tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83775702024-03-19T18:31:36.829+08:00Tingog Katawhan! Ikulong si Gloria Arroyo! Panagutin si Noynoy Aquino!"If helping the poor is a crime, and fighting for freedom is rebellion, then I plead guilty as charged." --Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltranthe editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15994780428327370941noreply@blogger.comBlogger753125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-75053686793462059492017-05-02T10:48:00.000+08:002017-05-05T10:50:41.175+08:00Sanggol sa Krame<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQA8DxSpE2nukapQuhUnqo3Ztg0JEjZH42lrl7JTGP9C9Ge4aSZON9UoK29XGsfcjTTSR_RDWWG75_UdkLii5nVqTMBS1YfPeKKkYK1t9I4ltoykcrfJxPnPUm1OVYFyW6rBV/s1600/judy-taguiwalo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQA8DxSpE2nukapQuhUnqo3Ztg0JEjZH42lrl7JTGP9C9Ge4aSZON9UoK29XGsfcjTTSR_RDWWG75_UdkLii5nVqTMBS1YfPeKKkYK1t9I4ltoykcrfJxPnPUm1OVYFyW6rBV/s400/judy-taguiwalo.jpg" width="400" height="400" /></a></div><br />
Sanggol sa Krame<br />
Ni Judy Taguiwalo<br />
<br />
Makitid ang ating daigdig, anak.<br />
Pinakikitid ng mga pader at alambreng tinik<br />
na nakapaligid sa atin.<br />
Pagtiisan ang biglang kalampag ng bakal na pintong<br />
gumigising sa iyong pagkakahimbing.<br />
Pagtiyagaan ang ilang sandaling ligaya't aliw dulot ng ating dalaw.<br />
<br />
Pero, pakatandaan mo, anak.<br />
May maluwang na daigdig sa labas:<br />
gintong palay sa luntiang bukid,<br />
matatayog na puno sa bughaw na bundok,<br />
mababangong orkidyas sa birgong gubat.<br />
<br />
Musmos ka pa, anak.<br />
Maaga kang naisasalang<br />
sa apoy ng pagsubok.<br />
Sunggaban ang pagkakataong ito.<br />
Patigasin ang buto't laman.<br />
Patibayin ang tuhod at gulugod.<br />
<br />
Ihanda ang sarili, anak,<br />
para sa kinabukasan.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-78777860747627355052016-11-24T14:03:00.000+08:002016-11-24T14:03:38.495+08:00Evidence against Marcos propaganda is substantial and obvious<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154402164599425&set=pb.602484424.-2207520000.1479966665.&type=3&theater" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiOuFSZu1aH0K8dYjiGliPTsBwKLbBBcj1jAfqwCji71DyUY67Af4SL5JMp0C4Vz3Bm4Q5Qo7PN0TOASZG7nFsdeOFN94b4gtQn-M2n5KQOArUvz0wjaP_oGXbLa2W7WtYzJY/s640/marcos-di-bayani.jpg" width="100%"/></a></div><br />
<h1>What you didn’t know: Pro-Marcos propaganda too hip for its own good</h1>By Lisandro Claudio<br />
June 2, 2016<br />
Published in <a href="http://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/135054-pro-marcos-propaganda-too-hip-for-own-good">Rappler</a><br />
<br />
The original definition of hipster (prior to indie rock and beards) was someone “in the know.” Unlike plebs who fell for mainstream ideas about politics and culture, hipsters were said to know better. Pro-Marcos apologists thrive off a similar sense of privileged exclusivity. They are proud of having access to secret knowledge denied to them by “yellow” media and armchair academics.<br />
<br />
I would have admired this nonconformity had it been grounded on credible information. Unfortunately, Marcos apologia is too hip for its own good.<br />
<br />
A good example of this bloated sense of knowing is the contrarian website, Get Real Philippines. Run by an anonymous Sydnesider called Benign0, GRP claims to promote “hard to swallow observations about Philippine society” made by “smart people” who “clarify the muddled and challenge the traditional.”<br />
<br />
The site is explicit about its intellectual elitism and often makes the claim that Filipinos are idiots. Amid this sea of stupidity, Benign0 believes that Marcos supporters are “young, educated, upwardly-mobile Filipinos.” The observation is false (Marcos' support base is older and polls at top universities reveal, at best, divided support for BBM), but now is not the time to quibble. What is curious is Benign0’s insinuation of an aspiration: to be young, educated, and upwardly mobile is to be pro-Marcos.<br />
<br />
Again, its warped sense of exclusivity makes people rally to the banners of Batac. You get a similar version of this arrogance on the website, flippinflips.org, which also claims that many Filipinos are “bobotantes (stupid voters),” while arguing that the bearers of truth are OFWs (particularly in America) who have found enlightenment.<br />
<br />
<b>Reality loop</b><br />
<br />
I’m an open minded-guy and, despite doctoral research on the Marcos regime, I’m sure I missed out on some things. Moreover, like Benign0, I am not invested in the glorification of People Power and the Aquinos, having previously researched Cojuangco-Aquino skullduggery in Hacienda Luisita. So in the spirit of openness, I asked Benign0 for sources.<br />
<br />
I first asked him if he could name a single university-published, peer-reviewed book that endorses the Marcos regime, and got a non sequitur for a reply. I prodded further, asking, “So, no book?” to which he simply replied, “Nope.”<br />
<br />
Failing to spur dialogue, I asked him for his sources on Philippine politics during the Marcos period. He remained dismissive: “What I read in my own time is my business. What I publish via GetRealPhilippines.com is all u got.” As for bothering with academic sources, Benign0 believes that “Ph history academe is a tiny community of inbred minds.”<br />
<br />
Herein lies the problem with Marcos apologists: Since they have rejected verifiable sources of information, they often place themselves in a reality loop. The source of good information for Get Real Philippines is none other than Get Real Philippines.<br />
<br />
<b>Consistency of sources</b><br />
<br />
But let us give the website the benefit of the doubt and trace their sources for them. One of Benign0’s most recent posts has the sensationalist title, “The TRUTH about Martial Law: Young Filipinos no longer believe that it was all bad!”<br />
<br />
For an article claiming to spread the “truth,” it is odd that it only has two sources. The first is a rambling Facebook post from an academic that has primarily published on forestry and not martial history. The second more credible source is Manila Times columnist Bobi Tiglao. Benign0 is delighted that Tiglao, rather than holding Marcos accountable for torture and extra judicial killings, instead blames “Communist chief Jose Maria Sison...because he deployed” activists “who were barely out of their teens to foment unrest and revolt in the countryside.”<br />
<br />
According to Benign0, we should trust Tiglao because he was actually there during martial law, unlike “has-been celebrities like Jim Paredes and Leah Navarro.” (Actually, they were there too.) Under Benign0’s logic, credibility is best established by one’s proximity to the event. Let us assume his logic once more.<br />
<br />
If proximity establishes credibility, surely the Bobi Tiglao writing in 1988 would be more credible than the Bobi Tiglao of today. That younger Bobi Tiglao was categorical in his essay, “The Consolidation of the Dictatorship,” in which he claimed, “Together, unhampered by any democratic process of accountability and fully aware of the climate of feat and intimidation that kept the Filipino people perpetually intimidated, Marcos and the military effectively maintained 14 years of plunder and terrorism.” Benign0 failed to examine the consistency of his sources.<br />
<br />
<b>Verification vs manipulation</b><br />
<br />
Why are historians like myself obsessed with these sources anyway? Because the historical record is easily manipulated and we need means of verification.<br />
<br />
No system of verification is perfect, but professional historians believe that peer-reviewed academic studies are the best vetted and, therefore, most verifiable sources of information.<br />
<br />
Peer review is usually an anonymous process where experts in the field check and evaluate an academic text before it is published in either a professional journal or a university press. Those who have gone through it know that it is a grueling process, involving the scrutiny of the smallest facts.<br />
<br />
I do not know of any peer-reviewed study – published here or abroad – that argues martial law was good for our country. If either Benign0 or the angry guy at FlippinFlips can refer me to one, I would be genuinely open to reading and engaging in dialogue. Surely they can find at least one. After all, Herr FlippinFlips loves to remind his followers that, as an American, he has access to more books than those of us back home.<br />
<br />
While I await their sources, I will provide everyone with a partial list of my own. And to make sure I don’t get accused of forwarding the biases of local professors, I will only cite works published abroad by foreign authors (though I will insist that local academics are just as qualified).<br />
<br />
Here goes:<br />
<br />
<b>1. McCoy, Alfred W. Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Madison and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.</b><br />
<br />
In the middle chapters of this book, University of Wisconsin history Professor Al McCoy details how Marcos had a direct hand in corrupting our military and enabling the torture of civilians. In “brutalizing” the military and giving them unlimited power, Marcos made it difficult for successive presidents to reign in their violent tendencies. Previously McCoy also proved that Marcos’s record of war heroism was faked.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Thompson, Mark R. The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995.</b><br />
<br />
Professor Thompson is the acting head of Political Science at the City University of Hong Kong. This is the book version of his groundbreaking PhD thesis at Yale University, which argues that the Marcos regime was “sultanistic.” Instead of forming a professional political class, Marcos used corruption to strengthen his family and other oligarchs.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Anderson, Benedict. “Cacique Democracy in the Philippines: Origins and Dreams.” New Left Review 169, No. 3 (1988): 3-31.</b><br />
<br />
Cornell University’s Benedict Anderson is the fourth most cited social scientist in the world and was the leading commentator on Southeast Asian politics of his generation. This article proves that critics of Marcos are not all “yellowtards,” as Anderson is also very critical of Cory Aquino. In this polemic, Anderson argues that Marcos made himself the warlord of the entire Philippines, turning the military into his own private army.<br />
<br />
<b>4. Boyce, James K. The Political Economy of Growth and Impoverishment in the Marcos Era. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993.</b><br />
<br />
Boyce is a professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a leading expert in developmental economics. Anybody who claims the economy was better during Marcos’ time should read this book. Boyce argues that Marcos increased inequality and reduced the real wages of Filipino workers and farmers. The net effect: more poverty.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Caouette, Dominique. “Constructing and Controlling People’s Power from the Grassroots: Philippine Social Movement Activism in Historical Perspective.” Montreal: University of Montreal: Cerium, 2011.</b><br />
<br />
University of Montreal Political Scientist Dominique Caouette wrote the most comprehensive history of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA. In this article, he shows how Marcos’ repressive policies led to the burgeoning of the NPA. It reminds me of an old joke from decades ago: Marcos was the Communist Party’s number one recruiter. Ngayon, kung maayos talaga nung panahon ni Marcos, bakit sobrang daming NPA noon? (If the situation was really good during the time of Marcos, how come there were so many NPA then?)<br />
<br />
As I said, this is just a partial list. I can give you dozens more, because the evidence against Marcos propaganda is substantial and obvious. To the pseudo-hipsters and contrarians, knowing bad history is not hip; it’s just stupid. Wanna be better than others? Read more and read right. Because, in the end, the truth is always sexier. – Rappler.com<br />
<br />
<i>Lisandro Claudio is a Research Associate at the Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University. He is also an Affiliated Assistant Professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-86456811317890284782016-08-10T13:45:00.000+08:002016-11-17T14:05:44.225+08:00Revolutionary taxes used to fund community services, never go to pockets of corrupt leaders--NDF<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.cpp.ph/klinikang-bayan/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioolY1UflU2NXY0yxB8vMDaXoBWBQLq1BBfmC8Bd9bIGVy84HUGSLO2SJejJgqgbDmoJCE8CWyP0YGQjkPdGlvh7Yny7pCNL2cK4KmKJX9xvn2jpnGDUDpaOonk5d2btJ7CslO/s400/dental.jpg" width="400" height="290" /></a></div><h1>NPA has 'right' to collect revolutionary tax – NDF</h1>By Bea Cupin<br />
June 10, 2016<br />
<a href="http://www.rappler.com/nation/135991-npa-revolutionary-tax-ndf">Rappler</a><br />
<br />
DAVAO, Philippines – The National Democratic Front (NDF) on Wednesday, June 8, asked for public understanding on the revolutionary tax its armed wing collects, saying the New People's Army (NPA) has the "right" to impose the levy in its "territory."<br />
<br />
NDF spokesman Fidel Agcaoili made the appeal in a press conference after a forum at the Ateneo de Davao University, when asked about the NDF’s stand on the NPA's collection of “revolutionary tax” in the context of grumblings from businessmen based in Davao City.<br />
<br />
“You have to understand [that] revolutionary movements, meron silang (they have)… political power operating in the countryside and elsewhere. And they have the right, [as] any state…they have the right to impose tax on any form of business that operates within its own territory,” Agcaoili explained.<br />
<br />
“Alam 'nyo kasi 'yung (You know, the) revolutionary movement...that's why we're a revolutionary movement. We're trying to win a revolution in order to try and establish a state,” explained Agcaoili, who had earlier met with president-elect and outgoing city mayor Rodrigo Duterte.<br />
<br />
Agcaoili explained that taxes were needed for the movement to fund services for its communities.<br />
<br />
“Yun naman tax na nakukuha, hindi naman napupunta sa bulsa, hindi katulad nitong sa kasulukuyang gobyerno, 'no? Hindi napupunta sa bulsa ng tao kundi napupunta sa bulsa... [instead] napupunta sa efforts ng community to establish new schools, establish new cooperatives, mga medical services sa communities. Doon, doon napupunta iyon,” he said.<br />
<br />
(The taxes that are collected, they don’t go to the pockets of leaders, unlike this government. It doesn’t go to the pockets of people but instead, they go to efforts for the community to establish new schools, establish new cooperatives, medical services in] communities. That’s where the money goes.)<br />
<br />
Besides, said Agcaoili, it was Duterte himself who told businessmen to just pay the NPA.<br />
<br />
“Di ba sabi ni President Duterte, 'Bayaran na lang ninyo!' Siya nagsabi noon, hindi ako (Wasn’t it President Duterte who said: 'Just pay it!' He said that, not me),” he quipped, referring to a statement the long-time Davao mayor made in 2013 during a trade expo in the city.<br />
<br />
Refusal to pay such taxes lead to NPA attacks on these businesses. Other companies, however, have refused to pay.<br />
<br />
Duterte has branded himself as a “leftist” and is set to give Cabinet positions to nominees from the Left. He was also a student of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison.<br />
<br />
Sison, who has been in exile for over 3 decades, had earlier expressed hope he would finally be able to come to the Philippines under a Duterte presidency.<br />
<br />
The NDF is set to resume peace talks with the Philippine government under a Duterte administration. Key leaders of the longest-running insurgency in Asia are set to meet with 3 representatives of the incoming administration is Oslo, Norway next week.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-87744590705725228752016-11-13T10:56:00.004+08:002016-11-13T11:31:31.031+08:00Your smartphone is a civil rights issue<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HmehNQzNsVU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
0:11<br />
In the spring of 2016, a legal battle between Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigation captured the world's attention.<br />
<br />
0:20<br />
Apple has built security features into its mobile products which protect data on its devices from everyone but the owner. That means that criminals, hackers and yes, even governments are all locked out. For Apple's customers, this is a great thing. But governments are not so happy. You see, Apple has made a conscious decision to get out of the surveillance business. Apple has tried to make surveillance as difficult as possible for governments and any other actors.<br />
<br />
0:52<br />
There are really two smartphone operating systems in the global smartphone market: iOS and Android. iOS is made by Apple. Android is made by Google. Apple has spent a lot of time and money to make sure that its products are as secure as possible. Apple encrypts all data stored on iPhones by default, and text messages sent from one Apple customer to another Apple customer are encrypted by default without the user having to take any actions.<br />
<br />
1:21<br />
What this means is that, if the police seize an iPhone and it has a password, they'll have a difficult time getting any data off of it, if they can do it at all. In contrast, the security of Android just really isn't as good. Android phones, or at least most of the Android phones that have been sold to consumers, do not encrypt data stored on the device by default, and the built-in text messaging app in Android does not use encryption. So if the police seize an Android phone, chances are, they'll be able to get all the data they want off of that device.<br />
<br />
1:58<br />
Two smartphones from two of the biggest companies in the world; one that protects data by default, and one that doesn't.<br />
<br />
2:07<br />
Apple is a seller of luxury goods. It dominates the high end of the market. And we would expect a manufacturer of luxury goods to have products that include more features. But not everyone can afford an iPhone. That's where Android really, really dominates: at the middle and low end of the market, smartphones for the billion and a half people who cannot or will not spend 600 dollars on a phone.<br />
<br />
2:40<br />
But the dominance of Android has led to what I call the "digital security divide." That is, there is now increasingly a gap between the privacy and security of the rich, who can afford devices that secure their data by default, and of the poor, whose devices do very little to protect them by default.<br />
<br />
3:06<br />
So, think of the average Apple customer: a banker, a lawyer, a doctor, a politician. These individuals now increasingly have smartphones in their pockets that encrypt their calls, their text messages, all the data on the device, without them doing really anything to secure their information. In contrast, the poor and the most vulnerable in our societies are using devices that leave them completely vulnerable to surveillance.<br />
<br />
3:42<br />
In the United States, where I live, African-Americans are more likely to be seen as suspicious or more likely to be profiled, and are more likely to be targeted by the state with surveillance. But African-Americans are also disproportionately likely to use Android devices that do nothing at all to protect them from that surveillance. This is a problem.<br />
<br />
4:06<br />
We must remember that surveillance is a tool. It's a tool used by those in power against those who have no power. And while I think it's absolutely great that companies like Apple are making it easy for people to encrypt, if the only people who can protect themselves from the gaze of the government are the rich and powerful, that's a problem. And it's not just a privacy or a cybersecurity problem. It's a civil rights problem.<br />
<br />
4:41<br />
So the lack of default security in Android is not just a problem for the poor and vulnerable users who are depending on these devices. This is actually a problem for our democracy. I'll explain what I mean.<br />
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4:57<br />
Modern social movements rely on technology -- from Black Lives Matter to the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. The organizers of these movements and the members of these movements increasingly communicate and coordinate with smartphones. And so, naturally governments that feel threatened by these movements will also target the organizers and their smartphones. Now, it's quite possible that a future Martin Luther King or a Mandela or a Gandhi will have an iPhone and be protected from government surveillance. But chances are, they'll probably have a cheap, $20 Android phone in their pocket.<br />
<br />
5:41<br />
And so if we do nothing to address the digital security divide, if we do nothing to ensure that everyone in our society gets the same benefits of encryption and is equally able to protect themselves from surveillance by the state, not only will the poor and vulnerable be exposed to surveillance, but future civil rights movements may be crushed before they ever reach their full potential.<br />
<br />
6:06<br />
Thank you.<br />
<br />
6:08<br />
(Applause)<br />
<br />
6:14<br />
Helen Walters: Chris, thank you so much. I have a question for you. We saw recently in the press that Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook covers over his camera and does something with his headphone mic jack. So I wanted to ask you a personal question, which is: Do you do that? And, on behalf of everyone here, particularly myself, Should we be doing that? Should we be covering these things?<br />
<br />
6:38<br />
Christopher Soghoian: Putting a sticker -- actually, I like Band-Aids, because you can remove them and put them back on whenever you want to make a call or a Skype call. Putting a sticker over your web cam is probably the best thing you can do for your privacy in terms of bang for buck. There really is malware, malicious software out there that can take over your web cam, even without the light turning on. This is used by criminals. This is used by stalkers. You can buy $19.99 "spy on your ex-girlfriend" software online. It's really terrifying. And then, of course, it's used by governments. And there's obviously a sexual violence component to this, which is that this kind of surveillance can be used most effectively against women and other people who can be shamed in our society. Even if you think you have nothing to hide, at the very least, if you have children, teenagers in your lives, make sure you put a sticker on their camera and protect them.<br />
<br />
7:37<br />
HW: Wow. Thank you so much. CS: Thank you.<br />
<br />
7:39<br />
HW: Thanks, Chris.<br />
<br />
7:40<br />
(Applause)<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_soghoian_your_smartphone_is_a_civil_rights_issue/transcript?language=en">TED Talks</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-33712738298359580732016-11-10T16:53:00.000+08:002016-11-10T16:53:35.256+08:00How Trump Won Over White Working Class<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6bIw9d1SQcVoHyKeSQ7V5OgzOEoq0afVSj4vUCdMwcHOYPhk9igzqvRwUQ3SurbTZEqYaHDZL25dGZslowprHQAX2wb65yQ4MBS2yvj8OGGoFKty5LSEJHHb9qYCoGbybSeg/s1600/trump-white-working-class.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6bIw9d1SQcVoHyKeSQ7V5OgzOEoq0afVSj4vUCdMwcHOYPhk9igzqvRwUQ3SurbTZEqYaHDZL25dGZslowprHQAX2wb65yQ4MBS2yvj8OGGoFKty5LSEJHHb9qYCoGbybSeg/s400/trump-white-working-class.jpg" width="400" height="266" /></a></div><h1>Why the White Working Class Rebelled: Neoliberalism is Killing Them (Literally)</h1>By <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2016/11/rebelled-neoliberalism-literally.html">Juan Cole</a><br />
Nov. 9, 2016<br />
<br />
