundly mediocre to the core; bereft of any vision except the restoration of the body politic to its pre-martial law configuration, as if that configuration represented the best that any people is capable of; with all good intentions, democratyic in its orientation, but without a vision of a New Jerusalem to guide it, soon mired in endless squabbles as cannibalistic politics replaced the euphoria of discovering a shared destiny�..� People Power Goes Pfffft!, March 12, 2003 On EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 (3): ��It was the middle class who instigated and fleshed out the People Power uprising of 1986. The upper classes were/are more concerned with preserving and enjoying their wealth than with anything else, while the under-classes were/are too embroiled in the daily struggle for survival to give any serious thought to how society should be organized and how its resources should be distributed. �It is the middle class who have the intellectual angst and the leisure time to explore the possible parameters of social change. It is the middle class who have the sense of right and wrong that is offended and outraged by execrable governance and willful acts of injustice. It is the middle class who have the intestinal fortitude to voice their anger and their despair over the parlous state of this country and, if need be, it is the middle class who will stand up and be counted again, assuming they find a leader or leaders whom they can believe in, to right the many wrongs. �That only 500 people � outnumbered by 600 security policemen � showed up for the celebrations last February 25 (2003) is eloquent proof that the middle class have finally and totally lost faith in People Power and the trapos who have become associated with it��..� People Power Goes Pffft!, March 12, 2003 On the Elite: � Common sense tells us that there is nothing more that this elite would like to see than the expansion of the middle class as this would mean more consumers and customers for their enterprises in banking, insurance, manufacturing, media, utilities, hotels, upscale subdivisions and shopping malls and other activities. To accuse this elite, therefore, of engaging in �unannounced attacks� (financial terrorism, according to John Mangun) against its own market base is absolute nonsense. At the very least, it goes against the grain of self-interest. What advantage can the elite possibly gain by slitting their own throats? ��� In Defense of the Much-Maligned Elite, November 06, 2001 On Epidemics: ��SARS is potentially more lethal than the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, which killed some 20 million people, including half a million Americans. The bubonic plague, or Black Death, which ravaged Europe from 1348 to 1350, killed some 25 million people, or about half the estimated population of the continent then�� �Ironically, the social conditions in the 21st century have made humankind more vulnerable to the spread of sudden, unexpected outbreaks of epidemics and pandemics, despite monumental advances in medical science and hygiene. �More people live in tightly packed urban communities than ever before. More people commute to work or school in tightly packed public conveyances than ever before. More people routinely travel to other places and other countries in tightly packed transport vehicles than ever before�� �Neither the influenza virus of 1918-1919 nor the yersenis pestis of the bubonic bacteria in the 14th century was defeated by medical science at the time they raged. Both just somehow burned themselves out and their antidotes or cures were not developed until decades or even centuries after the diseases had decimated millions of people�.� SARS Could Kill Millions, April 24, 2003 On Erap and Ate Glo: ��But, of course, the knee-surgery-abroad is just a ploy and a gimmick to get him out of the country so that he can escape prosecution and a jail sentence. Exile abroad would always be more desirable than incarceration in Muntinlupa, where he would not be able to enjoy the company of his mistresses, the Bacchanalian pleasures from his Petrus wines, and the convivial camaraderie of his million-peso-a-throw mahjong kaffeeklatsch. �From the point of view of the Arroyo Government, sending Erap abroad, on any pretext, is preferable to keeping him here where his rable rousers can and will use him to incite the squealing masa into open rebellion against Ate Glo who, despite her and her Cabinet�s best efforts, seems to have failed to come up with the right approach and the effective tactic for convincing the broad mass of Filipinos that she is the best thing that has happened to them since hot pan de sal�..� Another Revolution That Wasn�t, February 21, 2002 On Erap and Ate Glo (2): ��Keeping Erap here to face trial has its risks, no doubt about that. Certainly the toothless crones that the Pwet ng Masa dredges up from the swamp for their demos will be out in force again to challenge President Arroyo. But she should rise up to the challenge and grapple with it frontally, instead of trying to look for a softer solution by allowing Erap to leave for, in effect, exile abroad, without accounting for his alleged misdeeds��.� Compassion, Justice and Forgiveness, February 27, 2002 On Export-oriented Economies: �The Philippines did not seriously go into the export of manufactured goods until the 1990s, under President Fidel V. Ramos, but by then the global marketplace had become crowded, especially with the entry of the People�s Republic of China. That the prosperity of our neighbors, and our relative poverty, can be explained in terms of their success in exports and our failure, is evident from the following table which compares the 1965 and 1999 exports of resource-rich Philippines and resource-poor Taiwan and South Korea. Countries 1965 exports 1999 exports increase in 34 years Philippines $769 million $35 billion 46-fold South Korea $175 million $144 billion 823-fold Taiwan $446 million $122 billion 274-fold The 1999 exports of the eight competing East Asian economies were: China $195 billion, Hong Kong $150 billion, South Korea $144 billion, Singapore $114 billion, Malaysia $83.5 billion, Thailand $58.5 billion, Indonesia $48 billion, the Philippines $35 billion. Even without visiting these countries, one can tell from these export data which countries are prosperous and which are less so���� How the Philippines Got Left Behind, Part 2, March 15, 2002 On Export-oriented Economies (2): ��The table (above) clearly shows that up to the late 60s, when Asian countries (except Japan) exported mostly commodities, the resource-rich Philippines lorded it over resource-poor Taiwan and South Korea. But when these two countries, along with Hong Kong and Singapore, deliberately geared their economies to the export of manufactured goods, starting in the 1970s, their economies shot past the laggard Philippines�, leaving it to eat their dust in the race towards prosperity�� �In the mid-1980s, Marxist-Leninist ideologues Walden Bello and Horacio Morales co-authored a book which argued that export-led economic growth was not a viable model for the Philippines on the grounds that the national economy should not be held hostage to the vagaries of the global marketplace. �Other Marxist-Leninist ideologues like Renato Constantino Sr. and Edberto Villegas (brother of Free Trader Bernardo), at the time head of the communist propaganda organization Ibon Data Bank, argued that production should be geared towards domestic consumption and only the surplus, if any, should be exported. They cited as model the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea, whose policy of juiche or self-reliance they lavished praise on�..�. Losing the Export Battles, April 19, 2002 On Fernando Poe Jr.: �Unthinkable no. 1: Fernando Poe Jr. will be the next president of this surreal, godforsaken theme park-movie set of a country. �The very fact that there are trial balloons being floated and coy denials being leaked to media �for the time being� means that, in due time, FPJ will make his expected announcement that he will run for president in 2004, and the betting is that he will swamp all other candidates as the squealing, giggling masa reassert their pre-eminence in the political arena, as they did in 1998��� Thinking the Unthinkable, September 12, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines: ��What this seems to say is that Filipinos prefer their heroes conveniently dead. Or that living persons, no matter how intrinsically heroic they may be, are pulled down to the gutter by the ever cynical and unforgiving Philippine press, who do find any good in anyone who breathes or anything that moves. Or that out of 80 million people, there isn�t a single individual worthy of the hero label. Take your pick. �This should be a disturbing sign since it means that Filipinos do not have a living role model who can unite them and inspire them to outdo themselves. If a similar survey were conducted in Cuba or Malaysia or Singapore or Iraq, there is no doubt that the majority would choose Fidel Castro, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Lee Kwan Yew (or Goh Chok Tong) and Saddam Hussein, respectively, even if carping liberals were to have a fit over those choices�..� Wanted: Heroes (Alive, Not Dead), July 19, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines (2): ��During the 45-minute Online interview, a sidebar on the Channel 21 screen invited viewers to vote on the question: Are we (Filipinos) still worth dying for? As (Gene) Orejana posed his questions and (Raul) Roco answered them, the bar chart in the sidebar went up and down as the responses from texting viewers filtered or flooded in. �The bad news is that never once did the Yes vote command a majority in the tally. The good news is�..the Meralco power did not fail and the program continued to the very end. And the final vote was 31% Yes and 69% No. Filipinos are not worth dying for, according to the majority opinion��..� Not Worth Dying For?, August 22, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines (3): ��Economically, there is no possibility that the Philippine economy can ever generate GDP growth rates of 8 to 12% for even one year, let alone for 20 years, the sine-qua-non of the success stories of the seven tiger economies of East Asia. This means that this country can never be another Malaysia or another Thailand, let alone another Singapore or another South Korea. �There are several reasons for this, among which are a) we were left behind in the export boom; b) rampant lawlessness and communist agitprop activities discouraged and will continue to discourage most foreign and domestic investors from putting up their factories here; c) terrorism from Islamic extremists who want �southern Philippines� to be part of their pan-Islamic state; d) a population growth rate that is only slightly higher than the GDP growth rate��e) big budget deficits and low tax collection lead to a progressively weakened currency, making imports � especially oil � more expensive, which leads to higher costs of living and more social unrest;��f) unquestioning embrace of free trade and globalization has wrecked and ruined domestic producers�.thus increasing the army of unemployed and underemployed; g) high energy costs, the highest in Asia next to Japan�s���. Where We Are Headed, September 19, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines (4): �We have all read or heard about the nationwide survey conducted by Pulse Asia in March this year in which an astonishing 19% of the respondents agreed with the questionnaire statement �this country is hopeless and I would like to migrate somewhere else if I could.