The Democratic Party has been the Establishment for eight years, and the Clintons have arguably been the Establishment for 24 years. Since the late 1990s, members of the white working class with high school or less have seen their life-chances radically decline, even to the point where they are dying at much higher rates than they have a right to expect.<br />
<br />
A year ago Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Princeton University economists, published a study with the startling finding that since 1999 death rates have been going up for white Americans aged 45-54. It is even worse than it sounds, since death rates were declining for the general population.<br />
<br />
One of the big reasons for this increased death rate has been increased use of opiods and other drugs, leading to overdoses, along with liver disease from drinking too much alcohol and increased suicide rates. The problems were especially acute among working class and rural whites with only high school or less, and later studies found that they extended to younger members of this social class in their 20s and 30s. Loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs was clearly a primary reason for this despair.<br />
<br />
Compared to 1999, white workers, according to another recent study in the Commonwealth Foundation: “have lower incomes, fewer are employed, and fewer are married.” This study found other causes for the increased death rates than just the ones mentioned above, but didn’t deny the Princeton findings. Here is their chart:<br />
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<a href="http://www.juancole.com/2016/11/rebelled-neoliberalism-literally.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgASk8VizeNOL_tZKDYpofOmcLPUS3hnR6tf7WXTRkyWtejegu5AuxOaZvYl3bNsIEhweIT4ASMEM93opaMKWXyRj5URbc58eVB-NRaTXFRO36FGVORFFaem8Bn06H1DYKrIQM/s1600/mortality.png" width="100%"></a><br />
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The only comparison I can think of to this situation is what happened to Russians in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation had a population of nearly 150 million in 1990 and thereafter fell to about 144 million. The end of the Soviet Union caused their confidence in the future to collapse and the end of the old economic system created very high unemployment. They stopped having children and drank themselves to death.<br />
<br />
Neoliberalism– putting the market in charge of social policy and actually encouraging industries to move abroad for higher profit margins (but for fewer industrial jobs at home)– had much the same effect on the white working class as the fall of the Soviet system had on the Russian working class. Look at what happened to the proportion of the US economy accounted for by industry when Neoliberal policies became dominant:<br />
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<a href="http://www.juancole.com/2016/11/rebelled-neoliberalism-literally.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuM0N919hRqgl-5tWQ_2KHp1Et-7fDEm-Y8DvhbtlUYh5CA1igSkvNq6ILAr0ZkNONztSP9GJiPj53942C3kC70SEqk-AJFnY93pb2HupbH0kPNV0wL-9BHd81_NhE44Fcalai/s1600/distofoutputbysector.png" width="100%"></a><br />
<br />
People who argue that the working class in the US is coddled, with too many benefits and is too well-paid infuriate me. German workers have good benefits and pay, and German industry is thriving in a way that American industry is not. It is about the overall policies enacted by the government.<br />
<br />
And consider these conclusions of Mark Levinson of the Congressional Research Service:<br />
<blockquote><ul><li>The United States’ share of global manufacturing activity declined fro m 28% in 2002, following the end of the 2001 U.S. recession, to 16.5% in 2011 . Since then, the U.S. share has risen to 17.2%. These estimates are based on the value of each country’s manufacturing in U.S. dollars ; part of the decline in the U.S. share was due to a 23% decline in the value of the dollar between 2002 and 2011, and part of the rise since 2011 is attributable to a stronger dollar. </li>
<li>China displaced the United States as the largest manufacturing country in 2010 . Again, part of China’s rise by this measure has been due to the appreciation of its currency, the renminbi , against the U.S. dollar.</li>
<li>Manufacturing output , measured in each country’s local currency adjusted for inflation, has grown more slowly in the United States over the past decade than in China, Japan, Germany, and Mexico.</li></ul></blockquote><br />
And among the prime operators of the Neoliberal system were the Clintons.<br />
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There is an intervening irony. The one thing that helped working class whites with their increasing health problems was Obamacare. But that help was blunted by the Republican statehouses that refused to support it. So some of the rage of the workers about Obamacare was connived at by the GOP, which didn’t want them to have health care in the first place. (The GOP only really represents big business, which didn’t want to pay for it).<br />
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The rage of these workers accounted for the unpredictability of the 2016 election, since they voted in very large numbers for Donald Trump. (There were lots of other constituencies for Trump, but many of them were longstanding GOP groups; the white working class mostly voted Democratic). What appealed to them in Trump’s message was<br />
<ol><li>protectionism and slamming trade partners like China and Japan, which Trump and his audience saw as having gained unfair advantages</li>
<li>Attacks on NAFTA and TPP and making an issue of industries and jobs lost to Mexico and China.</li>
<li>Attacks on Hillary Clinton over her massively well paid speeches to the big banks on Wall Street, whose shenanigans had cost many in the white working class their homes.</li>
<li>Anti-immigrant sentiment, the sense of losing jobs and cultural supremacy to incoming workers.</li></ol><br />
The Democratic Party’s refusal to do anything about Wall Street mega-fraud in 2009 and after came home to roost. In other words, the Clintons were inextricably entangled in the very policies that white workers saw as having ruined their lives. And objectively speaking, they weren’t wrong.<br />
<br />
And the white working class punished the Democratic Party for not being a Left party. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-89258818057089618542016-09-18T10:01:00.000+08:002016-09-18T10:01:50.673+08:00What Does US Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Know about Science?Scientific American <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-do-the-presidential-candidates-know-about-science">asks US presidential candidates 20 top questions</a> about science, engineering, technology, health and environmental issues. Here's what Jill Stein answered:<br />
<div class="separator" style="font-size:x-small; clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi38gckZoJq-zmJ82Ie6iQkH65jubEWwgnvm-WdwKeywXjYrwtTbvWneWjKl0nuy7EF8uvQpdqXk9OZbr6sAg6nf-Z2V2y7KassFa0aLi2jSkU5mzgFgRmIxqwjI6ZUd8_xAOxb/s400/jill-stein.jpg" width="400" height="266" /><br>Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images</div><h3>1. Innovation</h3>Science and engineering have been responsible for over half of the growth of the U.S. economy since WWII. But some reports question America’s continued leadership in these areas. What policies will best ensure that America remains at the forefront of innovation?<br />
<blockquote>Virtually every component of our 2016 Platform contains elements likely to have positive effects on innovation. These include our climate action plan, our free public education and cancellation of student debt proposals, and our Medicare for All plank. Vast resources will be freed for investment in public R&D by reduced Pentagon spending. Millions of people currently hobbled by poverty and underperforming schools will be able for the first time in American history to bring their talents to bear on the problems of the 21st century. A just economy, with living wages and paid sick leave, can be far more innovative than one where innovation is determined by a relative handful of corporate executives and Pentagon planners.</blockquote><br />
<h3>2. Research</h3>Many scientific advances require long-term investment to fund research over a period of longer than the two, four, or six year terms that govern political cycles. In the current climate of budgetary constraints, what are your science and engineering research priorities and how will you balance short-term versus long-term funding?<br />
<blockquote>The greatest challenge currently before us is climate change. We will place innovative breakthroughs in the science and technology associated with mitigation of greenhouse gases and the building of a resilient society that can withstand current and future climate change at the very top of our research priorities. <br />
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Presidents are able to affect long term R&D priorities by creating institutions focused on research like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health that are to some extent insulated from short-term political cycles. We will revisit these institutions--their charge, focus, and operations--to ensure that they're performing as expected. We will look for opportunities and mechanisms whereby science policy can be made more democratic, and more responsive to the preferences and needs of average citizens.</blockquote><br />
<h3>3. Climate Change</h3>The Earth’s climate is changing and political discussion has become divided over both the science and the best response. What are your views on climate change, and how would your administration act on those views?<br />
<blockquote>Climate change is the greatest existential threat that humanity has ever faced. Here is how we will act to address it:<br />
<br />
Enact an emergency Green New Deal to turn the tide on climate change, revive the economy and make wars for oil obsolete. Initiate a WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change, the greatest threat to humanity in our history. Create 20 million jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, conservation and restoration of critical infrastructure, including ecosystems.<br />
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• Implement a Just Transition that empowers those communities and workers most impacted by climate change and the transition to a green economy. Ensure that any worker displaced by the shift away from fossil fuels will receive full income and benefits as they transition to alternative work.<br />
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• Enact energy democracy based on public, community and worker ownership of our energy system. Treat energy as a human right.<br />
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Redirect research funds from fossil fuels into renewable energy and conservation. Build a nationwide smart electricity grid that can pool and store power from a diversity of renewable sources, giving the nation clean, democratically-controlled, energy.<br />
<br />
• End destructive energy extraction and associated infrastructure: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, natural gas pipelines, and uranium mines. Halt any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas, and phase out all fossil fuel power plants. Phase out nuclear power and end nuclear subsidies. End all subsidies for fossil fuels and impose a greenhouse gas fee / tax to charge polluters for the damage they have created.<br />
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• Support a strong enforceable global climate treaty that limits global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius and provides just financial compensation to developing countries.<br />
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• Support organic and regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.<br />
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• Enact stronger environmental justice laws and measures to ensure that low-income and communities of color are not disproportionately impacted.</blockquote><br />
<h3>4. Biodiversity</h3>Biological diversity provides food, fiber, medicines, clean water and many other products and services on which we depend every day. Scientists are finding that the variety and variability of life is diminishing at an alarming rate as a result of human activity. What steps will you take to protect biological diversity? <br />
<blockquote>Protecting biodiversity is an extremely important and often overlooked priority. Here is how we will act to protect biodiversity:<br />
<br />
• Protect our public lands, water supplies, biological diversity, parks, and pollinators. Ban neonicotinoids and other pesticides that threaten the survival of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.<br />
<br />
• Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on new GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe.<br />
<br />
• Support organic and regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.<br />
<br />
• Protect the rights of future generations. Adopt the Precautionary Principle. When an activity poses threats of harm to human health or the environment, in the absence of objective scientific consensus that it is safe, precautionary measures should be taken. The proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.<br />
<br />
• Invest in clean air, water, food and soil for everyone. <br />
<br />
• Enact stronger environmental justice laws and measures to ensure that low-income and communities of color are not disproportionately impacted by harmful pollution and other negative environmental and health effects.<br />
<br />
• Support conversion to sustainable, nontoxic materials and the use of closed-loop, zero waste processes.</blockquote><br />
<h3>5. The Internet</h3>The Internet has become a foundation of economic, social, law enforcement, and military activity. What steps will you take to protect vulnerable infrastructure and institutions from cyber attack, and to provide for national security while protecting personal privacy on electronic devices and the internet? <br />
<blockquote>The Internet and the access to information it provides is an extremely important resource for the entire world. Here is how we will protect and improve the Internet:<br />
<br />
• Protect the free Internet. Oppose the Online Piracy Act and all other legislation that would undermine freedom and equality on the Internet.<br />
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• Vigorously defend net neutrality.<br />
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• Support public broadband Internet.<br />
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• Negotiate international treaty banning cyberwarfare; create a new UN agency tasked with identifying the sources of cyber attacks.</blockquote><br />
<h3>6. Mental Health</h3>Mental illness is among the most painful and stigmatized diseases, and the National Institute of Mental Health estimates it costs America more than $300 billion per year. What will you do to reduce the human and economic costs of mental illness?<br />
<blockquote>As part of a Medicare for All universal health care system we need a mental health care system that safeguards human dignity, respects individual autonomy, and protects informed consent. In addition to full funding for mental health care, this means making it easier for the chronically mentally ill to apply for and receive Supplemental Security Income, and funding programs to increase public awareness of and sensitivity to the needs of the mentally ill and differently abled.<br />
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We must ensure that the government takes all steps necessary to fully diagnose and treat the mental health conditions resulting from service in combat zones, including post-traumatic stress disorder.<br />
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We will also release prisoners with diagnosed mental disorders to secure mental health treatment centers, and ensure psychological and medical care and rehabilitation services for mentally ill prisoners.</blockquote><br />
<h3>7. Energy</h3>Strategic management of the US energy portfolio can have powerful economic, environmental, and foreign policy impacts. How do you see the energy landscape evolving over the next 4 to 8 years, and, as President, what will your energy strategy be? <br />
<blockquote>Our Green New Deal plan prioritizes a rapid transition to 100% clean renewable energy. Our energy strategy will also include:<br />
<br />
• Enact energy democracy based on public, community and worker ownership of our energy system. Treat energy as a human right.<br />
<br />
• Redirect research funds from fossil fuels into renewable energy and conservation. Build a nationwide smart electricity grid that can pool and store power from a diversity of renewable sources, giving the nation clean, democratically-controlled energy.<br />
<br />
• End destructive energy extraction and associated infrastructure: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, natural gas pipelines, and uranium mines. Halt any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas, and phase out all fossil fuel power plants. Phase out nuclear power and end nuclear subsidies. End all subsidies for fossil fuels and impose a greenhouse gas fee / tax to charge polluters for the damage they have created.</blockquote><br />
<h3>8. Education</h3>American students have fallen in many international rankings of science and math performance, and the public in general is being faced with an expanding array of major policy challenges that are heavily influenced by complex science. How would your administration work to ensure all students including women and minorities are prepared to address 21st century challenges and, further, that the public has an adequate level of STEM literacy in an age dominated by complex science and technology?<br />
<blockquote>Education is critically important to the future of our world. Here is how we will ensure that our students receive the best education possible:<br />
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• Guarantee tuition-free, world-class public education from pre-school through university.<br />
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• Abolish student debt to free a generation of Americans from debt servitude and eliminate economic barriers to higher education.<br />
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• Protect our public school systems from privatization. <br />
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• Replace Common Core with curriculum developed by educators, not corporations, with input from parents and communities.<br />
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• Restore arts, music and recreation to school curriculums.<br />
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• Ensure racially inclusive, sensitive and relevant curriculums.<br />
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• Recognize poverty as the key obstacle to learning. Ensure that kids come to school ready to learn: healthy, nourished, secure and free from violence.<br />
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• Increase federal funding of public schools to equalize public school funding.</blockquote><br />
<h3>9. Public Health</h3>Public health efforts like smoking cessation, drunk driving laws, vaccination, and water fluoridation have improved health and productivity and save millions of lives. How would you improve federal research and our public health system to better protect Americans from emerging diseases and other public health threats, such as antibiotic resistant superbugs?<br />
<blockquote>A Medicare For All single payer healthcare system would place health as the bottom line rather than industry profits, which is fundamental for improving public health. <br />
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A Medicare For All system would:<br />
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allow health data to be aggregated on a population-wide scale (much of it is currently held in secret as proprietary information by private companies like health insurers) so that trends and outbreaks could be monitored. <br />
permit assessment of the health needs of the entire population to be determined so that priorities could be set based on areas of need and funds could be given to institutions that would focus on solutions to priority areas.<br />
drive public policy to pursue a greater public health and preventative approach because having a healthier population would save money.<br />
cover every person living in the United States and would remove financial barriers to care. This means that people with infectious diseases and other conditions that impact the population would have access to care when they need it. </blockquote><br />
<h3>10. Water</h3>The long-term security of fresh water supplies is threatened by a dizzying array of aging infrastructure, aquifer depletion, pollution, and climate variability. Some American communities have lost access to water, affecting their viability and destroying home values. If you are elected, what steps will you take to ensure access to clean water for all Americans?<br />
<blockquote>We need a national comprehensive water plan. <br />
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Clean water is a human right. The Green New Deal's focus on infrastructure will help prevent future poisoned drinking water crises like that in Flint, Michigan.<br />
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Rejuvenating the federal Superfund program will help clean up the polluted drinking water of millions of Americans.</blockquote><br />
<h3>11. Nuclear Power</h3>Nuclear power can meet electricity demand without producing greenhouse gases, but it raises national security and environmental concerns. What is your plan for the use, expansion, or phasing out of nuclear power, and what steps will you take to monitor, manage and secure nuclear materials over their life cycle?<br />
<blockquote>Nuclear fission technology is unsafe, expensive, and dirty from the mining of uranium to the disposal of spent fuel. As such we will end subsidies to the nuclear industry immediately and phase out nuclear power over a 10 year timeline. Existing nuclear waste will be handled with onsite dry cask storage of high-level waste into perpetuity. No transport of nuclear waste.</blockquote><br />
<h3>12. Food</h3>Agriculture involves a complex balance of land and energy use, worker health and safety, water use and quality, and access to healthy and affordable food, all of which have inputs of objective knowledge from science. How would you manage the US agricultural enterprise to our highest benefit in the most sustainable way? <br />
<blockquote>We need a food system that is healthy and sustainable. To this end, we will:<br />
<br />
• Invest in clean air, water, food and soil for everyone. <br />
<br />
• Ban neonicotinoids and other pesticides that threaten the survival of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.<br />
<br />
• Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe.<br />
<br />
• Support organic and regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.<br />
<br />
• Protect the rights of future generations. Adopt the Precautionary Principle. When an activity poses threats of harm to human health or the environment, in the absence of objective scientific consensus that it is safe, precautionary measures should be taken. The proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.<br />
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• Redirect the Dept of Agriculture to meet the needs of small farmers to realize these goals.</blockquote><br />
<h3>13. Global Challenges</h3>We now live in a global economy with a large and growing human population. These factors create economic, public health, and environmental challenges that do not respect national borders. How would your administration balance national interests with global cooperation when tackling threats made clear by science, such as pandemic diseases and climate change, that cross national borders?<br />
<blockquote>We need a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law and respect for human rights. By strengthening international institutions, we lay the groundwork for greater cooperation on critical challenges such as climate change and pandemic diseases.</blockquote><br />
<h3>14. Regulations</h3>Science is essential to many of the laws and policies that keep Americans safe and secure. How would science inform your administration's decisions to add, modify, or remove federal regulations, and how would you encourage a thriving business sector while protecting Americans vulnerable to public health and environmental threats?<br />
<blockquote>We will rely on evidence-based approaches to regulation. Science advisors will play a central role in our administration. We will appoint scientific review panels and committees.<br />
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Some guiding principles for our approach to regulation:<br />
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• Protect the rights of future generations. Adopt the Precautionary Principle. When an activity poses threats of harm to human health or the environment, in the absence of objective scientific consensus that it is safe, precautionary measures should be taken. The proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.<br />
<br />
• Redirect research funds from fossil fuels into renewable energy and conservation, as well as other technologies that promote the transition to a sustainable civilization.<br />
<br />
• Enact stronger environmental justice laws and measures to ensure that low-income and communities of color are not disproportionately impacted by harmful pollution and other negative environmental and health effects.</blockquote><br />
<h3>15. Vaccination</h3>Public health officials warn that we need to take more steps to prevent international epidemics from viruses such as Ebola and Zika. Meanwhile, measles is resurgent due to decreasing vaccination rates. How will your administration support vaccine science?<br />
<blockquote>Vaccines are a critical part of our public health system. Vaccines prevent serious epidemics that would cause harm to many people and that is why they are a foundation to a strong public health system. Polio is an important example. So is H Flu—a bacteria that caused serious illness, including meningitis, in 20,000 children a year in the US, before development of the H flu vaccine. We need universal health care as a right to ensure that everyone has access to critical vaccines. <br />
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Experts like Douglas Diekema, MD MPH say that the best way to overcome resistance to vaccination is to acknowledge and address concerns and build trust with hesitant parents. To reverse the problem of declining vaccination rates, we need to increase trust in our public health authorities and all scientific agencies. We can do that by removing corporate influence from our regulatory agencies to eliminate apparent conflicts of interest and show skeptics, in this case vaccine-resistant parents, that the motive behind vaccination is protecting their children’s health, not increasing profits for pharmaceutical companies.</blockquote><br />
<h3>16. Space</h3>There is a political debate over America’s national approach to space exploration and use. What should America's national goals be for space exploration and earth observation from space, and what steps would your administration take to achieve them?<br />
<blockquote>We recognize the inspiration provided by space exploration and so we support:<br />
<br />
1. the peaceful exploration of space<br />
<br />
2. space-based systems to monitor environmental conditions on Earth<br />
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3. measures to ensure that space technology benefits all the people of Earth<br />
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Space exploration and science are international scientific endeavours requiring cooperation between many nations and peoples across borders. The peaceful exploration of space provides inspiration, education, and valuable scientific knowledge. Cooperation on space science and exploration is a promising path to peace. The US has an opportunity to continue leading in space science while ending space militarization. The US can lead international collaboration in space science and exploration without privatizing outer space or turning over space science and exploration efforts to corporations.<br />
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Climate science, including the study of other planets in our solar system and beyond, is essential for understanding how to address climate change on Earth. Space science, exploration, and Earth observation provide tools, technologies, and science to help address not only climate change but flooding, drought, storms, famine, and other crises. By focusing US space efforts away from corporate and military interests, we can work to create peace here on Earth and in space, prevent the deployment of space weapons and instead focus on technologies to solve problems on Earth, not create new ones.<br />
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Here are steps we will take to advance space exploration and science:<br />
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- Funding STEM education and forgiving student debt of STEM scholars so they can focus on science and research.<br />
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- signing of the International Treaty for the Demilitarization of Space. <br />
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- Ensuring scientists, not corporate or military interests, are driving the space exploration and science agenda<br />
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- Ensure funding of pure research, for the benefit of all humanity and our planet.<br />
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- Work closely with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) on ensuring the peaceful exploration of space.</blockquote><br />
<h3>17. Opioids</h3>There is a growing opioid problem in the United States, with tragic costs to lives, families and society. How would your administration enlist researchers, medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies in addressing this issue?<br />
<blockquote>We will end the "war on drugs” and redirect funds presently budgeted for the "war on drugs" toward expanded research, education, counseling and treatment.</blockquote><br />
<h3>18. Ocean Health</h3>There is growing concern over the decline of fisheries and the overall health of the ocean: scientists estimate that 90% of stocks are fished at or beyond sustainable limits, habitats like coral reefs are threatened by ocean acidification, and large areas of ocean and coastlines are polluted. What efforts would your administration make to improve the health of our ocean and coastlines and increase the long-term sustainability of ocean fisheries?<br />
<blockquote>Our climate action and environmental protection plans will work to conserve fish stocks and coral reefs. Rapid response to climate change is the centerpiece of the Stein administration. From plastic trash to ocean acidification, we will move smartly to address ocean health with or without Congress.</blockquote><br />
<h3>19. Immigration</h3>There is much current political discussion about immigration policy and border controls. Would you support any changes in immigration policy regarding scientists and engineers who receive their graduate degree at an American university? Conversely, what is your opinion of recent controversy over employment and the H1-B Visa program? <br />
<blockquote>We support the H1-B Visa program. However, we must look at it in the context of overall immigration policy, trade, economic and military policies. In the big picture, we are concerned about a global economy in which people have to leave their home countries to find decent jobs. We support more just international development and demilitarization, so that people don’t have to go half way around the world to find just employment.</blockquote><br />
<h3>20. Scientific Integrity</h3>Evidence from science is the surest basis for fair and just public policy, but that is predicated on the integrity of that evidence and of the scientific process used to produce it, which must be both transparent and free from political bias and pressure. How will you foster a culture of scientific transparency and accountability in government, while protecting scientists and federal agencies from political interference in their work? <br />
<blockquote>It is a major concern that many Americans don’t trust our scientific and regulatory agencies, and extremely unfortunate that there are valid reasons for this declining trust that must be addressed.<br />
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For example, the current FDA commissioner appointed by President Obama was a highly paid consultant for big pharmaceutical corporations, as Senator Sanders pointed out in opposing his nomination. In the case of Vioxx, the FDA approved a profitable pain reliever that caused up to 140,000 cases of heart disease, and even tried to silence its own scientists who discovered this deadly side effect.<br />
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The CDC actually accepts huge amounts of money from big pharmaceutical corporations, as an investigation by the British Medical Journal revealed. So many scientists, doctors and watchdog groups have flagged these clear conflicts of interest in the FDA, CDC and other federal agencies.<br />
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As President I would stop the revolving door and clean up these agencies so that the American people can trust that they’re putting people over profits, and science over lobbying interests.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-19843399234435261532015-09-28T20:19:00.000+08:002015-11-28T20:21:13.547+08:00The Philippines Graphic exclusive interview with Duterte<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnGR-a8rvnbaz6CFvdN9RaN85J3eICdamDH4iIshQ0Xjvo_NUU5Kvs3hJbkE7aHNiHLp43RUplpS1TlLYU3ug6Cb54WFcwlGg0YfvEYJ3k6SVax8cBN-qqGFnDHarQrrh6RkBM/s1600/philippines-graphics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnGR-a8rvnbaz6CFvdN9RaN85J3eICdamDH4iIshQ0Xjvo_NUU5Kvs3hJbkE7aHNiHLp43RUplpS1TlLYU3ug6Cb54WFcwlGg0YfvEYJ3k6SVax8cBN-qqGFnDHarQrrh6RkBM/s400/philippines-graphics.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<i>"They asked me once if as President I will continue land reform. I said, I will. There are lands that are really productive that are owned and managed by big multinationals. But the problem is, as I have said before, we are left with very few lands. To land beneficiaries, they must get the needed support—tractors or carabaos or seedlings. I say maintain their farm gates by buying their products. Do not import."</i><br />
<br />
The Philippines Graphic exclusive interview with Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte.<br />
<br />
Q&A<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: Peace has always been elusive for Mindanao. Many are rooting for you to run for President in 2016 because what you’ve done for Davao City, they say, can also be implemented on a national scope. As for peace, lasting peace, how would you attain it, that is, if you do become President?<br />
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MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE: I have one solution: Give them freedom. Mindanao is already an existing empire for many years before it was denied to them. We were not known as Filipinos before the Spaniards came. We belonged to the Malay race. Suddenly in 1521, white people arrived and imposed their government on us and brought with them the Christian religion. I don’t want this to sound like I’m making an issue of religion. Religion is good in the sense that it provides the anchor of our values in life. The problem was the government. When Magellan landed, he proclaimed these islands as the property of Spain. Suddenly the islands were owned by the king of Spain. For the longest time we identified ourselves through religion with Spain and with the rest of the Western world. Except Mindanao. And so they fought and rallied under one banner: Islam. Not only did they fight against the government, they also fought against Spain’s religion. At the Treaty of Paris, we were ceded by Spain to America.<br />
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So the long and short of it is: For the longest time we were never given the rights over the islands. But we cannot go back to 1521. During the American occupation, people from different parts of the country were allowed to migrate to Mindanao. American sloganeering said: “Go to Mindanao because it is a land of promise.” So because of the proximity of the islands, Visayans went to Mindanao, most were Christians. This is the reason why Mindanao has a huge Visayan-speaking population.<br />
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But see, this is where the problem lies. But we cannot return all the lands or all the things that were absorbed by the migrants. We cannot go back in time. We cannot return to Mindanaoans what was taken from them. All we can now offer is a new set-up: Federalism. I’ve had many a conversation with Nur Misuari. He accepts federalism.<br />
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GRAPHIC: Do you believe in incorporating the idea of a federal state in the Bangsamoro Basic Law?<br />
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DUTERTE: I’ve read the Bangsamoro Basic Law. I’m a lawyer and as a lawyer I have my misgivings about the BBL. Even at this stage, many have been pointing to legal infirmities. But I still hope that for the sake of peace in Mindanao, they could pull it off.<br />
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As we all know, Misuari has been agitating for a separate republic. I told him that could lead to chaos. And when I asked him for the best option, he said federalism. If nothing else, and if the BBL succeeds, that could be the template. But we have to be very definite about the boundaries because we have to go federal. There has to be a sense of security within our boundaries. With federalism, we retain most of our earnings and whatever is of value to us here. We can send part of our earnings to the central Federal government as our contribution for the upkeep. In this present setup, our contribution is sent as unitary type and all the extras are at the mercy of this administration. I’m not referring to just Aquino but all other administrations in the history of this country.<br />
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GRAPHIC: Is this part of the reason why you were quoted as saying that you want to abolish Congress if you ever become President?<br />
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DUTERTE: I am not interested in being the President. I do not like to be President. Besides, I do not have the money. There should always be a prefix here. A prefix that’s something like, if I were Roxas, Binay, Escudero and Poe, then I would use the “I” because it’s more convenient to express it. So, if “I” become the President, I’ll give everybody a chance and tell them let us, at least for once in our generation, vote for candidates that could make a difference. For own good, this time. Okay, maybe this time, we work on it. Let us give ourselves about one year. Then, we try to reform. Everybody—the Judiciary, Congress, the Military. Let us do it for ourselves. Give it six months to a year. How am I going to do it? How can I fast-track reforms?<br />
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You see, if you leave it to the existing structures, even to natural evolution, nothing’s going to work. Ignorance is still a real problem among Filipinos. Hopefully, by the grace of God, we can educate many of them. But what’s happening is the opposite. The country has breached the one hundred million mark in population. I am not blaming the Church, but they should understand the problem. Many people bear children because they have nothing better to do. The gap between the rich and the poor—this will catch up with us, the earliest being 2050.<br />
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So, if you elect me as President, I will have a problem. Now, this I can guarantee you with my life: If I become the President, I would not sit there for a full term, after six uneventful years and say, “I tried my best, but you know, my best was not good enough. There’s this Congress, there’s the investigation, there’s…”You can forget it. If that would be the case, then I suggest you look for somebody else.<br />
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I’ve been elected mayor seven times or eight times already, so what am I after in this life? I cannot be President and squander the remaining years of my life doing nothing. You know, a little reform here, a little change there. That’s absurd. I cannot accept that.<br />
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If after one year, no reform has taken place or if I cannot penetrate the political structures including what is right and what is wrong, I will declare a revolutionary government. My template? Cory’s revolutionary government. She was elected President and she declared a revolutionary government. Since she received the mandate, it wasn’t hard to accept it. It will be the same under my watch.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: Define your style of “revolutionary government”?<br />
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DUTERTE: I will close Congress, everything. I will forbid government to go into business, the private corporations. I will privatize the GSIS by giving it to a consortium. That way, the people will not have difficulty getting what is theirs in the first place. I will close all government corporations. Government has no business getting into business.<br />
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Then the eternal conflict: The Bureau of Internal Revenue. Our taxes. How much do you earn, your gross salary? Let’s make it simple then. Fill in the blanks and pay the bank. Why even go through all the hassle that we are having now? The BIR, the Bureau of Customs, I’ll have them all semi-privatized, just to keep the integrity of the money of government.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: Just to clarify: You would choose to simplify the tax code.<br />
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DUTERTE: Yes. Taxes, gross. Keep it all simple. You get a gross salary of P15,000. You pay taxes for what you get. That simple.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: What about not going into business? Can you explain that? No more dealings and projects?<br />
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DUTERTE: I will not embark on new projects. I will simply choose to rehabilitate existing ones. Then I will spend the money on the education of our children. I will not go into ambitious projects anymore, those that run in the billions. For example: Our mass transport system must be improved.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: Metro Manila does not know you as well your constituents in Davao. So when you say “revolutionary government,” it might come off as another form of strong-arm tactics. At one point you’ve been rumored as the head of the Davao death squad. So, how will you explain your idea of a revolutionary government to people in Metro Manila?<br />
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DUTERTE: “If you’re into drug pushing, extortion, kidnapping, whether you’re part of the police or military, I don’t care. These are serious crimes and you might want to think it over. But as for law-abiding citizens, you have nothing to fear. They once said I was a candidate for the communists. Do you see any communist running loose around Davao?”<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: So you really believe what you have accomplished in Davao can be done on a national scale?<br />
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DUTERTE: Look, I can talk to communists. As for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, I will let it remain with the head of government. The police, however, I will take away from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). I will recreate the Philippine Constabulary and give the police back to the mayors. But if officials start f*cking with their powers, then I will take that power away and put in your stead the Philippines Constabulary—elections or no elections. That simple.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: What are your thoughts on the laying down of arms of rebel forces?<br />
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DUTERTE: Alam mo, if we go into equalization, there is only one government. They have to be decommissioned.<br />
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But let me make something clear: You don’t have to fear communists. Why do you fear communists and communism? The Communist Party is only a name, but what is being stressed there is socialism. Socialists, where do you find them? In Greece, Spain, France, Germany. Some people have an idea of communism as living in a collective commune—in a farm. You’re afraid of communism? Look at China. America owes China $3 trillion. I was once invited to visit China. Their airport taxi service are all Mercedes Benzes. It was only in China that I was able to ride a Rolls Royce.<br />
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So, you’re afraid of communists? Now tell me, who will be stupid enough to go and live in a collective commune? Even the Chinese don’t buy the idea! If I find a communist who agrees with that, I will tell him to his face that he is stupid. Let’s follow the example of China. China, today, is a market-driven economy. It boasts of some of the world’s billionaires. There’s no reason to fear communists.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: It has been said that the trickle-down effect of the economy is a false concept, that it is not true. If that is the case, then there’s no reason for an economy that is good only on paper to help improve the lives of people. What are your thoughts on the matter?<br />
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DUTERTE: That is correct. The secret is to close the gap. How do you do that? You have to give full support to the micro-economy, the small- and medium-scale entrepreneur. Since we’re on the subject of China, let’s have China as an example. China’s economy started out small. After small profits, you drum up the sales and continue until you reach some success. I agree with Manny Villar’s principle of making the money available to small enterprises. The same is true with land reform. They asked me once if as President I will continue land reform. I said, I will. There are lands that are really productive that are owned and managed by big multinationals. But the problem is, as I have said before, we are left with very few lands. To land beneficiaries, they must get the needed support—tractors or carabaos or seedlings. I say maintain their farm gates by buying their products. Do not import.<br />
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As it is, land beneficiaries do not get fertilizers and seedlings. No support at all. As President, I will subsidize the farmers and make them my priority all because our country is mainly agricultural. Land and human resource productivity is where we must focus our resources. Let’s put rural communities first. After which we go urban.<br />
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That’s also your blueprint for land reform?<br />