� Or words to that effect�� �The significant trend here is that the percentage of despairing Filipinos remained steady during the Aquino and Ramos presidencies at 14-14.5%, climbed markedly during the Estrada presidency to 18, then 21%, peaked at 26% in July 2001 (an effect of the May 2001 attempt by the Estrada supporters to regain power, I would say), and has been going down steadily ever since to almost �normal level.� The Statistics of Despair, September 27, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines (5): ��Continues Gilda: �Did you ever wonder why there are so many children in the Philippines? If you are into esoteric studies, says Georgina, you would have heard of the many souls that are trying to incarnate in this century, which by 2010 will be the beginning of the Golden Age for the world��. �But the uteruses of the First World are blocked with contraceptives and abortifacients so these children incarnate in Third World countries like the Philippines. The souls, though, who had really wished to be born in the West but had to incarnate in the Philippines, through the diaspora end up where they wished to see light in the first place�.� Filipinos as Superbeings, November 19, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines (6): ��We can filipinize the Japanese by convincing them that their fetish for punctuality is what makes them uptight and unhappy�.The Japanese get upset when their trains are 20 seconds late. They should learn to run their trains as we do: only when the engineers feel like it. �We can filipinize the Singaporeans by teaching them how to conduct endless acrimonious debates on how best to dispose of urban solid waste, in the meantime letting the garbage pile up on the sidewalks, traffic islands, streets, empty lots, esteros and sidewalks. �We can filipinize the Australians by persuading them to junk Melbourne�s 360-route electric tram network and replacing it with swarms of noisy, smoke-belching, stop-anywhere, turn-anywhere, park-anywhere jeepneys and tricycles. �We can filipinize the Israelis by teaching their army how to pursue a band of 80 Muslim kidnappers with an invasion force of 6,000 troops, preceded by naval gunfire, artillery barrages and aerial bombardment from safe distances. �We can filipinize the Malaysians by persuading them to jazz up their staid TV newscasts with endless accounts of saksakan, barilan, bugbugan and gahasaan; and to liven up their boring newspapers with 500 columnists criticizing everyone and everything in their government. �We can filipinize the Taiwanese by urging them to allow, as we do, communist labor unions in their industries, communist and pro-communist columnists in their newspapers, and communists front organizations on Taipeh�s streets, so that in time Taiwan becomes a communist country while the Chinese mainland becomes totally capitalist. �We can filipinze the French by convincing them to build an LRT, a la EDSA MRT, on the Champs Elysees and the ritzy Rue de Rivoli up to the Ile de la Cite, with incredibly ugly stations at key stops such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre Museum and the Notre Dame Cathedral. That should spark a real revolution. �We can filipinize the Americans by telling them to abandon the 4-Way Stop (a charming, uniquely American motoring ballet in which motorists coming from all four directions come to a full stop and take turns crossing the intersection according to a formal etiquette, even without the presence of a policeman) and replace it with our 4-Way Go, Go, Go! in which all vehicles coming from all directions barrel down at full speed in a 24-hour game of Chicken, and those who blink are towed away in disgrace�..� Filipinos as Superbeings, November 19, 2002 On Filipinos and the Philippines (7): �Unlike the Japanese or the Koreans or the Chinese or the Indians, we are not heirs to a great and ancient civilization. When the Europeans first came to impose their culture, this archipelago was largely inhabited by animist tribes; only parts of Mindanao had been settled by Muslim colonists from what is now Indonesia. Unlike the Indonesians, the Cambodians, the Burmese, we have no Borobodur, no Angkor Wat, no Pagan to remind us of a spectacularly rich heritage. The closest that we have in the way of monuments are our Catholic mission churches, some of truly remarkable architecture, but if they remind us of anything it is that we are an anomaly in this part of the world: that we are an outpost of a civilization that has no authentic roots in the indigenous soil. But the absence of any outstanding monuments to a past civilization has not deterred the Malaysians or the Singaporeans from succeeding in defining their national souls. A task much more complex for them because they are ethnically, linguistically and religiously much more diverse than we are. And yet, look at them, seemingly united in building their nation and going fro m success to success, and then look at us, forever quarrelling with each other, with a weak sense of nationhood, and going nowhere fast��� No Soul, May 29, 2003 On our Free Press: ��Most of all, the guns-for-hire in print and electronic media, who do not find any good in anyone or anything that moves in the first place, unless paid to do so, will have a field day imputing corruption or nepotism or both in government agencies, under the rubric of �absolute freedom of the press� and, even without an iota of proof, the imputations will be believed by the general public who have developed a knee-jerk attitude of �they�re really all corrupt� from decades of trapo misrule�..