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DUTERTE: Yes. Tignan mo ang land reform.Papaano ang land reform? Wala namang… walang fertilizer, walang seedlings. You have to… I-subsidize ko because our country actually is agricultural-based. So yan, diyan mo ibuhos ang productivity ng tao.Doon unahin mo yung mga rural. Then you go up sa urban. The present setup cannot go on. Also a salary of P25,000 should not be taxed. This will help the individual a lot. Government will still have the needed funds. As I have said earlier, we will not involve ourselves in major projects, just the rehabilitation of existing ones. The next President after me can do it, if he chooses. The rural communities must come first: that’s my blueprint.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC:But how will you ensure continuity of existing projects?<br />
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DUTERTE: You have to see to it that money is available for existing ones. Take for example mass transport. It has to be subsidized. Let’s not fool ourselves. If you’re going to let the people shoulder the cost of rehabilitation of the mass transport system, they will not afford it. One reason: the prices of oil. Something has to give here. If I will ever get into new projects, it’s going to be mass transport.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC:What about social justice: Courts, judges…<br />
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DUTERTE: You know, Marcos, for the first seven years of his time was really very good. I will just copy the template of Marcos. I will follow what is right.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: A lot of people in Manila, and in other places, had been subjected to the abuses and cruelty of the Marcos regime. Won’t that scare people?<br />
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DUTERTE: That will not happen if I’m the president.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: How can you assure that?<br />
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DUTERTE: I’ll shoot you, if you’re a criminal. This is how it works. The backbone of any society is peace. A leader can only accomplish things if on one level, he thinks and acts like a dictator. If you don’t trust me, then don’t vote for me. I have no ambitions.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: And what of the military and the police?<br />
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DUTERTE: I will limit the number of years of service of generals. I want the leadership of the military and police to belong to the best and the brightest Filipinos. As it is, being a general is like a merchandize. They ask for the position, they get a desk. It’s crazy. And not all who graduate become generals. Give the position to the best and the brightest. It is only then that it will have integrity.<br />
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Most of our military officers get a salary that is not in keeping with dignity. Your term as general is six years, then go for three. I will pay you. You’re a general? Then you’ll get paid P500,000. Remember, if I become President, I will close Congress. As such I have the money. I will even give you extra, just to make you happy. But make no mistake. If you make a fool out of me, I will summon you and I will hurl you into the Pasig River. Now why will I do something like this? Look at our policemen. Their salary is about P18,000. Enrollment of children comes and they immediately borrow money. At the end of the day, his take home pay amounts to a thousand, two thousand pesos. Not enough.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: I’m sure you also mean to help teachers.<br />
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DUTERTE: In one of the elementary schools here, there are teachers, two or three, who owe money—five-six. This is the group I am telling you about, the group who needs support: Teachers, police, soldiers, officials.<br />
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Look at what happened to the Special Action Force (SAF). How can a SAF officer have the talent for fighting when, while advancing into the enemy’s lair, they are thinking of death at the back of their minds, and what they will leave for their families if they do die? What would come of my wife and children? How can one even concentrate?<br />
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This is the group I am referring to. Patrolman, I will give you P100,000 plus P20,000 extra for your extra-curricular activities. Spend the money for your mistress for all I care. Your children’s education will be free from kindergarten to high school. I’ll give you an example. If fighting breaks out anywhere—Samar, Mindoro, Cotabato, Davao del Norte—who do we send to stop the chaos? The police and military. They get the same pension and salary for about seven years even after they die. If that will be the case, then I’m not surprised if some will just commit suicide. They don’t only have to be protected—military gear, etc.—you also have to put some sense in their work, in the job of protecting the country.<br />
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If I become President, I will prioritize also the military and police. But if a general starts f*cking with me, I will shoot him right in his office.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: PDAF and DAP. Savings, money. How can you assure the public that not a single centavo will go into your wallet?<br />
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DUTERTE: I will create a high commission. All officials of government, including the President, will not hold money, but with the discretion of when to spend it, where and to whom it should be given. We have to do it in a budget. The high commission, if you want big businessmen to be part of it, or even priests, it’s all up to you. Let’s put 15 people there. The Office of the President will just have money to run the office. Say for example, lunch. The President can order but he doesn’t hold the money. But everything has to be straightforward. If you want a tractor, tell me why you want it. “The terrain is rocky.” That’s what you want? Then you can have it. Every month, a signed report should be submitted: list of completed projects, expenses, etc.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: Mayor, what about China? Spratlys?Territorial disputes?<br />
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DUTERTE: My grandfather was Chinese. Once I went to China alone. I asked them to stop their expansion and then there will be no problems. But if you keep advancing, people will be fearful. What do you want? Shared exploration? That’s okay with me. But if you keep on threatening the country, this will be my deal with China: You are nearing our shores. That being the case I will slice Palawan in half—lengthwise. I will tell the Americans they can come here, build another Subic or Clark airbase. Pay only the Filipino $1,000. They can create what they want, place all their missiles here, then let’s fight. Whatever else can I do? I can also invite Australia whose been expressing some interest in Palawan. They can all have the coastal areas, they can build anything they like. What assures my country’s safety is my only interest here.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: As for the Freedom of Information Bill…<br />
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DUTERTE: It has to pass. We need that bill. And if I become President, I will just sign an Executive Order. I will sign the draft itself.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: Aren’t you afraid of this bill?<br />
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DUTERTE: Why should we fear the bill? I’m not holding the money. I have nothing to hide. I mean, the Customs, I don’t care what you bring in, as long as you don’t bring in illegal drugs. Son of a bitch, if you do, I will set your containers on fire.<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: So, if the people want you to run for president…<br />
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DUTERTE: I do not want to. Is this the end of the interview? Okay, let me be very clear: What I am presenting to you now is to give the idea of federalism a face. Wala kasi itong mukha.Problem was, when this was first broached back then by Pimentel and Lito Osmeña, no one listened. Worse, no one listens even to me. If I did not say I will run for President and I’ll punch your faces, no one would listen. Now I have your ears, don’t I?<br />
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PHILIPPINES GRAPHIC: You were just getting the people’s attention?<br />
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DUTERTE: Yes, I have to give the idea a face. To be clear: Just because I am presenting the alternative does not mean I am interested to run. One is that I do not have any money. That’s why I said in Facebook, as early as two years ago, I am not interested because I do not have money. And because I do not have any money, I am not interested. I have no ambition to become President. If by some unfortunate chance I become President, then what I narrated to you, all of it, will happen. I don’t want to sit as President only to tell you in the end, “My beloved countrymen, I will now turn over the reins of power to my successor. I have achieved very little in the fight against corruption, I have not done enough because of the courts, also Congress.” No. That will not happen. If you elect me as President, then you have to follow me. Simple as that. If you don’t, we will have a fight.<br />
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(*The interview with Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was conducted by Graphic editor-in-chief Joel Pablo Salud and Graphic associate editor Alma Anonas-Carpio at the Marco Polo Hotel in Davao City.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-23926793586468722012015-11-17T13:50:00.000+08:002015-11-17T21:26:55.832+08:00Readings on Paris Nov 13 Attack<ol><li><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/paris-under-attack-was-it-a-false-flag-a-pretext-for-nato-to-intervene-in-syria-and-the-middle-east/5489159">Paris under Attack: Was it a False Flag? A Pretext for NATO to Intervene in Syria and the Middle East?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/united-states-saudi-arabia-isis/">Don't Blame Islam</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/newly-declassified-u-s-government-documents-the-west-supported-the-creation-of-isis.html">Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/important-events-leading-up-to-the-november-13-paris-terrorist-attacks-sheer-coincidence/5489228">Important Events Leading Up to the November 13 Paris Terrorist Attacks. Sheer Coincidence?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/322305-isis-financed-40-countries/">Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2014/11/wahhabism-isis-how-saudi-arabia-exported-main-source-global-terrorism">Wahhabism to ISIS: how Saudi Arabia exported the main source of global terrorism</a></li>
<li>VIDEO: <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b6c_1447660445">Honest reporter just destroyed fake news on Paris, ISIS and the NWO!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/01/13/french-imperialisms-brutal-colonial-rule">French imperialism’s brutal colonial rule</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/256085-hollande-arms-syrian-rebels">Hollande admits arming Syrian rebels in breach of embargo - book</a></li>
<li><a href="http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putin-exposes-g20s-financial-ties-isis-during-antalya-summit/ri11199">The Gloves Come Off: Putin Exposes G20's Financial Ties to ISIS</a></li>
<li><a href="http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151116/1030199114/isil-financing-g20-putin.html">ISIL Financed by 40 Countries, Including G20 Member States - Putin</a></li>
</ol>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-22417912479187406992004-10-27T06:03:00.000+08:002015-10-27T06:07:56.135+08:00How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to powerBen Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington<br />
September 25, 2004<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar">The Guardian</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdeV-vo09m-6ZWl7LmwS7yHSKz38_yRaje5F0NKyC-Q2VQz0YRv-eXabLE1zN-a3oPS7J8eFFPxNOrbjyMwdPJGlgS3pJ0oXELmMUFJg7ckkNSR4ejrvhpvZZy96npa5_779Ix/s1600/bush-hitler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdeV-vo09m-6ZWl7LmwS7yHSKz38_yRaje5F0NKyC-Q2VQz0YRv-eXabLE1zN-a3oPS7J8eFFPxNOrbjyMwdPJGlgS3pJ0oXELmMUFJg7ckkNSR4ejrvhpvZZy96npa5_779Ix/s320/bush-hitler.jpg" /></a></div>George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.<br />
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The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.<br />
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His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.<br />
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The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.<br />
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The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.<br />
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Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election. <br />
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While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.<br />
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Tantalising<br />
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Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.<br />
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Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.<br />
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Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland. <br />
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The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.<br />
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The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized.<br />
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The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war crimes.<br />
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A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942 stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and mining) properties have been in possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country's war effort".<br />
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Prescott Bush, a 6ft 4in charmer with a rich singing voice, was the founder of the Bush political dynasty and was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself. Like his son, George, and grandson, George W, he went to Yale where he was, again like his descendants, a member of the secretive and influential Skull and Bones student society. He was an artillery captain in the first world war and married Dorothy Walker, the daughter of George Herbert Walker, in 1921.<br />
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In 1924, his father-in-law, a well-known St Louis investment banker, helped set him up in business in New York with Averill Harriman, the wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman in New York, who had gone into banking.<br />
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One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth $125.<br />
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The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family.<br />
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August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if threatened again.<br />
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By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926, Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler speak, Thyssen became mesmerised by the young firebrand. He joined the Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were still a radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail out the struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow Palace on Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into the Brown House, the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came from another Thyssen overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam.<br />
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By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war.<br />
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Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions. <br />
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In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but he was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the war.<br />
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There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation.<br />
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There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on paper.<br />
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Erwin May, a treasury attache and officer for the department of investigation in the APC, was assigned to look into UBC's business. The first fact to emerge was that Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush and the other directors didn't actually own their shares in UBC but merely held them on behalf of Bank voor Handel. Strangely, no one seemed to know who owned the Rotterdam-based bank, including UBC's president.<br />
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May wrote in his report of August 16 1941: "Union Banking Corporation, incorporated August 4 1924, is wholly owned by the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My investigation has produced no evidence as to the ownership of the Dutch bank. Mr Cornelis [sic] Lievense, president of UBC, claims no knowledge as to the ownership of the Bank voor Handel but believes it possible that Baron Heinrich Thyssen, brother of Fritz Thyssen, may own a substantial interest."<br />
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May cleared the bank of holding a golden nest egg for the Nazi leaders but went on to describe a network of companies spreading out from UBC across Europe, America and Canada, and how money from voor Handel travelled to these companies through UBC.<br />
<br />
By September May had traced the origins of the non-American board members and found that Dutchman HJ Kouwenhoven - who met with Harriman in 1924 to set up UBC - had several other jobs: in addition to being the managing director of voor Handel he was also the director of the August Thyssen bank in Berlin and a director of Fritz Thyssen's Union Steel Works, the holding company that controlled Thyssen's steel and coal mine empire in Germany.<br />
<br />
Within a few weeks, Homer Jones, the chief of the APC investigation and research division sent a memo to the executive committee of APC recommending the US government vest UBC and its assets. Jones named the directors of the bank in the memo, including Prescott Bush's name, and wrote: "Said stock is held by the above named individuals, however, solely as nominees for the Bank voor Handel, Rotterdam, Holland, which is owned by one or more of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and Hungary. The 4,000 shares hereinbefore set out are therefore beneficially owned and help for the interests of enemy nationals, and are vestible by the APC," according to the memo from the National Archives seen by the Guardian.<br />
<br />
Red-handed<br />
<br />
Jones recommended that the assets be liquidated for the benefit of the government, but instead UBC was maintained intact and eventually returned to the American shareholders after the war. Some claim that Bush sold his share in UBC after the war for $1.5m - a huge amount of money at the time - but there is no documentary evidence to support this claim. No further action was ever taken nor was the investigation continued, despite the fact UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler's rise to power. <br />
<br />
The most tantalising part of the story remains shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.<br />
<br />
Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical company.<br />
<br />
Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave labour from the concentration camps in Poland. According to a New York Times article published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds of CSSC while "American interests" held the rest.<br />
<br />
The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner at BBH, wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems with CSSC after the Poles started their drive to nationalise the plant. "The Consolidated Silesian Steel Company situation has become increasingly complicated, and I have accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in order to be sure that our interests are protected," wrote Knight. "After studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which the directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a director and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there is no liability attaching to the American directors."<br />
<br />
But the ownership of the CSSC between 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland and 1942 when the US government vested UBC and SAC is not clear.<br />
<br />
"SAC held coal mines and definitely owned CSSC between 1934 and 1935, but when SAC was vested there was no trace of CSSC. All concrete evidence of its ownership disappears after 1935 and there are only a few traces in 1938 and 1939," says Eva Schweitzer, the journalist and author whose book, America and the Holocaust, is published next month.<br />
<br />
Silesia was quickly made part of the German Reich after the invasion, but while Polish factories were seized by the Nazis, those belonging to the still neutral Americans (and some other nationals) were treated more carefully as Hitler was still hoping to persuade the US to at least sit out the war as a neutral country. Schweitzer says American interests were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis bought some out, but not others.<br />
<br />
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war.<br />
<br />
Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".<br />
<br />
Jan Lissmann, one of the lawyers for the survivors, said: "President Bush withdrew President Bill Clinton's signature from the treaty [that founded the court] not only to protect Americans, but also to protect himself and his family."<br />
<br />
Lissmann argues that genocide-related cases are covered by international law, which does hold governments accountable for their actions. He claims the ruling was invalid as no hearing took place.<br />
<br />
In their claims, Mr Goldstein and Mr Gingold, honorary chairman of the League of Anti-fascists, suggest the Americans were aware of what was happening at Auschwitz and should have bombed the camp.<br />
<br />
The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion on whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear their case. A ruling is expected within a month.<br />
<br />
The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented." <br />
<br />
The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director.<br />
<br />
Lissmann said: "If we have a positive ruling from the court it will cause [president] Bush huge problems and make him personally liable to pay compensation."<br />
<br />
The US government and the Bush family deny all the claims against them.<br />
<br />
In addition to Eva Schweitzer's book, two other books are about to be published that raise the subject of Prescott Bush's business history. The author of the second book, to be published next year, John Loftus, is a former US attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals in the 70s. Now living in St Petersburg, Florida and earning his living as a security commentator for Fox News and ABC radio, Loftus is working on a novel which uses some of the material he has uncovered on Bush. Loftus stressed that what Prescott Bush was involved in was just what many other American and British businessmen were doing at the time.<br />
<br />
"You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more than you can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought Nazi stocks - but what is important is the cover-up, how it could have gone on so successfully for half a century, and does that have implications for us today?" he said.<br />
<br />