� Where We Are Headed, September 19, 2002 On our Free Press (2): ��Several times a week I deliberately watch the early evening TV news to get a feel of what information the masa are getting from their TV sets. I used to watch GMA-7�s Saksi with Mike Enriquez and Vicky Morales, but stopped doing so as explained in my column of October 21, 2001 titled GMA-7 Saksi sa Kagaguhan. So I watch instead ABS-CBN�s TV Patrol with Korina Sanchez and Henry Omaga Diaz. �In contents, the two newscasts are indistinguishable from each other. That is because they are competing with each other for audience share and are continually trying to outdo each other in retailing and detailing the most lurid and sordid news involving a daily litany of saksakan, barilan, bugbugan, patayan and gahasaan, with a special voyeuristic delight in the rape of minors and the plight of caught-in-the-act GRO�s trying to hide their embarrassed faces from the unforgiving eye of the TV camera. �Neither program is interested in reporting new discoveries in medicine, or breakthroughs in science and technology, or new books being published, or art exhibits and music concerts on tap for the public. Just saksakan, barilan, bugbugan, patayan and gahasaan, in addition to the pronouncement of pompous politicians and gory images from the latest bombings, spiced towards the end with juicy tidbits about the private lives of showbiz fornicators. �In the controlled good-news media of Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the People�s Republic of China, this daily diarrhea would not be allowed to pollute the minds of the viewing public. �In the free-for-all bad-news media of the Philippines, this is the daily fare that is served to the masa. No wonder they grow up or remain stupid and ignorant. Philippine media can arguably be said to be the best argument against �absolute freedom of the press���� Good News versus Bad News, October 25, 2002 On our Free Press (3): ��About seven years ago, the advertising firm McCann Erickson Philippines conducted a survey among the youth. What has stuck in my mind was its finding on which institution had the strongest influence on their thinking. It is neither the family nor the Church nor the schools nor the government, but media that influences them most. Specifically television and the movies��� �The point is: How can anyone � even Lee Kwan Yew or Mao Zedung or Fidel Castro or Mahathir Mohamad or Nelson Mandela or Ho Chi Minh � possibly build a self-respecting nation in an environment in which the two most influential institutions (television and the movies) wallow in garbage of the first ordure and have conditioned their audiences to enjoy the garbage, and nothing else but.?��..� Sweet Bird of Youth, November 14, 2002 On our Free Press (4): ��And on top of all this, the bad-news media with guns-for-hire columnists, editors and headline writers who think nothing of dropping innuendoes, disinformation, half-truths, outright lies, deliberate exaggerations, malicious rumors, unfounded allegations, unproven and unproveable accusations, none of which result in the arrest, trial or conviction of anyone, only in the public�s loss of confidence in the president and the government (which is the real goal), and all done in the name of absolute freedom of the press�..� Even Raul Roco Would Fail, December 15, 2002 On Free Trade and Globalization: ��And students of economic history know that during the first century of its existence, the US of A deliberately chose a policy of protecting its industries against competition from the more developed European countries, especially England, in order to create and save American jobs, since they knew that their prosperity depended on a high level of employment. That was Protectionism, not Free Trade�� �The moral of the story is that even the most mature industrial countries in the world, the most indefatigable advocates of Free Trade, choose to protect their industries whenever it is in their national interest to do so. The tragedy of the Filipinos, especially our political leaders, is that they are such na�ve suckers: they readily mouth the Free Trade slogans handed down from Washington and they actually believe them and put them into play, even to the detriment of our own domestic industries. The pragmatic and sensible approach should have been: mouth the slogans, but protect your own, as the Americans, the French, the Italians, the Japanese, the South Koreans and others do. We are such simple-minded patsies. In the global village, we are the village idiot whom everyone takes advantage of and laughs at��.