"This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defence industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted," said Loftus, who is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg.<br />
<br />
"The Union Banking Corporation was a holding company for the Nazis, for Fritz Thyssen," said Loftus. "At various times, the Bush family has tried to spin it, saying they were owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't until the Nazis took over Holland that they realised that now the Nazis controlled the apparent company and that is why the Bush supporters claim when the war was over they got their money back. Both the American treasury investigations and the intelligence investigations in Europe completely bely that, it's absolute horseshit. They always knew who the ultimate beneficiaries were."<br />
<br />
"There is no one left alive who could be prosecuted but they did get away with it," said Loftus. "As a former federal prosecutor, I would make a case for Prescott Bush, his father-in-law (George Walker) and Averill Harriman [to be prosecuted] for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They remained on the boards of these companies knowing that they were of financial benefit to the nation of Germany."<br />
<br />
Loftus said Prescott Bush must have been aware of what was happening in Germany at the time. "My take on him was that he was a not terribly successful in-law who did what Herbert Walker told him to. Walker and Harriman were the two evil geniuses, they didn't care about the Nazis any more than they cared about their investments with the Bolsheviks."<br />
<br />
What is also at issue is how much money Bush made from his involvement. His supporters suggest that he had one token share. Loftus disputes this, citing sources in "the banking and intelligence communities" and suggesting that the Bush family, through George Herbert Walker and Prescott, got $1.5m out of the involvement. There is, however, no paper trail to this sum.<br />
<br />
The third person going into print on the subject is John Buchanan, 54, a Miami-based magazine journalist who started examining the files while working on a screenplay. Last year, Buchanan published his findings in the venerable but small-circulation New Hampshire Gazette under the headline "Documents in National Archives Prove George Bush's Grandfather Traded With the Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor". He expands on this in his book to be published next month - Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media and the Religious Right. <br />
<br />
In the article, Buchanan, who has worked mainly in the trade and music press with a spell as a muckraking reporter in Miami, claimed that "the essential facts have appeared on the internet and in relatively obscure books but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes".<br />
<br />
Buchanan suffers from hypermania, a form of manic depression, and when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and media outlets that had spurned him. The threats, contained in e-mails, suggested that he would expose the journalists as "traitors to the truth".<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly, he soon had difficulty getting his calls returned. Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami, in connection with a man with whom he had fallen out over the best way to publicise his findings. The charges were dropped last month.<br />
<br />
Biography<br />
<br />
Buchanan said he regretted his behaviour had damaged his credibility but his main aim was to secure publicity for the story. Both Loftus and Schweitzer say Buchanan has come up with previously undisclosed documentation.<br />
<br />
The Bush family have largely responded with no comment to any reference to Prescott Bush. Brown Brothers Harriman also declined to comment.<br />
<br />
The Bush family recently approved a flattering biography of Prescott Bush entitled Duty, Honour, Country by Mickey Herskowitz. The publishers, Rutledge Hill Press, promised the book would "deal honestly with Prescott Bush's alleged business relationships with Nazi industrialists and other accusations".<br />
<br />
In fact, the allegations are dealt with in less than two pages. The book refers to the Herald-Tribune story by saying that "a person of less established ethics would have panicked ... Bush and his partners at Brown Brothers Harriman informed the government regulators that the account, opened in the late 1930s, was 'an unpaid courtesy for a client' ... Prescott Bush acted quickly and openly on behalf of the firm, served well by a reputation that had never been compromised. He made available all records and all documents. Viewed six decades later in the era of serial corporate scandals and shattered careers, he received what can be viewed as the ultimate clean bill."<br />
<br />
The Prescott Bush story has been condemned by both conservatives and some liberals as having nothing to do with the current president. It has also been suggested that Prescott Bush had little to do with Averill Harriman and that the two men opposed each other politically.<br />
<br />
However, documents from the Harriman papers include a flattering wartime profile of Harriman in the New York Journal American and next to it in the files is a letter to the financial editor of that paper from Prescott Bush congratulating the paper for running the profile. He added that Harriman's "performance and his whole attitude has been a source of inspiration and pride to his partners and his friends".<br />
<br />
The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive of Prescott Bush and the Bush family. In a statement last year they said that "rumours about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser."<br />
<br />
However, one of the country's oldest Jewish publications, the Jewish Advocate, has aired the controversy in detail.<br />
<br />
More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly under scrutiny at the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing a different kind of scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception that, for some people, war can be a profitable business.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-78351008465989498832015-10-18T18:57:00.003+08:002015-10-18T18:57:37.649+08:00REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE AND ART IN THE PHILIPPINESREVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE AND ART IN THE PHILIPPINES, FROM THE 1960s TO THE PRESENT<br />
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison<br />
Oct. 15, 2015<br />
<br />
I am delighted and grateful to be invited by editor-in-chief Mary Joy Capistrano and the Philippine Collegian to the Alternative Classroom Learning Experience program in order to share my experiences regarding revolutionary art, my views on the current state of the art and how artists and creative writers can serve the people and the country through their works.<br />
<br />
I. My experiences regarding revolutionary art<br />
<br />
As a grade school boy in my hometown of Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, I first became aware of revolutionary art in the form of statues of leaders of the Philippine revolution. At the southern end of the poblacion stood the figure of Andres Bonifacio with an upraised bolo and at the northern end the figure of General Antonio Luna on horseback. In the most central part of the town, was the figure of Dr. Jose Rizal, the martyred reformer.<br />
<br />
The short stories that I read in the Ilocano vernacular magazine Bannawag and that were most interesting to me were patriotic ones about the Filipino resistance against the Japanese fascist invaders in World War II and romantic and populist ones about pairs of lovers coming from the rich and the poor and overcoming objections arising from the social divide. But the first story I wrote in Ilocano at the age of nine was about the romance of a poor boy and rich girl, which led to tragedy because of the social divide.<br />
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As a third and fourth year high school student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, I wrote short stories and poems critical of social injustice. My knowledge of the Marxist-Leninist analysis of classes and struggle was close to nil. I had a smattering of it only as a result of reading an anti-communist book which made the mistake of quoting extensively from the texts of Marx and Engels. The quotations were more impressive to me than the anti-communist thesis of the book.<br />
<br />
While I was an undergraduate student in the University of the Philippines in 1958, I matured as a progressive liberal, fully appreciating the old democratic revolution that began in 1896 and won victory in 1898 under bourgeois liberal leadership against Spanish colonialism. I had gobbled up the anti-colonial and liberal works of Profs. Teodoro Agoncillo and Cesar Adib Majul and about the Philippine revolution and the two novels and essays of Dr. Jose Rizal and the essays of Marcelo H. del Pilar and Isabelo de los Reyes.<br />
<br />
Within the same year of 1958, I made a great leap to understanding the need to continue the unfinished tasks of the Philippine revolution and to carry out the new democratic revolution under proletarian leadership against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes. I started to read Marxist works in earnest and to adhere to Marxism-Leninism. I gained access to Marxist works hidden in the basement of the UP Main Library and to the private collections of professor friends. I gorged on the available works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, the novels written by Soviet writers like Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Sholokhov and American Left writers, like John Steinbeck and Howard Fast in the 1930s and the writings of Manuel Arguilla and Carlos Bulosan.<br />
<br />
I tried to learn the basic principles of the great communist thinkers and leaders in philosophy, political economy and social science and what constituted social realism and proletarian art in the novels and other literary works that I read. I associated with fellow campus writers like Petronilo Bn Daroy, Luis V. Teodoro and others who were somehow influenced by various aesthetic theories and literary works opposed to such currents as art for art's sake, petty bourgeois self-titillation, mystical flights or art supposedly transcending classes but truly within the bounds of the exploiting classes.<br />
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We took the stand that literature and art must serve the exploited and oppressed people and necessarily the new democratic revolution as the way to their national and social liberation. We appreciated Salvador P. Lopez' 1940 essay, Literature and Society, his advocacy of proletarian literature and his demand for socially significant content in creative writing against the sect of art for art's represented by Jose Garcia Villa.<br />
<br />
We formed the Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP) in 1959. We were determined to propagate the national democratic line and the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism. We were challenged to renew the revolutionary movement that had been crushed in the early 1950s. It was clear to us that it was necessary not only to propagate revolutionary ideas in discourses but also to express them in various literary and artistic forms.<br />
<br />
We were among the most prolific writers of political and literary pieces for the Philippine Collegian and the Collegian Folio against foreign and feudal domination in socio-economic relations, politics, culture, and literature and art. We also published a series of daring but financially unstable little magazines like the Fugitive Review, Cogent and Diliman Observer from 1959 to 1962 until we could put up the relatively more stable Progressive Review.<br />
<br />
Among the earliest Marxist works that I read were the Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Dialectics of Nature and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. The latter book equipped me well in my debates on logical positivism with Prof. Ricardo Pascual. But the Marxist works that I found most engaging in connection with Philippine society and literature were those of Mao which analyzed the classes and class struggle in semicolonial and semifeudal society and which presented literature and art as weapons of the revolution.<br />
<br />
I benefited from conversations with patriotic and progressive colleagues and professors on a wide range of political, social and cultural issues. The SCAUP, together with the UP Journalism Club, the Philippine Collegian, most fraternities and sororities, stood with them in fighting against the anticommunist witchhunt undertaken by the Committee on Anti-Filipino Activities. I learned much from the Peasant War in the Philippines published by my professor friends in the Philippine Social Science and Humanities Review. I studied aesthetics and poetics in graduate school and Prof. Leopoldo Yabes who seemed to enjoy letting me explain at length the Marxist theory of literature and art after he noticed my interest in it.<br />
<br />
In the early 1960s, I had the good fortune of becoming friends and conversing frequently with Amado V. Hernandez on revolutionary politics and art and reading his works Isang Dipang Langit, Mga Ibong Mandaragit and Luha ng Buwaya. He was pleased with my first collection of poetry, Brothers, published by Filipino Signatures of our mutual friend Andres Cristobal Cruz. He enjoyed most satirizing the exploiters and oppressors and narrating his experiences as a guerrilla intelligence officer and as a labor leader.<br />
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We established Kabataang Makabayan as the assistant of the revolutionary proletariat. In seeking to develop the revolutionary mass movement along the national democratic line, my comrades and I responded to the call of Claro Mayo Recto for a Second Propaganda Movement. Under the banner of Kabataang Makabayan, we also called for a cultural revolution of the new democratic type. We underscored the role of creative writers and artists in the various art forms. We advocated a national, scientific and mass culture.<br />
<br />
We favored the national language as the principal medium of education and literary development even as we respected the various languages and cultural heritage of the people in the provinces. We encouraged university teachers to use and conduct discussions in Pilipino; and writers in English to learn how to speak and write in Pilipino. Propaganda and agitation were done unavoidably among the toiling masses in Tagalog and other local languages.<br />
<br />
Kabataang Makabayan, particularly its Cultural Bureau, was most active in engaging creative writers and artists in various art forms like graphics, music, dance and stage play. The signal act to avail of music was the request to Felipe de Leon to compose the anthem of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) in 1964. The poem of Amado V. Hernandez, ¨Kung Tuyo na ang Luha mo, aking Bayan¨ was set to music and often featured in cultural presentations during protest rallies. We also revived the singing of the Internationale and other revolutionary songs of previous revolutionary movements in the Philippines and abroad. Cartoonists were in demand for publications and posters as well as effigy makers for mass actions.<br />
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Social investigation and mass integration teams of Kabataang Makabayan doubled as cultural performance teams when they went to factories, urban communities and farms. Revolutionary literature and art flourished with the upsurge of the mass movement of the workers, peasants and youth. Cultural performance groups arose in the latter years of the 1960s to present solo and choral singing, instrumental music, poetry recitation, dances and skits and to create illustrations on publications, posters and walls in order to enliven and invigorate the meetings, mass protests and workers' strikes.<br />
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Towards the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968, we did ideological, political and organizational work and we created revolutionary literary and artistic works to inspire ourselves and the masses that we sought to arouse, organize and mobliize. As soon as we started the people's war in the countryside, we deployed and coordinated armed propaganda teams, cultural teams and medical teams.<br />
<br />
When the First Quarter Storm of 1970 broke out, such organizations for cultural performances as Panday Sining of Kabataang Makabayan, Gintong Silahis of Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan and Kamanyang of the Philippine College of Commerce (now named the Polytechnic University of the Philippines) became outstanding among youth organizations in Manila and became models in the provinces.<br />
<br />
I had the honor of sending messages in 1971 to the formation of two major cultural organizations of far-reaching significance. The first organization was Nagkakaisang Progresibong Mga Artista at Arkitekto (NPAA). It was composed of artists from the College of Fine Arts and Architecture of the University of the Philippines and from other schoolsl. The artists had previously given comprehensive artistic support to the legal mass movement. I discussed the arts as a weapon of the revolution. The second organization was the Panulat Para Sa Kaunlaran Ng Sambayanan (PAKSA). It brought together creative writers in both Pilipino and English, who were determined to serve the Filipino people with revolutionary literary works. I discussed the tasks of cadres in the cultural field, especially in literature.<br />
<br />
When martial law was proclaimed and fascist dictatorship was imposed on the people, many creative writers and artists joined the underground and armed revolutionary movement and created more works about the dire social conditions, the sacrifices and struggles of the Filipino people. Literature and art flourished most among the propaganda and cultural teams of the New People's Army and the masses in the countryside. The central and regional publications of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines published songs, poems, short stories and illustrations Cultural organizations published, performed or exhibited the literary and artistic works of their members.<br />
<br />
It was futile for the fascist regime to detain creative writers and artists in order to silence them because they continued to produce creative works even in prison. Prisons became revolutionary schools and centers for creating songs, poems paintings, drawings, carvings, handicrafts and other art works. These were circulated and sold outside prison in the spirit of antifascist solidarity, These were also distributed and sold to support groups in Europe and North America and to a lesser extent domestically among allies and friends.<br />
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To mention a few outstanding songs created in prison, Aloysius ¨Ochie¨ Baez composed the lyrics Kay Taas ng Pader, Jose Luneta Awit sa Kasal and Luis Jorque the music of Andres Bonifacio's Pag-ibig saTinubuang Lupa in Bicutan. The Bicutan political detainees also wrote and performed plays on the struggles of the workers, peasants and the urban poor. They staged under direction of Behn Cervantes Bonifacio Ilagan's Pagsambang Bayan, the Sinakulong Bayan or street version of the Passion of Christ and Aurelio Tolentino's Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas.<br />
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Anthologies of literary works and songs were published in the Philippines and abroad, under the direction National Commission on Culture of the CPP. The Instityut sa Panitikan at Sining ng Sambayanan (IPASA) published: Akdang Pandigmang Bayan, Ulos; and Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win, 1973; Hulagpos, 1981 by Mano de Verdades Posadas; Mga Tula Rebolusyong Pilipino 1972-80; and Mga Kanta ng Rebolusyong Pilipino, 1984, issued by the Special Committee on Culture of the CPP Central Publishing House (reissued by IPASA with the title Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa, mga Kanta ng Rebolusyong Pilipino in 1995).<br />
<br />
There was no way the fascist regime could stop the creation of literary and artistic works.<br />
<br />
Literary works circulated among the people. Lightning cultural performances were held even in city centers. Protest graffiti, periodikits and sticker-posters of various sizes were posted on walls, waiting sheds, and inside buses and jeepneys. A collective of creative writers and illustrators was able to produce the illustrated version of Philippine Society and Revolution.<br />
<br />
When I was under maximum security detention and under constant electronic surveillance from 1977 onwards, I composed poetry like other political prisoners in bigger political prisons. I recited the poems even as the guards were taperecording the recitation. I was able to smuggle out my poems and have them published by Prof. Epifanio San Juan and included in the Pintig anthology. A committee openly dedicated to seek my freedom was able to publish in Manila my collection of poems, Prison and Beyond in 1985, before the overthrow of Marcos.<br />
<br />
When the mass protest movement resurged in the urban areas from 1981 onwards and even more so, from 1983 after the Aquino assassination, protest and revolutionary art also resurged in the schools and communities, in workers picket lines, in the meetings of mass organizations and in the street mass protests.<br />
<br />
Many more literary works were published in the alternative legal press, among them Midweek and New Progressive Review; as well as campus publications that proliferated, including Philippine Collegian and Diliman Review.<br />
<br />
Many types of protest visuals mushroomed, from T-shirts with slogans and creatively designed placards and streamers, to huge murals at the head of big marches and rallies. Protest music and street theater became widespread and popular through many small musical and theater groups based in unions, urban poor communities and schools, and through the more regularized or professionalized ones such as PETA. The resurgence of revolutionary art in the urban areas ran parallel to the constantly rising of artistic and other cultural activities in the countryside.<br />
<br />
2. On the current state of revolutionary art<br />
<br />
Prof. Alice Guerrero Guillermo has written the most comprehensive survey and analysis of protest/ revolutionary art in the Philippines, from 1970 to 1990, and has continued to observe its further development to the present. She attests to the vibrant continuity and growth of revolutionary art. But there is yet no survey of literary and artistic works extending to the current decade of the 21st century. That is a project still to be fully undertaken even as I now try to scan and assess the current state of revolutionary art, with much info feed from cultural activists, creative writers and artists. After the delivery of this speech I intend to gather more information to fill in gaps in the current presentation.<br />
<br />
Prof. Gelacio Guillermo has been able to collect in Muog (Ang Naratibo ng Kanayunan sa Matagalang Digmang Bayan sa Pilipinas) the most outstanding literary narratives and poems in the countryside that he could collect from various regions from the period of martial law to the 1990s. With the Muog anthology and his other notable works “The New Mass Art and Literature” and “Ang Panitikan ng Pambandsang Demokrasya”, he shows how the revolutionary creative writers and cultural activists make use of literary forms, including poems, narratives, songs, instrumental music and dances, that we learn from the masses, including the indigenous people.<br />
<br />