� Protectionism Wins Over Free Trade, March 06, 2002 On Free Trade and Globalization (2): ��The Philippines is definitely one of the loser countries (under Free Trade). Since 1997, a succession of multinational corporations have totally or partially closed their manufacturing facilities in this country because of Free Trade. The list includes Sony, Philips, Johnson and Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, Warner Lambert, Abbott Laboratories, and Uniden. Because of the advent of the ASEAN Free Trade Area or AFTA, the corporations have calculated that it is not necessary for them to maintain manufacturing facilities in all ASEAN countries. They will need only one or two plants in the region and will just import their products into the other countries since tariffs will soon be down to 5% and thence zero. �Almost invariably, the Philippines is the first manufacturing country to be scratched out because of one or several reasons: a) high cost of electricity, the second highest in East Asia, next to Japan�s; b) poor or inadequate infrastructure, and the resultant horrendous traffic jams and thick pollution in Metro Manila; c) labor militancy by communist-led trade unions, which are not a problem in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Communist Hong Kong, Communist Vietnam or Communist China; d) poor security and rampant lawlessness. Whereas in the past foreign corporations had to endure these in order to sell in our market, now under Free Trade, they no longer have to�..� Mar Roxas on Free Trade, April 03, 2002 On Garbage Disposal: ��.I recall that in 1992 I was given a briefing by the Environment Department of the Republic of Singapore on how that nation-state disposes of its garbage. They burn it, boys and girls, and they continue to do so to this day. Their incinerators are equipped with electrostatic precipitators that remove offending particles from the gaseous discharge. Magnets remove ferrous metal residues from the burned material and the environment department sells the recovered metals to the national steel board. The resulting ash is used as filling material to reclaim land from the sea. Nothing is wasted. �My point is: if incinerators are good enough for the Singaporeans, who have created the cleanest (physically and morally) country in this part of the world, why are they not good enough for the Filipinos, who have created one the shabbiest (physically and morally)? Garbage In, Garbage Out, November 28, 2001 On Garbage Disposal (2): ��Today Columnist Dan Mariano, quoting Von Hernandez of the eternally cantankerous Greenpiss, wrote an entire column on the theme that �incinerators are a magnet for corruption.� I have news for Dan and Von: EVERYTHING but EVERYTHING in the Philippines is a magnet for corruption: textbooks, fire engines, rice stocks, telecom facilities, military uniforms, to name a few. Should we therefore be content to raise illiterate children, fight fires only with tabo, stop eating rice, do away with radio and television, like the Taliban, and have our soldiers go into combat stark naked?��.� The Best Solution to Garbage, December 06, 2001 On George W. Bush: ��And all these maneuvers for oil occurring during an administration in which the president, George W. Bush, was formerly senior executive of one oil company (1978-1984), then senior executive of a second oil company (1986-1990); in which the vice-president, Dick Cheney, was formerly chief executive of a third oil company (1995-2000); in which the national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, a black overachiever who is more WASPish than the WASPs, was senior executive in a fourth oil company (1991-2000) and had a tanker named after her, as pointed out by British novelist John le Carre in the Times of London of January 15, 2003. Anyone who claims not to see any connection between past positions and present policies may be looking at the world through oil-tinted glasses��� War for Oil and Israel, January 30, 2003 On George W. Bush (2): ��Just who really is a threat to world peace was settled by no less than TIME magazine, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in his column which appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of Today. Wrote Kristof: ��The European edition of TIME has been conducting a poll on its website on �Which country poses the greatest threat to world peace in 2003?� With 318,000 votes cast so far, the responses are: North Korea, 7%; Iraq, 8%; the United States, 84%��..� Iraq Threatens Israel, February 21, 2003 On George W. Bush (3): ��But neither scenario has a high probability of happening, even if there is a historical oddity in the fact that since 1840, every American president elected in a year ending in 0 has either been assassinated or has otherwise died in office. �William Henry Harrison (elected in 1840) died in office. Abraham Lincoln (1860) was assassinated. James Garfield (1880) was assassinated. William McKinley (1900) was assassinated. William Harding (1920) died in office. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (elected to a third term in 1940) died in office. John F. Kennedy (1960) was assassinated. �The only exception, so far, is Ronald Reagan (1980), but he was wounded in an assassination attempt in 1981. Will George W. Bush (2000) break the jinx? Abangan�� Some Iraq Scenarios, March 05, 2003 On Gloria Arroyo: �So President Arroyo has had to run faster than her predecessors just to stay in place. She has inherited a 30-year accumulation of disgust, disappointment and disenchantment which have now suppurated into despair. Unless she can transform herself soon into a visionary, revolutionary leader, she too will be hopeless.� Is It Really Hopeless? June 27, 2002 On Gloria Arroyo (2): �It was the kind of praise guaranteed to make any Philippine president squeal with orgasmic delight. And judging from the photos that accompanied the gushing news stories, that seems to have been the effect on President Arroyo. �Imagine the Philippines being called, by no less than the American president himself, �a major non-NATO ally!