Rogelio L. Ordonez presents comprehensively the development of revolutionary literature in the national language from the 1960s to the 1990s in his essay, “Literatura ng Uring Anakpawis”. Lilia Quindoza-Santiago has chronicled and analyzed much of the protest and revolutionary poetry in the 1970s. I recommend for your reading and study Nationalist Literature: A Centennnial Forum, edited by Prof. Elmer A.Ordoñez and published in celebration of the Philippine Revolution of 1896. The collection of essays here shows you the continuity and advance of revolutionary literature.<br />
<br />
The richest source of literary and artistic works done by revolutionary writers and artists are the central and regional publications of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front. They publish songs, poems, short stories, illustrations and comic strips, aside from disseminating news and information about the revolutionary forces and the people in their respective areas. They have literary journals that are focused on literature and art.<br />
<br />
The best known central publications are: Ulos (literary journal of ARMAS-NDF), Sine Proletaryo (video production-CPP Information Bureau), Kalayaan (Kabataang Makabayan), Liyab (KAGUMA) and Malayang Pilipina (MAKIBAKA), ).<br />
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In Northern Luzon: Baringkuas (Cagayan Valley), Dangadang (Northwest Luzon), Ramut (revolutionary edication and culture -Norhwestern Luzon) and Rissik (revolutionary cultural journal-Cagayan Valley). In Central Luzon:Himagsik (Central Luzon), Inang Larangan (cultural anthology, Central Luzon), Lakas ng Masa (Central Luzon), Dyaryo Pasulong (Revolutionary People of Mount Sierra Madre),<br />
<br />
In Southern Tagalog region: Dagitab (ARMAS-TK), Diklap (South Quezon-Bondoc Peninsula) and Alab (a revolutionary publication for the masses in Mindoro), In Bikol region: Gerilya (NPA Bicol Regional Command) Punla (literary publication-Bicol Region), Silyab (CPP-NPA in Bicol), and Ang Kusog (Masbate)<br />
In the Visayas,Ang Panghimakas (Negros Island), Ang Budyong (Leonardo Panaligan Command-Central Negros), Daba-daba (Panay), Pakigbisog (Central Visayas), Sublak (revolutionary cultural magazine-Panay) Pakigbisog (Central Visayas),<br />
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In Mindanao: Pasa-bilis (NDF-Southern Mindanao). In Mindanao, Ang Kahilukan (NDF in Northern Mindanao), Asdang (NDF-Far South Mindanao), Lingkawas (CPP-Northwestern Mindanao), Pasa-bilis (NDF-Southern Mindanao), Sulong! (NDFP-Mindanao).<br />
<br />
To this day, popular works in literature and art have flourished. They are in the form of songs, poems, short stories, cartoons, poster and shirt graphics, graffiti, playlets and skits, short monologues, dances, effigies and short films. They are displayed or performed during meetings, marches and rallies. They are created and performed by organizations which are devoted to cultural work or focused on literature or any of the arts. These are affiliated with any of the major mass organizations or independent of them. There is a wide variety of cultural groups identifiable by their cause orientation and territorial scopes.<br />
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There are various cultural groups of creative writers and artists. They belong to Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan (ARMAS) of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, to commands or units of the New People's Army and to mass organizations of workers, peasants, fisher folk, women, youth, teachers and others. There are also cultural groups which are independent of single mass organizations but which serve all or any mass organizations that invite them to mass actions, celebrations and other events.<br />
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Since 1983 the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (then a mass campaign base) and MASKARA and since 1985 Artista ng Bayan (ABAY) and Luna have fulfilled the visual art requirements of mass actions by making murals, streamers and effigies in Metro Manila. Theatre groups under Bugkos (the national center for arts and literature) have also organized and staged street plays and flag dances. Yearly during Holy Week, Sining Bugkos together with Bayan Metro Manila and Kalipunan ng Damaang Mahihirap (Kadamay) hold the Kalbaryo ng Maralita to depict the suffering of poor Filipinos. Since the late 1992 BAYAN has undertaken more elaborate effigy projects in collaboration with UGAT Lahi Artists Collective (Ugnayan at Galian ng mga Tanod ng Lahi), which is a collective of artists and activists in the national capital region.<br />
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Worthy of mention are the role and contributions of political street theater in the struggle against Marcos during the 1980s. UP Tropang Bodabil and UP Peryante - using vaudevilletheater as a form of protest theater took to the streets and performed in the major mobilizations and transport strikes during martial law. The performers did "kilos-awit and interpretative movement of protest songs like Awit ng Tagumpay, Mendiola, etc. For example, i my poem Fragments of a Nightmare rendered in Pilipino as Pira-pirasong Bangungot was perfomed as dance, using the Japanese "Noh" theatrical form.<br />
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A big street theater production called "Oratoryo ng Bayan" based on the UN International Declaration of Human Rights was performed for several weeks. It was an unconventional production using the UP Palma Hall lobby as the stage with big sculpture installations as the only pieces (these are still there now) and the audience all sat around arena-style on the floor. Oratoryo was also toured in the other universities like Ateneo and UP Manila.<br />
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An arts alliance called Alamat - Alyansa ng Makabayang Teatro – was formed in Manila bringing together progressive theater and their performing arts groups.<br />
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Since 1995, Ugat-Lahi has joined with Sining Bugkos as a Manila-based alliance of cultural workers and formations for promoting national democratic culture and human rights. This group initiates art workshops for artists' immersion programs in urban poor communities and workers' organizations and organizing work among students, workers, urban poor and professional artists, exhibitions, mural projects, puppet theatre performances and effigy projects. In the provincial cities and in the rural areas, there are cultural formations similar to Sining Bugkos such as Tambisan sa Sining, Sinagbayan, Karatula, Sining Kadamay, Sining Bulosan, the Kaboronyogan cultural network and Dap-ayan ti Kultura iti Kordilyera.<br />
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Popular works in literature and art (like songs, poems, short stories flag dances and skits) are generally considered shorter, easier to create and to disseminate and are less polished and of a lower standard than those works that are longer, more difficult to make and to produce or distribute and are more polished and of a higher aesthetic standard. But there are songs and poems which are more popular and yet more polished than a badly conceived and badly written novel or epic. There are such works which are short but are aesthetically excellent and have far reaching influence on the masses in a profound and lofty way.<br />
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While the presumption is that an excellent long piece is better or more laudable than an excellent short piece, there is also a presumption that favors the short piece. If a piece is popular, it has something in it to which the people are receptive. It touches and moves the hearts and minds of the people because it concerns their needs and demands and in addition it spreads so fast because it is short. Posters at public places can be seen by so many people and songs can spread so widely. They carry messages that are clear and inspire the people to act. A long or a more complex piece can be excellent as revolutionary work only as its higher aesthetic standard is grounded on popularization, responding to the people's needs and demands.<br />
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Works that are more sustained and are expected to be of higher standard than short pieces include the following: novels, epics, anthologies of poems and short stories, collected essays, drama, opera or full-length musicales, paintings, sculpture, ballet, full-length feature films and massive effigies. Time constraint does not allow me to describe and evaluate those works that I shall mention. But identifying either the works or the names of authors in literary and art forms, which may be considered revolutionary, can indicate the level of artistic achievement and provide clues for further research.<br />
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In the course of the ongoing new democratic revolution, a significant number of novels have been written in the national language. These include: Dekada 70 and Gapo by Lualhati Bautista, Dilim sa Umaga at mga Kaluluwa sa Kumunoy by Efren R. Abueg, Dugo sa Bukang Liwayway by Rogelio R. Sikat, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag at Sa Kagubatan ng Lunsod by Edgardo M. Reyes, Mga Halik sa Alikabok and Ginto ang Kayumangging Lupa by Dominador B. Mirasol, Apoy sa Madaling Araw by Dominador Mirasol and Rogelio L. Ordoñez, Hulagpos by Mano de Verdades Posadas and Gera by Ruth Firmeza.<br />
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Ninotchka Rosca has two novels in English, with The State of War (1988) an allegorical novel alluding to the explosive revolutionary situation in the Philippines and Twice Blessed (1992) a comic satire of the conjugal dictatorship and the competition of the oligarchs to serve foreign masters. More recent novels have been published depicting Philippine history and the new democratic revolution such as Lualhati Bautista’s Desaparecidos (2012), Ramon Guillermo’s Ang Makina ni Mang Turing (2013), Norman Wilwayco’s Gerilya (2009), Edberto M.Villegas' Barikada (2013) and Elmer Ordonez autobiographical Snows of Yesteryears (2015).<br />
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There are so many writers of anthologized protest/revolutionary short stories. They include Ave Perez Jacob, Domingo Landicho, Edgar Maranan, Dominador Mirasol, Jose Rey Munsayac, Epifanio San Juan,Jr., Wilfredo Virtusio, Levy Balgos de la Cruz, Jun Cruz Reyes, Ricardo Lee and many others. The new generation of fiction writers who have consistently published social realist prose since the 1990s includes Rolando Tolentino, Luna Sicat, Ramon Guillermo, and Rommel Rodriguez.<br />
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The most notable revolutionary poets include martyrs Emmanuel Lacaba, Lorena Barros, and Wilfredo Gacosta; and their contemporaries Gelacio Guillermo (Kris Montanez), Alan Jazmines and Jason Montana who either published individual poetry collections or were anthologized in “STR” and other revolutionary publications. Other revolutionary poets during Martial Law and thereafter include Bayani S. Abadilla, Ericson Acosta, Reuel Aguila, Mila Aguilar, Tomas F. Agulto, Mark Angeles, Lamberto Antonio, Teo T. Antonio, Joi Barrios, Levy de la Cruz, Jose F. Lacaba, Domingo Landicho, Bienvenido Lumbera, Ruth Elynia Mabanglo, Joel Costa Malabanan, Rogelio Mangahas, Edgar Maranan, Luchie Maranan, Alex Pinpin, Alexander Remollino, Fidel Rillo, Romulo Sandoval, Epifanio San Juan Jr. Jesus Manuel Santiago, Lilia Quindoza-Santiago, Roberto Ofanda Umil and many others.<br />
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The anthologies of poetry are: Mga Tula ng Rebolusyong Pilipino, 1972-80, Prison and Beyond (1984), Moon's Face by Allan Jazmines (1991), Likhang Dila, Likhang Diwa by Bienvenido Lumbera (1993), Pakikiramay: Alay ng mga makata sa mga magsasaka ng Hacienda Luisita, edited by Joi Barrios (2004), Sa Loob at Labas ng Piitan (2004) (poems of Jose Maria Sison) translated by Gelacio Guillermo, Passage / poems 1983-2006 by Edgar Maranan, Tugmang Matatabil by Axel Pinpin (2008), Poetika/Pulitika and Ka Bel by Bienvenido Lumbera (2008), Bulaklak at Pag-ibig: Mga Tula ng Pag-ibig at Himagsik by Joi Barrios (2010), Mga Tula by Gelacio Guillermo (2013), Ang Gerilya Ay Tulad ng Makata (including poems up to 2013) by Jose Maria Sison and Mula Tarima Hanggang at iba pang tula at Awit by Ericson Acosta (2015).<br />
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Contemporary poets in the legal democratic mass movement make their works accessible through various popular and mass medium including the internet. They also perform their pieces during mass mobilizations and protest actions. Among these are Axel Pinpin, Ericson Acosta, Richard Gappi, Kerima Lorena Tariman, Rustum Casia, Mark Angeles, Rogene Gonzales, Raymund Villanueva, and others belonging to cultural and writers’ groups such as UP Alay Sining, Karatula, Kataga, and Kilometer 64 Poetry Collective founded by the late Alexander Martin Remollino.<br />
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Since the 1990s, ARMAS-NDF published revolutionary poetry and prose from Red fighters and cultural cadres in Ulos, while regions also came up with their local version of this revolutionary cultural journal, most of which are available online, such as Dagitab (Southern Tagalog), Inang Larangan (Central Luzon, Punla (Bikol), Ramut (Ilocos), Rissik (Cagayan Valley), Sublak (Panay), and Bangkaw (Mindanao). After the second great rectification movement, revolutionary poets and writers whose best works appear in these journals and at times, even in aboveground publications and anthologies include Joven Obrero, Ditan Dimase (Salinlahi at iba pang Kwento, 2006), Sonia Gerilya and Ting Remontado (Anahaw: Mga Tula at Awit, 2004); and Maya Mor (Maya Daniel), author of poems in English and Hiligaynon and also a visual artist.<br />
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Song pamphlets containing the lyrics of revolutionary songs have been issued from time to time since the late 1960s. Albums of recorded revolutionary songs have been released since the 1976 Philippines: Bangon! (Arise!): Songs of the Philippine National Democratic Struggle, protesting the Marcos dictatorship, the ruling system of big compradors and landlords and the role of American imperialism in backing the ruling system and the fascist regime.<br />
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Albums of revolutionary songs have been released under the following titles: Mga Kanta ng Rebolusyong Pilipino, Agaw Armas, Alab ng Digmang Bayan Volumes 1 and 2, Armas Timog Katagalugan Album, Dakilang Hamon Album, Kumasa Album, Kanta ti Dangadang Album, Baligi Album, Martsa Ka Bicolandia Album, Salamin ng Northern Mindanao, Salidumay Diway Album.<br />
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Progressive musicians and groups such as Asin, Tambisan sa Sining, Kalantog, Inang Laya, Patatag, The Jerks, Yano, Gary Granada, Joey Ayala, Datu’s Tribe, Grupong Pendong, Buklod, Musikang Bayan, Sining Lila, Lei Garcia, Mga Anak ni Aling Juana, Bersus, and others have released albums depicting sectoral issues and struggles. More recent groups and albums on particular campaigns such as Rapu-Rapu atbp, Taghoy ng KalikasanTayo ang Bosses: Mga Awit ng Paglaban sa Rehimeng Gahaman, Salugpungan: Tunog Bobongan, Songs of Love and Struggle by Rica Nepomuceno, Poetry in Songs by Jose Maria Sison, Of Bladed Poems, and the People's Chorale Album.<br />
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Popular rap artist and activist BLKD recently released the album Gatilyo, a tribute to Gat Andres Bonifacio. Marlon Caacbay performed as a rock band musician; a cultural activist and organizer, he died as a Red fighter in Southern Tagalog in May 2015. BLKD together with other young artists and bands such as Karl Ramirez, Plagpul, Gazera, Pink Cow, The General Strike, Tanghalang Bayan ng Kulturang Kalye (Tabakk), and Musicians for Peace, comprise the progressive urban music scene and perform in bars, communities and the streets. They produce songs that are closely linked to the various sectoral struggles and campaigns of the national democratic mass movement.<br />
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Biographies of revolutionary cadres have been created in various ways. They include the following: The Philippine Revolution: The Leader's View co-authored by Rainer Werning and Jose Maria Sison (1988), At Home in the World: Portrait of a Filipino Revolutionary by Ninotchka Rosca and Jose Maria Sison (2004), He never wrote "30":a glimpse into the life of Antonio Zumel, film production by Kodao Productions (2004), Armando (on the life of Comrade Armando Teng) by Jun Cruz Reyes (2006), Abogado ng Sambayanan: A documentary on the life of Atty. Romeo Capulong, film by Kodao Productions (2008), Apostasy: Paglalayag ni Dan Vizmanos (2008) Ka Bel by Ina Alleco Silverio (2010), Sa Tungki ng Ilong ng Kaaway (Talambuhay ni Tatang) published by Kilusan sa Paglilinang ng Rebolusyonaryong Panitikan at Sining sa Kanayunan (2012), Nanay Mameng, Kodao Productions (2012) Maita: Remembering Ka Dolor, edited by: Judy M.Taguiwalo and Elisa Tita P. Lubi (2013), Recca: from Diliman to the Cordillera by Judy M. Taguiwalo (2015), Louie Jalandoni, Revolutionary, an Illustrated Biography (2015) by Ina Alleco Silverio (2015) and More than a Red Warrior: Arnold Borja Jaramillo Beloved Son of Abra (2015).<br />
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Consequent to the NPAA going underground and many of its leading members joining the armed revolution in various parts of the Philippines, Kaisahan (Solidarity) was formed in 1976 to advocate and practice social realism in their paintings, prints, sculpture, and other visual arts. It included Antipas Delotavo, Papo de Asis, Pablo Baens Santos, Orlando Castillo, Jose Cuaresma, Neil Doloricon, Edgar Talusan Fernandez, Charles Funk, Renato Habulan, Albert Jimenez, Al Manrique, Jose Tence Ruiz and Vin Toledo. Since then, social realism as a commitment and as a common ground allowing different styles, has become the most important trend in the visual arts, especially in oil painting.<br />
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The Kaisahan commits itself to seeking national identity not in a nostalgic love of the past but by developing art that reflects social conditions and is for the masses, breaking away from a Western-oriented pop or elitist culture and contributing to the creation of a collective subject that heeds the obligations of the historical imperative of revolution. The only limitation that they set to experimentation, the play of creative impulses, is the need to effectively communicate social realities to their audiences. Among current and active social realist painters, progressive visual artists, muralists, sculptors, and street artists are Boy Dominguez, Iggy Rodriguez, Manolo Sicat, Mideo Cruz, Renan Ortiz, Melvin Pollero, Rowena Bayon, Paolo Lorenzo, Frances Abrigo, Buen Abrigo, Buen Calubayan, and the group Ang Gerilya.<br />
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Political prisoners Alan Jazmines, Eduardo Sarmiento, Voltaire Guray and Juan Paolo Versoza create outstanding art works despite dismal prison conditions. Rights group Karapatan has organized several gallery exhibitions of their paintings and sculptures. Sarmiento, who used to contribute illustrations for Larab, the newspaper of the revolutionary movement in Eastern Visayas, will soon publish a series of illustrated children’s books.<br />
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There are many painters in the various regions of the revolutionary movement. The painter that has stood out among them in recent years is Parts Bagani of Mindanao. The name is a nom de guerre derived from the name of his collective, the People's Artists. His paintings depict the mountainous and forested terrain of the New People's Army and the Red fighters and the masses at work. They have been exhibited in the gallery of the UP Faculty Center and has been sold publicly. He has done illustration work for the publications of the Communist Party of the Philippines, especially Ulos which is the underground publication for the arts.<br />
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Leyla Batang, another Ulos artist, is also among the most prolific revolutionary visual artists and illustrators whose works appear in various publications and educational materials of the CPP and NDF such as textbooks, primers and visual aid sets for PADEPA (National Democratic School) and the basic party courses. Batang is also credited for the Modyul sa Pagdrowing para sa mga Instruktor. Another exemplary revolutionary artist is Artus Talastas (aka Ka Libre, Forawet) of the Mountain Province who joined the NPA and died a martyr in Ifugao in 2013.<br />
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The most popular and most visible kind of sculptural work in the new democratic cultural revolution is the effigy. This is usually a crude representation of someone who is ridiculed for certain crimes against the people. It is made of nondurable materials because it is meant to be destroyed in a culminating public event. However, it can be perpetuated in a certain way through videography. Effigies can be videorecorded while being made, displayed and burnt and can be studied as a definite and continuous form of art. In fact, Prof. Lisa Ito has seriously studied effigies as objets d'art. They tend to overshadow the other sculptural works made by sculptors in studios and those wood carvers in prison and in the villages.<br />
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The most outstanding sculptor today in the national democratic movement is Rey Paz Contreras, He espouses and practises people's art and social realism. He has created cultural works that signify the people's struggle and has gifted the major mass organizations with these. He is also a favorite sculptor of special tokens of award for outstanding cadres. He draws inspiration from the artistic works of the indigenous people. He has experimented with the use of durable materials from discarded materials and from the environment. He has also pioneered in the development of community-based people's art, conducted workshops in the provinces and inspired the formation of many local art groups.<br />
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All sculptors in the Philippines, including the major ones like Contreras, need to earn a living and are thus open to commissions by government institutions, private corporations and churches. But the various national democratic mass organizations can also raise the resources through cultural fundraising events to commission the people's sculptors to create monuments, statues and other sculptures to celebrate the victories of the Philippine revolution and honor the revolutionary martyrs and heroes in various places in the Philippines. In this way, the people's sculptors have greater opportunities for creating people's social realist art.<br />
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Dramatic works, plays, operas and ballets have been written for the theatre of the people. Anti-colonial and anti-imperialist national heroes like Andres Bonifacio. Macario Sakay and General Antonio Luna have been depicted in plays and dramatic films to expose the villainy of cunning and capitulationist figures, such as Emilio Aquinaldo, the chief representative of the combination of conservative bourgeois liberal ilustrados and native landlords . The playwrights and critics Amelia Lapeña and Nick Tiongson aroused interest in the seditious plays against US colonial rule and inspired play writing in the revolutionary spirit. Religious rituals have also been transformed into protest plays like the Sinakulo, the Panunuluyan and the Pagsambang Bayan.<br />
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There are many writers of plays for the stage, movies and TV who have been influenced by the national democratic movement and who take a patriotic and progressive stand on historical and social issues related to the need for revolution. There is an anthology of plays that you can read and study, such as Antolohiya ng mga Dulang Mapaghimagsik , compiled by Glecy Atienza, Bienvenido Lumbrera and Galileo Zafra. In the files of the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA), there are plays of national and social protest like Macliing Dulag in the 1970s, the updated play of Aurelio Tolentino, Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas (restaged in 1992) , Minsa'y isang Gamu-gamu (1991), Domestic Helper (1992) and Walang Himala (2003). Prof. Eugene van Erven of the Utrecht University has written extensively on the progressive plays staged by the PETA in the 1990s.<br />