� Why, every Filipino president since, well, the founding of NATO in 1949, has been hoping for just such a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the Great White Father himself�� �A major non-NATO ally? We who have neither the economic nor the military nor the scientific nor the industrial nor the financial nor the intellectual nor the geopolitical muscle to impress anyone except, perhaps ,the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, how can we ever be a major ally in anything other than the race to populate this planet to Standing Room Only status?��.� She Will Run, May 22, 2003 On GMA�s policies: ��..As I had previously argued with NEDA Sec. Dante Canlas in a forum with civil society, one hectare of agricultural land, planted to rice or corn, cannot sustain even one family. One hectare of land, if converted into a manufacturing center, can sustain hundreds of families. When I raised this point with PGMA, her curt reply was, �The debate between agriculture and manufacturing is a 20th century debate.� �It is improper to argue with the President face-to-face, but at least I have this platform from which to reply that we are a 19th century economy trying to crash into the 20th and it is appropriate for us to use 20th century thinking to achieve this goal, especially since all our successful neighbors, without exception, owe their spectacular success to broad-based manufacturing industries, geared at first towards exports, but now serving their domestic markets as well�..� GMA: The Best There Is��, October 03, 2001 On GMA�s policies (2): ��So we have to look for those GDP growth numbers in the domestic market. But how? The medium-term development plan of the Arroyo Government identified three areas where it has chosen to concentrate its efforts to create jobs and therefore alleviate poverty: agriculture, information and communications technology (ICT), and tourism. �Unfortunately, the ICT bubble burst all over the world even before September 11, and tourism bombed out, also all over the world, after. �That left agriculture as the only viable focus left for the Arroyo Government, and in this it has been moderately successful�but it clearly has not been enough to make a dent in the war against poverty��� �I detected in (President Arroyo) a bias against manufacturing, a bias which probably stemmed from her ideological commitment to free trade and globalization, under which the Philippines has apparently been crossed out as a manufacturing country and must fend for itself as an exporter of labor���.� What Is To Be Done?, November 07, 2002 On GMA�s policies (3): ��But I was dismayed to learn during the (12:30 Movement) workshop that the Arroyo Government has a yearly target of only 30,000 units of socialized housing for the poorest of the poor. The thrust of its housing program is heavily in favor of the middle class, as it was during the Aquino, Ramos and Estrada presidencies, presumably because the middle class have jobs and thus are able to pay the monthly amortizations�.. �I argued that it is the poorest of the poor, those who live under bridges and in pushcarts parked on sidewalks and in shanties along the railroad tracks etc who need decent housing the most, and there are at least three million of them in Metro Manila alone. A yearly target of only 30,000 housing units would simply not make any dent on the problem at all, especially since more than that number probably arrive every year from the provinces to seek their fortunes in the cities and end up swelling the squatter colonies. The traditional methods of providing housing for the middle class are simply inadequate to provide housing for the poorest of the poor. President Arroyo mst come up wuth more creative solutions�..� GMA Revolution Stalling, February 09, 2003 On Housing: ��During the 1992 presidential campaign, I told the (12:30 Movement) workshop, Candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago asked me (I did not volunteer) to draw up her programs of government, which I did. While we had programs for curbing corruption, developing export industries, promoting tourism, etc, our ONE flagship project was building decent housing for the poorest of the poor. �We were going to capitalize on Miriam�s tremendous popularity with the young people then to issue a call for them to join volunteer brigades for one to three months a year with the sole mission of building housing for the poorest of the poor. We were also going to ask the help of other sectors: the construction industry for training and technical advice, the armed forces for the use of heavy equipment, the business community for seed money, the Churches for identifying the beneficiaries, the wealthy villages for food for the volunteers, even the showbiz industry to drum up awareness of, and support for, the housing program, etc. �The idea was to have as many sectors as possible involved so that the synergy would transform the program from a mere producer of a social good � housing being a summum bonum in itself � into a vehicle for nation-building. It would have been a case of the whole becoming larger than the sum of its parts��� GMA Revolution Stalling, February 09, 2003 On Housing: ��During the 1992 presidential campaign, I told the (12:30 Movement) workshop, Candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago asked me (I did not volunteer) to draw up her programs of government, which I did. While we had programs for curbing corruption, developing export industries, promoting tourism, etc, our ONE flagship project was building decent housing for the poorest of the poor. �We were going to capitalize on Miriam�s tremendous popularity with the young people then to issue a call for them to join volunteer brigades for one to three months a year with the sole mission of building housing for the poorest of the poor. We were also going to ask the help of other sectors: the construction industry for training and technical advice, the armed forces for the use of heavy equipment, the business community for seed money, the Churches for identifying the beneficiaries, the wealthy villages for food for the volunteers, even the showbiz industry to drum up awareness of, and support for, the housing program, etc. �The idea was to have as many sectors as possible involved so that the synergy would transform the program from a mere producer of a social good � housing being a summum bonum in itself � into a vehicle for nation-building. It would have been a case of the whole becoming larger than the sum of its parts��� GMA Revolution Stalling, February 09, 2003 On Housing: ��During the 1992 presidential campaign, I told the (12:30 Movement) workshop, Candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago asked me (I did not volunteer) to draw up her programs of government, which I did. While we had programs for curbing corruption, developing export industries, promoting tourism, etc, our ONE flagship project was building decent housing for the poorest of the poor. �We were going to capitalize on Miriam�s tremendous popularity with the young people then to issue a call for them to join volunteer brigades for one to three months a year with the sole mission of building housing for the poorest of the poor. We were also going to ask the help of other sectors: the construction industry for training and technical advice, the armed forces for the use of heavy equipment, the business community for seed money, the Churches for identifying the beneficiaries, the wealthy villages for food for the volunteers, even the showbiz industry to drum up awareness of, and support for, the housing program, etc. �The idea was to have as many sectors as possible involved so that the synergy would transform the program from a mere producer of a social good � housing being a summum bonum in itself � into a vehicle for nation-building. It would have been a case of the whole becoming larger than the sum of its parts��� GMA Revolution Stalling, February 09, 2003 On Islam and Christianity: ��The conflict between Christianity and Islam, which has been going on, intermittently, for 13 centuries, can best be explained by the fact that they are both missionary religions, in fact the only ones that are such among the world�s great religions. Meaning, both Christians and Muslims believe that theirs is the One True Church and both exert earnest missionary efforts to convert other peoples to their beliefs. And both have used coercive means against those who refused to convert��. �While Christianity has survived the rise of the nation-state and the spread of secular thought, Islam has developed in the opposite direction. Victimized by western and Christian colonialism, especially after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims and Arabs have been attracted in growing numbers to an austere and ultra-conservative form of Islam that rejects the idea of separation of church from state, seeks to impose sharia law on everyone and sees in secularism the breeding ground for moral decay��. �Christianity may be said to be riding the up-escalator towards a secular image of the universe in which God is an existential option for each individual; while Islam may be said to be riding the down-escalator to the basement where Allah permeates everything, including the fast-food counters and the janitors� closets. As the escalators cross each other, the two inevitably clash because each passionately believes that his escalator is going in the right direction, the one and only direction worth traveling in��..� Islam versus Christianity, September 06, 2002 On Islamic Fundamentalism: �But there should be no illusion about this: the Americans are here for the medium haul, with or without the Burnham couple, with or without the Abu Sayyaf. They are just convenient covers. What the Americans are worried about is the stated goal of militant Islamists based in Indonesia to form a new pan-Islamic state comprising the territories of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines. �Such an Islamic state, implacably hostile to Western interests, would smother the �good Chinese� enclave of Singapore, inundate Australia with hundreds of thousands of �refugees�, snuff out East Timor (the darling-of-the-year of Western media) and wreak havoc on the maritime commerce of Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan��� Why the Americans are in Basilan and Sulu, June 06, 2002 On Joma and the Communists: ��.No event epitomized the utter confusion of her government as the May Day parade on May 1, 1986. Seated between Joma Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and Augusto Sanchez, her radchic Secretary of Labor, President Aquino, gleefully and in total innocence, flashed the Laban sign of the ruling burgis party as phalanxes of KMU militants marched past the Quirino Grandstand singing the �Internationale� and waving styrofoam replicas of the hammer-and-sickle. And seated behind her sat the AFP Chief-of-Staff Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, chomping on his unlit cigar in stunned silence�..