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Bonifacio Ilagan is one of the mostprolific playwrights. Despite having been imprisoned for his activism as a cadre of Kabataang Makabayan, he wrote in 1976 the play “Pagsambang Bayan” (People's Worship”) to expose the corruption and cruelties of the Marcos fascist dictatorship and express the people's outrage and cry for justice. The play was staged in 1977 in the University of the Philippines and many other venues. Since then, Boni Ilagan has written stage plays and screen plays as a matter of revolutionary service to the oppressed and exploited people. His stage plays include: Sigaw ng Bayan (1978), Langit Ma'y Madilim (1979), Anay sa Kahoy (1985) and Pulanlupa (1985). His screenplays include: The Flor Contemplacion Story (1995), Dukot (2008), Sigwa (2010), Deadline (2011) and Migrante (2012).<br />
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Operas, ballets, full-length musicales and multi-media productions that have been staged are: Andres Bonifacio, Ang Dakilang Anakpawis (1979), Ang Lampara (1980) involving the last moments Jose Rizal's life, Noli me Tangere (restaged in 1987), Ang Babaylan (1988) culminating in uprisings led by a succession of babaylans, Sa Sariling Bayan (1989), Asdang (1995), Monumento (1996), Samar (1998), Piketlayn ng Bayan (2000), Nasa Puso ang Amerika (2003), Kabataang Makabayan @ 40 (2004), Pira-pirasong Bangungot (Fragments of a Nightmare) (2007), EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson (2008), Ang Mga Lorena (2008), Makata'y Mandirigma (2009), U Ave (2009), Kalibre 45 (2003), Pitong Sundang (2010), Banaag at Sikat (2010) Hibik at Himagsik Nina Victoria Laktaw (2012), Maghimagsik! Andres Bonifacio: Rebolusyonaryo, Anakpawis (2013), Lean the Musicale (2013), Bayani (2014), Kabataang Makabayan: Paglingkuran ang Sambayanan (2015), Daluyong isang pahinumdom (2015) at Nanay Mameng: Isang Dula (2014 and 2015). National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera is the author of many of the aforementioned librettos. There have been other similar productions staged in regional urban centers by local cultural groups, typically in the local language of the region.<br />
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Inspired by the national democratic movement, movie directors like Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Behn Cervantes, Mike de Leon and script witers like Ricky Lee, Jose F. Lacaba, Lualhati Bautista, Jorge Arago, Soxy Topacio and Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr. played a crucial role in bringing up major social issues in Philippine cinema anddoing so with artistic excellence. They made master films during the martial law years despite repression. Brocka directed Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974), Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975), Insiang (1976) and Orapronobis (1989); Behn Cervantes, Sakada (1976); Bernal directed Manila by Night/City After Dark (1980) and Himala (1982); Peque Gallaga, Oro, Plata, Mata (1982) and Mike de Leon, Sister Stella L (1984)<br />
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Within the last two years of the Marcos fascist regime, Mike de Leon’s Sister Stella L., strongly denounced oppression and tyranny. In 1985, Lino Brocka’s Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (My Country: Grip the Knife’s Edge) depicted images of arbitrary detention, torture and struggles against oppression. In the aftermath, no serious films were made to depict the revolutionary movement which had struggled hard against the dictatorship, with exceptions such as Brocka's Orapronobis. Instead, shallow action thrillers were made out of the guerrilla stories of Bernabe Buscayno, Conrado Balweg, Victor Corpus and the Alex Boncayao Brigade.<br />
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In a bid to raise his political stature, which had gone with the fall of Marcos, Joseph Estrada produced in 1989 Sa Kuko ng Agila, a dramatic film against the US military bases, directed by Augusto Buenaventura and scripted by Ricky Lee. The next big film with high national and social significance was The Flor Contemplacion Story in 1995. It was directed by Joel Lamangan and scripted by Boni Ilagan and Ricky Lee. It was artistically and commercially successful and won the FAMAS Award and the Golden Pyramid Award, a major international film award.<br />
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In the aftermath of the general decline of the Philippine movie industry from the late years of the 1990s to the first decade of the 21st century, independent film productions have sprung up using digital technology. Patriotic and progressive film makers have a large part in the resurgence of indie film productions. In the 1990s, Raymond Red directed full-length films on revolutionary heroes Andres Bonifacio (Bayani) and Macario Sakay (Sakay).<br />
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Since 1909, Joel Lamangan as movie director and Boni Ilagan as scriptwriter have created a series of films that take up major social issues and challenge the ruling system. Sari and Kiri Dalena and Keith Sicat are also on the crest of a new wave by creating The Guerrilla Is a Poet in 2013. The very latest of patriotic and revolutional films are: Bonifacio: Unang Pangulo by Enzo Williams ( 2014) and Heneral Luna by Jerrold Tarog (2015). Please anticipate the forthcoming film of Arlyn de Cruz Tibak: Story of Kabataang Makabayan. We can expect more films of high artistic merit to express the people's cry for justice and fundamental change.<br />
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Today we have an abundance of directors, writers, actors, musicians, videographers, photographers and other visual artists and editors for producing plays on stage and on the screen. They are motivated by the people's aspirations for national and social liberation and have experience in mass activism and learning from the masses. They are beyond the clutches of what used to be the big studios and are thriving and multiplying on low budget indie films. They know how to use the stage without expensive props and new technical equipment that facilitate indie film production.<br />
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At the national, regional and local levels, there are many groups and audiovisual collectives that are making use of the latest portable audio-visual equipment and are increasing their capacity to produce films and other popular forms, such as short documentaries, music videos, and animated videos that easily find their way to online outlets such as Youtube. They organise events such as festivals and exhibitions of songs, poetry recitations, plays, paintings and progressive films. Examples of audio-visual groups and alternative media organizations which have emerged during the past fifteen years are Sipat, Kodao,Southern Tagalog Exposure, and Tudla Productions.<br />
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The lifelong works of artists for the people such as Bienvenido Lumbera, Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka have likewise been recognized by the National Artist Award (Gawad Artista ng Bayan), the highest national recognition given by the Philippine government to Filipinos who have made a significant contribution to the development of Philippine art and to promoting the country’s cultural heritage.<br />
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3. How artists and creative writers serve the people through art works.<br />
I am deeply pleased that for several decades already patriotic and progressive creative writers and artists have come forward to create works that are in the service of the people and carry a revolutionary character by exposing the basic ills of the semicolonial and semifeudal society in the Philippines and seeking the realization of a new democratic revolution for the national and social liberation of the people.<br />
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I am proud to have participated since the 1960s in clarifying and firming up the general line of people's democratic revolution and in striving in particular for a national, scientific and mass culture. So many creative writers and artists and the people have heeded the call for a Second Propaganda Movement and a cultural revolution of the new democratic type led by the working class.<br />
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It is a great honor for me that soon after the First Quarter Storm of 1970, I delivered key messages to the Nagkakaisang Progresibong mga Artista at Arkitekto (NPAA) and the Panulat para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (PAKSA), which had their respective founding congresses in August and December 1971. The significance of the messages in the continuing advance of revolutionary literature and art is indicated by their republication in Rebolusyonaryong panunuring masa sa sining at panitikan in 1992.<br />
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These messages discussed how the artists and creative writers could best serve the people, especially the oppressed and exploited, by taking the road of the new democratic revolution. For this purpose, the creative writers and artists who in most cases come from the petty bourgeois intelligentsia must remould their class outlook, learn from the toiling masses of workers and peasants, avail of every possible literary and form in order to infuse it with revolutionary content and promote the exemplary works through publications and performances<br />
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To serve the people through art works,artists and creative writers can begin to learn from their own observations and reading about the social conditions of the people but must soonest connect with the masses and learn from them their hardships and suffering, their needs and demands and their struggles and aspirations. They must know the social reality from the masses themselves and seek to inspire them to fight and liberate themselves from exploitation and oppression.<br />
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They must grasp the point that their art works can have as much significance as they can serve the people in their most important struggles for national and social liberation. They must go to the workers and peasants to learn the concrete facts of life and draw the essential and typical for embodiment in their works. Whenever possible, they must go to the Red fighters to learn from them how they wage the most intense forms of struggle against the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. They must depict the dignity and heroism of the workers, peasants and Red fighters.<br />
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Enlightenment or education is the most important aim of a serious and significant work. The aim of entertainment can be achieved by the life-like rendering of social reality in literature and art, by the satirical representation of adversaries and by a certain measure of comic self acknowledgment or self-criticism of errors and shortcomings. But entertainment to trivialize the basic problems and struggles of the people or deflect attention from these is a reactionary act of deception.<br />
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Revolutionary literature and art are for raising and sharpening the fighting will and unity of the people. They are weapons for defeating the enemy and paving the way for national and social liberation. Creative writers and artists must be fully conscious of being cadres and commanders of cultural battalions for defeating the pro-imperialist and reactionary propaganda and culture. They are an integral part of the revolutionary mass movement for overthrowing the ruling system and installing the people's democratic state.<br />
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They must continue to use the tools and methods of cultural work and literary and artistic production that are most available to most people. But they must also use the new technology for instant communications, efficient production and audio-visual presentations. The point is to spread the revolutionary message the quickest way on the widest scale and facilitate and accelerate the awakening, organization and mobilization of the broad masses of the people for the revolutionary cause.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-73375468665215520622015-07-29T07:59:00.000+08:002015-07-29T07:59:28.352+08:00Philippines' most wanted man still believes in the revolutionary struggleExiled Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison has been a political refugee in the Netherlands for nearly 28 years<br />
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Raissa Robles in Utrecht, The Netherlands<br />
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PUBLISHED : Sunday, 26 July, 2015, 4:34pm<br />
UPDATED : Sunday, 26 July, 2015, 4:35pm<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/1843652/philippines-most-wanted-man-still-believes-revolutionary">http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/1843652/philippines-most-wanted-man-still-believes-revolutionary</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/1843652/philippines-most-wanted-man-still-believes-revolutionary" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikS0SfaB499mUS4oR7uYYLPJ7ro6fcTngZk0maWao08DPxg88gi-eMp-_Rxuy27hAIuz0yFfqxWTCndx03MzWB6JJBu9mVhchmIYyeZ6pXpXNGggYT1peBtrrdLKJCZpymC6fj/s400/robles-on-sison.jpg" /></a></div><br />
In a working-class Dutch neighbourhood in Utrecht a few minutes walk from the central train station stands a small shop that looks abandoned from the outside. There's nothing to indicate that behind the nondescript door and smudged glass window is the headquarters of the Philippines' most wanted man, exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison.<br />
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Its shabbiness, beside a costume rental shop and a store selling party favours, masks bold ambition: to take over the reins of government and install a socialist society in the Philippines.<br />
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"In a socialist society," Sison says, "there are still certain classes such as those of the workers and peasants but these are no longer subject to the ruling exploiting classes. Incomes are still earned according to the quantity and quality of work done. The reduction of working hours is accomplished from stage to stage. Social services and cultural facilities keep on expanding. There is still a state that defends society from counter-revolutionaries and imperialist aggressors."<br />
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With nearly one of every four Filipinos still living below the poverty line and a mere 3 per cent of the 100 million population owning a majority of the nation's wealth, Sison's message still finds fertile ground among the working class, university students and in remote villages populated by indigenous ethnic groups.<br />
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Take the Manobo tribe on the southern island of Mindanao, which is currently fighting to keep its school open despite pressure from the Philippine Armed Forces. The military insists that the CPP's armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA), now secretly runs the school and uses it to teach subversive ideas and recruit Manobos.<br />
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Lila Shahani, an assistant secretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission under the Office of the President, says there is some truth to the soldiers' claim: "Current military figures estimate that out of a total 1,866 NPAs active in the Northern Mindanao region, 74 per cent are IPs (indigenous persons)."<br />
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However, the Oxford-educated official - who happens to be a niece of former President Fidel Ramos - said the government is failing to address the root cause of the Manobos' discontent, namely, the exploitation of their land by one of the country's billionaires.<br />
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"So long as these deep structural issues persist, Manobos and others like them will turn to groups like the NPA, or other home-grown insurgencies, for relief and defence," Shahani warns.<br />
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Ironically, Sison comes from the very class which he seeks to overthrow. His family owned vast tracts of land and traces its ancestry to a Chinese trader who sailed from Fujian.<br />
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Sison says he would not have escaped the narrow ambition of his class if not for his village barber. As his barber cut his hair, he regaled the young Sison with stories about the Huks or armed guerrillas who fought for their land in Central Luzon, north of Manila.<br />
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"My barber talked about the need for the workers and peasants to overthrow the big capitalists and landlord class by armed force because, in the first place, these exploiting classes use violence to perpetuate their system against the working people," said Sison in an interview last week.<br />
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"What the barber said complemented what I heard from farm workers who had returned to my hometown after a stint of being tabaseros (sugar cane cutters) in Central Luzon. They said that the Huks were good, for advocating the free distribution of land to the tillers," Sison recalled.<br />
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At 20, while studying for a degree in English and literature at the University of the Philippines, Sison organised his first group, the Student Cultural Association of the Philippines.<br />
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According to Ninotchka Rosca - co-author with Sison of his semi-autobiographical book Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World, Portrait of a Revolutionary - it was Sison who "made acceptable the concepts of mass organisations and mass mobilisations".<br />
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The works of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong would inspire Sison to come up with a Filipino version of protracted armed struggle. However, Sison's revolution would be exploited by President Ferdinand Marcos, whose family comes from the same region as Sison. In 1972, Marcos imposed military rule, claiming he was saving the Philippines from a Sison-led revolution. Five years later in 1977, Sison would fall into Marcos's hands.<br />
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Sison recalled that Marcos spoke to him in Ilocano, "perhaps to show that we belonged to the same tribe". But Sison responded in English and Filipino.<br />
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Marcos tried to flatter his prisoner saying, "I've been reading your works, your writings" and hinted that the two were not so far apart in thought and could cooperate together.<br />
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He said he replied to Marcos: "Yes, if it's for the people we can cooperate. If you keep on borrowing lots of money from abroad, some day the US will dump you when you become more of a liability than an asset."<br />
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Marcos told him, "You talk like an Aquino", referring to the late Senator Benigno Aquino, father of the incumbent President Aquino. Marcos would have his revenge on Sison. He was beaten, given water torture, electric shock treatment and shackled to a cot for 18 months in solitary confinement.<br />
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Sison was also tried, along with the elder Aquino, before a military court. Then, in 1983, the unexpected: Aquino was shot as he disembarked a plane surrounded by soldiers at Manila's airport, setting in motion the chain of events that would lead to Marcos's ouster. Three years later, Sison was conditionally released from jail by Aquino's widow, President Corazon Aquino, pending peace talks with the communist rebels.<br />
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But while on a world tour, Sison's Filipino passport was revoked. He and his wife Julieta de Lima have been political refugees in the Netherlands for nearly 28 years since.<br />
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Does he dream of going back? "I do not just dream, even in the sense of imagining a better world that can arise from the people's struggle," Sison, now 76, replied.<br />
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"I deal with realities and do whatever I can in the revolutionary struggle of the people."<br />
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"Like Lenin before the outbreak of the first world war, I am not sure whether the revolution would win in my lifetime," he said. "But I am sure that the neoliberal policy of imperialist globalisation, the wars of aggression and the intensified inter-imperialist contradictions are already generating the conditions for an unprecedented upsurge of the revolutionary movements for national liberation, people's democracy and socialism."<br />
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To Sison, no country has established a truly communist state. "It is simply journalistic parlance in the Western media to call communist a state or society governed by a communist party," he said.<br />
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Should his group ever come to power, Sison describes his vision: "There can be a model for a people's democratic system gliding into socialist revolution and construction. This model can be a composite of the best features of the people's democracies and socialist societies that have arisen in history before the successful betrayal of socialism by modern revisionists. More importantly, the model takes into account the history, circumstances and aspirations of the Filipino people."<br />
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Having bedevilled six Philippine presidents, Sison's party may yet continue to hound the next.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-9852726107840091912015-07-22T11:05:00.002+08:002015-07-22T11:05:23.850+08:00Sketching is not a crime!<i>*Mula ito sa <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153431433163917&set=a.417098798916.194982.548878916&type=1">facebook post ni Randy Valiente</a></i><br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153431433163917&set=a.417098798916.194982.548878916&type=1" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFNEH123CiRsISImEko1uOgRJ18nm0cfGj-UxWNpKXeVQ9L5zoXhYoLLRpBlaHBpL61K2yk4ZnJImvNR5rBsoOfWCjisGMxCrruuKhcFq5VRwaN1QcYhDVy2x5hYeLrG8UvX3o/s640/bawal-magsketch-sa-cubao.jpg" width="100%"/></a><br />
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SKETCHING IS NOT A CRIME!<br />
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Kung mapapansin ninyo ay blangko ang mga sketchbooks na hawak namin. Ginanap ang USk sketchwalk sa Farmers Cubao noong sabado, napagkasunduang i-capture namin sa pamamagitan ng drawing ang usual market scenes. Karamihan ay nakaupo sa Dampa (para itong foodcourt ng lugar) at doon mag-sketch para mas komportable. Maya-maya ay pinahinto kami ng guard at ng admin ng Farmers, bawal daw mag-sketch. Kaya nagpunta ang coordinator namin sa opisina nila upang ipakilala ang grupo. Pero para hindi na humaba ay lumipat kami sa Cubao Expo sa pag-aakalang mas okay dun dahil artist hub naman 'yun, pero sa kamalasan ay pinatigil din kami ng guard at hinihingian pa kami ng permit ng admin.<br />
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Cubao is not a sketching-friendly place! Am I wrong?<br />