� The Revolution That Never Was, February 14, 2002 On Joma and the Communists (2): �To be fair, Marcos made an attempt to move towards the export of manufactured goods when he inaugurated the export processing zone in Mariveles (Bataan) in the 1970s. But it was deliberately wrecked by the communist labor militants of the KMU who hit the zone with strike after strike and made unreasonable demands on the foreign factory owners, who eventually got fed up and moved their factories to other countries. As this sad episode demonstrated, Filipinos did not need the help of the Americans to ruin their own country and keep their people poor. �(Communist-led labor unions were/are not allowed in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand. And they are not allowed to go on strike in Hong Kong, China or Vietnam except when ordered to do so by their communist governments). How the Philippines Got Left Behind, Part 2, March 15, 2002 On Joma and the Communists (3): ��You are correct. Filipino communists do not have the capacity for a power grab. But their capacity for mischief is unlimited as long as they continue to believe that they and they alone know how best to reorganize society. This mischief is in the form of a continuing armed struggle by their illegal organizations (like the NPA), and also in the form of welgas ng bayan, virulent street protests and disruptive labor strikes by their front organizations., which have driven and still drive investors, tourists, ultimately even Filipinos away from this unfortunate country. �Because we have a soft state and uniformly weak governments � the inevitable result of wishy washy liberalism � Filipino communists were/are allowed to have their cake and eat it at the same time, something which their comrades were never permitted to enjoy in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea or Taiwan, thus giving those countries the stability needed for economic growth�.� Real Scared of the Communists?, May 23, 2002 On Joma and the Communists (4): �Is the Philippines an American colony, as the pro-communist columnist Conrado de Quiros often laments, just because the Arroyo Government has allowed some 1,300 American soldiers to be stationed here, most of whom are leaving by the end of this month? Of course not. �Are South Korea and Japan American colonies just because the US has stationed there, since the end of World War II, semi-permanent garrisons that presently number 36,565 and 40,159 servicemen, respectively? Of course not���� �So why do Filipino communists and pro-communist �nationalists� get hot under the collar over the presence of a mere 1,300 Americans, most of whom will be gone by the end of the month, as previously programmed? �It has to do with their anger and frustration over the central role played by the Americans � in Europe, in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America, but most specifically in the Philippines �in blocking their socialist revolution and the allegedly inevitable triumph of Communism, which is an unshakeable article of faith of all good Marxists and Marxist-Leninists. Nothing hurts like having one�s religion shown up to be a sham�.� The Philippines: an American Colony?, July 09, 2002 On Joma and the Communists (5) ��The (Tienanmen) massacre was universally condemned. The only ones who publicly applauded the Chinese were Joma Sison of the CPP and Crsipin Beltran of the KMU whose Golden Rule seems to be �Do not do unto us what we would do unto you when we�re in power.� A Strong Republic, July 25, 2002 On Joma and the Communists (6): ��Actually, if Joma were at all true to his convictions, he should seek asylum in a country where his socialist principles constitute the conventional wisdom and where he can commune directly with the workers and peasants that he idealizes so much. �Unfortunately, his choices are down to two: North Korea and Cuba, both experiencing hardships because of chronic shortages of food and fuel. But that should not discourage Joma and his crew if they were true revolutionaries. What�s a little starvation between comrades? �Besides, as Joma himself admits, he has turned vegetarian in order to reduce his monthly expenses. Have I got the perfect place for penny-pinching vegetarians like you, Joma: North Korea where those who, for some reason or other, do not partake of the food aid from South Korea, Japan and the evil USA are feasting on grass and tree bark! And all for free! Unlike the vegetables that Joma consumes, which are grown by capitalist farmers in Holland and the EU who must make a profit (a dirty word in your lexicon, Joma) on their labor and investments�..� Joma Sison Beats a Retreat, August 08, 2002 On Joma and the Communists (7): ��In an obvious charm offensive and PR campaign to soften the image of Joma after the CPP-NDF was tagged a foreign terrorist organization, a hundred of his comrades gathered at the residence of UP President Dodong Nemenzo to recall, for the benfit of the invited media and the ideologically na�ve Sen. Loren Legarda-Leviste, the light moments they had had with the founder of the CPP. ��(Joma) is as ordinary as you and I, they say, and definitely not a terrorist. He loves to sing, play basketball, and laughs ahead of his jokes, which only he could understand� gushed the front page story in the August 26 issue of, what else, the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Photos of Sison and Jalandoni playing basketball drew the comment of the PDI reporter that �they didn�t look like terrorists at all.� �What are terrorists supposed to look like, anyway? Bushy-bearded, wrapped in a bed sheet and head covered with turban? But that�s only the stereotype generated by September 11. Certainly, Timothy McVeigh did not fit that stereotype image but he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing more than 200 people including dozens of children�.Like Joma, he did not look like a terrorist. �The communists� charm offensive is so shallow that only the congenitally stupid and the ideologically na�ve could have been fooled by it�..� Is Joma a Terrorist?, August 16, 2002 |