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Naging hot topic ito sa fb group ng USk at nalaman ko na hindi lang pala ang USk-Ph ang nakaranas nito kundi ibang sketchers group at plein air painters din. Hindi lang sa Cubao kundi sa ibang lugar na rin sa Kamaynilaan. Kailan pa naging krimen ang pagbitbit ng sketchpad at paggawa ng sining sa public place?<br />
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Napaparanoid ang karamihan at baka front lang ng mga terorista at masasamang loob ang sketching? Kailangan ng tamang edukasyon ang mga kinauukulan sa ganitong activities. We are so IGNORANT with this kind of event at yung hindi pamilyar sa ating paningin ay nagmimistulang threat sa security. There is a big problem of what's this and what's that with this society, matagal na. Abala kasi tayo sa mga nonsensical activities at entertainments kaya hindi na natin ma-distinguish kung ano ang may value at wala.<br />
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Since time immemorial ay ginagawa na ito ng mga artists para ma-capture ang ganda ng paligid at para maging reference na rin.<br />
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Magbi-benefit dito ang lugar para ma-promote ang kanilang area, lalo pa't commercial establishments, at ang Urban Sketchers ay isang worldwide artist organization at ang gawa namin ay idini-displey sa USk international website kaya nakikita ng buong mundo at nagiging bahagi ng turismo (at hindi kami binabayaran ng gobyerno sa promotion na ito).<br />
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(photo by Ige Ochoa Trinidad)<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-18891203768482564042015-06-27T18:40:00.000+08:002015-06-28T08:44:19.777+08:00Philippine NGOs: Defusing Dissent, Spurring Change<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nordis.net/?p=17916" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJXj9mnrm9SFRWiPUk3j_Y6-hFRYpV-7WOFUe8DVKS36coEQ0DCRsg1SfIM-SaDEXsTMvrgGuti-u0ON6zmQsZX6tiELpRisyk6PtcNAJWZCt8mx1p8482WUMewTzQ_h8tUdF/s400/sonny-africa-nordis.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<h4>Philippine NGOs: Defusing Dissent, Spurring Change</h4>By Sonny Africa<br />
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The Philippines has one of the longest-running and reputedly among the largest and most active civil society movements in the developing world <sup><a href="#1">1</a></sup>. Millions of Filipinos now participate in or are influenced by citizen-based organizations amid the right to assembly, free speech, a lively press, open elections and a market economy. Mirroring global trends over the last three decades, Philippine non-government organizations (NGOs) in particular have multiplied and expanded the range of their development activities.<br />
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The supposedly transformative potential of NGOs and of civil society in general should presumably be evident in the Philippines, if anywhere, but there is instead a disturbing lack of progress: still widespread poverty and severe inequality, entrenched vested interests in the economy, oligarchic and patronage politics, and tens of millions of Filipinos remaining disempowered with little real control over their economic and political lives. Underlying patterns of socioeconomic backwardness and elite rule persist even if increasingly overlaid with pro-people NGO and pro-democracy “civil society” features.<br />
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The Philippine experience highlights the possibilities but also the practical limits of NGOs as opposition to prevailing hegemonies. In the country's specific conditions and historical context the general tendency has been for NGOs to operate in accordance with prevailing political and economic arrangements rather than in sustained opposition to these. Whether consciously or inadvertently, they have aligned with the conservative political program of the established State rather than of progressive social movements challenging inequitable structures. This is notwithstanding a brief activist counter-current among NGOs mainly during the Martial Law interregnum.<br />
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The chapter begins by clarifying its notion of “NGOs” and tracking Philippine NGO trends over the last decades against the overall backdrop of so-called civil society and the country's major social forces. Particularly relevant is how NGOs increased in number, scope and participation in governance since the second half of the 1980s largely in line with the global neoliberal offensive instead of in resistance to this; this trend continues under the current Aquino government. This is followed by an overview of economic policies and poor development outcomes in the country to emphasize the persistent underdevelopment amid decades of NGOization. This discussion points to how NGOs helped create the political conditions for implementing neoliberal policies. Taking all these into consideration the chapter concludes with how NGOs as a whole can at most have only a subsidiary role in the struggle for fundamental social change.<br />
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<h5>NGOs and civil society in the Philippines</h5><br />
NGOs are part of a broader “civil society” in the Philippines that also includes people's organizations (POs), cooperatives, church groups, professional or business-related associations, academe and assorted other non-state and non-business organizations. From a social change perspective, NGOs and POs are particularly significant not just because development-oriented NGOs generally express links with POs in pursuit of their goals but because together they comprise the largest portion of politically active groups amongst this so-called civil society.<br />
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The term “NGO” is interpreted in many ways from the sweeping “non-government” understood literally to include everything outside of the official government machinery, to the more restricted and legalistic “non-stock, non-profit corporations,” to the most limited notion of only referring to expressly social development-oriented NGOs. For consistency this chapter uses “NGOs” to refer to non-government and non-profit organizations – regardless of funding source, ideology (or lack thereof), values and orientation – that provide development-related services to other groups, communities or individuals. This definition covers the likes of charity or welfare groups, social foundations set up by private business groups, as well as more ideologically-grounded activist NGOs. All these NGOs are generally staffed by more or less full-time “professional” NGO workers (as opposed to unpaid volunteer or part-time workers).<br />
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NGOs combine into different kinds of alliances, coalitions and networks. The Caucus of Development NGOs (CODE-NGO) is the Philippines' largest network of NGOs with a membership of some 2,000 and illustrates these diverse combinations. Among others CODE-NGO includes six national networks and six regional networks. The six national networks each have distinct identities: rural development (PHILDHRRA), urban development (PHILSSA), corporate members (PBSP), services for children and youth (NCSD), cooperatives (NATCCO) and an association of foundations (AF).<sup><a href="#2">2</a></sup> The regional networks in turn respectively cover the country's Bicol, Cordillera, Eastern Visayas, Western Visayas, Central Visayas and Mindanao regions which are among the poorest areas in the country. There are also other permutations in NGO groupings such as the Council for People's Development and Governance (CPDG) which is a national network of NGOs and POs with programs on poverty alleviation, environmental protection, women, children, disaster risk reduction and aid effectiveness and democratic governance.<br />
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POs on the other hand are membership-based organizations of citizens coming together to advance their common/collective interests and welfare and are sometimes referred to as grassroots organizations or community-based organizations. Politically active POs are generally organized along class/sectoral lines (e.g. peasant organizations, trade unions, indigenous peoples, youth, overseas Filipino workers), gender (e.g. women), geographical proximity (e.g.. village, province) or some permutation or combination of these. Among the largest and most active Filipino POs are the peasant <i>Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas</i> (KMP), fisherfolk <i>Pamalakaya</i>, worker <i>Kilusang Mayo Uno</i> (KMU), Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and women's group GABRIELA which are all national formations with local chapters. But there is also <i>Migrante International</i> which has country chapters of overseas Filipino workers around the world. POs can also come together under a multi-PO multi-sectoral umbrella such as the <i>Bagong Alyansang Makabayan</i> (BAYAN).<br />
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The Philippines has a reputation for having a “vibrant civil society”.<sup><a href="#3">3</a></sup> Estimates of the number of civil society groups and of NGOs varies widely due to the lack of generally accepted definitions, inadequate monitoring and the fluidity of their operations. An NGO literature review gives an estimate of “between 249,000-497,000 [non-profit] organizations.<sup><a href="#4">4</a></sup> The Asian Development Bank (ADB) similarly acknowledges “up to 500,000” civil society groups but specifies between 3,000-5,000 “development-oriented” NGOs among these.<sup><a href="#5">5</a></sup> The World Bank (WB) on the other hand cites “an estimated 18,000 registered NGOs” in the country.<sup><a href="#6">6</a></sup> The Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC) mentions “as many as 60,000 non-profit, non-governmental organizations”. The most recent comprehensive study on the matter compiles figures from various sources and reports that the number of NGOs in the country is estimated to range from “between 15,000 and 30,000” to “around 34,000 to 68,000”.<sup><a href="#8">8</a></sup><br />
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Regardless of the exact numbers the Philippine NGO sector is not insignificant – and apparently even relatively large compared to other countries – even as the biggest number of NGOs are apparently small with less than 25 staff and often struggle financially.<sup><a href="#9">9</a></sup> Rough estimates of the number of NGO staff in the Philippines place these at around one percent (1%) of the total 37.2 million employed in 2011 (for comparison the public sector accounts for some 5% of total employment).<sup><a href="#10">10</a></sup><br />
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There is no direct survey of the ideological tendencies underpinning the country's numerous NGOs but various indirect evidence supports the notion that only a minority are actively engaged in mass struggles with POs, national policy reforms, local government and related political activities. Indeed there is reason to suspect that their political views and levels of political engagement are so disparate that they have no qualitative impact as a whole beyond the mere sum of their incongruent parts.<br />
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Philippine NGOs chiefly implement projects and provide social development-related services to their chosen constituencies covering education, training and human resource development and community development.<sup><a href="#11">11</a></sup> Taking the CODE-NGO network as an example, a survey of its members found these concentrated in education/training/human resource development (77% of NGOs surveyed), health/nutrition (44%) and enterprise/livelihood development (43%) versus, at the other end of the scale, agrarian reform (18%), urban poor (12%) and labor organizing (3%).<sup><a href="#12">12</a></sup> While such a profile of activities does not necessarily mean political passiveness the bias towards welfare projects and income-generation is clear.<br />
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That result can also be read with how one of the few NGO surveys in the country found that “few NGO respondents implement asset reform programs” because they are “prone to conflict and therefore more difficult to implement” which indicates a tendency to avoid addressing important structural inequities that requires political activism.<sup><a href="#13">13</a></sup> NGOs' choice of sectoral partners certainly leans towards non-controversial ones: children and youth (57% of respondents) and women (53%) versus peasants (35%), urban poor (33%) and labor (13%).<sup><a href="#14">14</a></sup> Taken together these can be interpreted as indicating how Philippine NGOs are mainly about immediate service delivery rather than about long-term struggles mobilizing grassroots sectors against systemic inequities in resources and power.<br />
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This characterization is consistent with the results of a recent nationwide survey: while almost half of the population (46%) considered themselves active members of at least one civil society organization, only about a quarter (26%) considered themselves active members of at least one political organization and just 15% participated in political activities (understood merely as attending a demonstration, signing a petition or joining a boycott).<sup><a href="#15">15</a></sup> The same survey also found that just some 5% and 10% of the population considered themselves active members of an NGO and PO, respectively, versus 34% for church or religious organizations, 10% for sports/recreational organizations and 6% for art, music or education organizations.<sup><a href="#16">16</a></sup><br />
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It can be roughly estimated that there are perhaps only some hundreds or few thousand NGOs that are more activist in the sense of operating with a more consciously political framework and a self-definition as actively working for more profound social change. Increasing the political power of erstwhile disempowered sectors always figures strongly with such NGOs whether in the sense of being accumulated from the ground up through ever-expanding grassroots organizations or by working within state structures or via some combination of both. An example of this approach is the Council for Health and Development (CHD) which provides health services and sets up community-based health programs under a framework of the social determinants of health – or where ill health is rooted in structural poverty and not just the absence of health services. CHD thus also works closely with the Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) which is a PO describing itself as “composed of individuals from the health sector who adhere to the principles of the Filipino people's struggle for sovereignty and democracy”.<br />
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The social development and service delivery orientation of NGOs results in a particularly significant characteristic with implications for how they operate as a sector: they are resource-intensive and dependent on external funding. They require continuous and sustained human, technical and financial resources to keep providing services to their chosen beneficiaries while, conversely, are chronically unable to generate substantial incomes in the normal course of their operations because their beneficiaries are poor communities and sectors. This makes them reliant on external subsidies and correspondingly vulnerable to the priorities, values and orientation of these external subsidizers.<br />
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As it is, Philippine NGOs' main sources of funding are foreign (on which 48% of NGOs primarily rely), corporate (12%) and government (10%) sources.<sup><a href="#17">17</a></sup> The foreign sources could be Northern NGOs although a recent trend is for these Northern donors to themselves be tapping official funding in their home countries and hence being drawn into the foreign policy frameworks of their own governments. The European Union (EU) and individual European governments for instance have so-called co-financing arrangements where they fund European NGOs who in turn provide grants to NGO partners in the South according to priorities set by the official agencies which are the primary source of funds.<sup><a href="#18">18</a></sup><br />
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Business groups have also become increasingly active in the NGO sector which further blurs the supposed civil society-market distinction. The Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) was set up in 1970 and describes itself as a corporate-led foundation of more than 240 member-companies pledging one percent (1%) of their companies' net income before taxes for poverty reduction and committed to corporate social responsibility (CSR); it reports having supported 6,200 projects with 3,300 organizations and 4.5 million beneficiaries in 65 provinces.<sup><a href="#19">19</a></sup> Since 2000, PBSP has been the most organized expression of the business sector's support for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There is also the League of Corporate Foundations which has been growing in number from around 60 members in 2005 to over 80 in 2010 which reflects both their access to corporate financial resources as well as the CSR trend.<sup><a href="#20">20</a></sup><br />
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The nature of NGO funding sources and the corresponding process of fund-raising is potentially problematic where NGOs will be predisposed, consciously or unconsciously, to functioning within the political and economic spaces acceptable to the State and private enterprises that sponsor them – else these discretionary funds would just go to other NGOs who share the development paradigm espoused by government and big business. The reality is that organizations with the financial resources to spare for NGOs will generally be conservative and will not be inclined to be counter-hegemonic. Diverse funding sources with respective priorities and requirements will also tend to aggravate the fragmentation of NGOs who are already extremely diverse as it is in terms of lines of work and political orientation.<br />
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The chronic backwardness and underdevelopment in the country are conditions for the rise of radical alternatives outside the more accustomed forms of civil society and NGO social action. The mainstream Left in the Philippines – referring to the “national democrats” which still compose the largest and most organized Left formation in the country – is meaningful for remaining resilient in the face of “end of history” triumphalism. This bloc continues to work on the basis of an understanding of the structural problems of the country and the crisis of capitalism. It correspondingly still gives primacy to working class politics as the building blocks for wider social change which means a much greater emphasis on ideological work and organizing peasants, workers, national minorities and other oppressed groups into POs towards claiming political power rather than on service NGOs.<br />
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It is also important to emphasize that the conventional categorization of social forces being split into State, market and civil society is particularly inappropriate in the Philippine context which has armed revolutionary movements going back for at least four decades. The influence of these movements includes parallel governance structures in large portions of the country's territory.<sup><a href="#21">21</a></sup> The biggest and most important are the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP) that operates in 70 of 79 provinces across the country, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front-Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (MILF-BIAF) which is active in 14 provinces in the southern Philippines.<sup><a href="#22">22</a></sup> These radical alternatives are objectively the strongest counterpoint to neocolonialism and capitalism in the country.<br />
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The CPP decries the “semicolonial and semifeudal” character of present-day Philippine society in which the Filipino people suffer from “foreign and feudal domination”.<sup><a href="#23">23</a></sup> It declares that it is waging a “national democratic revolution” which, upon victory, will proceed to the “socialist revolution”. The integral components of its “protracted people's war” are explicit: “revolutionary armed struggle, land reform and mass-base building”. The CPP categorically opposes neoliberalism as imperialist globalization. The MILF's struggle on the other hand asserts political and military control over territories in Mindanao based on a legacy of protecting the ancestral domains of Moro sultanates there. The Moro struggle espouses the right to self-determination and the creation of an independent Bangsamoro homeland.<br />
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<h5>Historical sketch of Philippine NGOs</h5><br />
The Philippines has a long history of civil society organizations dating back to at least 19 century Spanish colonial times and early 20th century American colonization covering various church welfare groups, charities, cooperatives, anti-colonial/pro-independence resistance, peasant and labor groups, and other service groups.<sup><a href="#24">24</a></sup> In terms of NGOs, the years immediately after the Second World War saw more welfare and civic organizations formed for post-war relief and rehabilitation for poor communities; many of these focused on children, the elderly and persons with disabilities. In the late 1940s and early 1950s some community development NGOs were set up in perceived Communist-influenced areas in the country's Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions to provide health, education and cooperative services and undercut support for the armed struggle.<sup><a href="#25">25</a></sup> Among the most prominent anti-Communist NGOs set up in this period were the Jesuit-organized Institute for Social Order (ISO) in 1947 and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) in 1952. The early 1960s saw the start of family, corporate, and scientific foundations in the country.<sup><a href="#26">26</a></sup><br />
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The contemporary history of civil society and NGOs in the Philippines however can be said to have begun during the Marcos regime from the late 1960s and especially upon Martial Law in the 1970s. While most NGOs remained characteristically welfare-oriented and non-activist social development organizations, a visible sub-section of progressive NGOs emerged in the 1970s and 1980s which did not just implement the usual socioeconomic and welfare projects but also widely propagandized and organized resistance to the regime in close coordination with POs. The external conditions were set by how revolutionary and anti-imperialist social movements were surging abroad and how the Catholic and Protestant churches adopted more socially progressive orientations after, respectively, Vatican II and exhortations by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Under this influence Filipino church-based NGOs became an important beachhead for the expansion of anti-dictatorship NGOs and POs.<br />
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Further momentum came from how the Filipino radical Left at the time did not just wage armed revolt but also underpinned legal aboveground opposition through civil society including NGOs. This period saw the mobilization of wide swathes of the population from the lower to the upper classes which combined with the Communist and Moro armed struggles to weaken and eventually overthrow the Marcos regime. Particularly notable and with implications until this day is how these Left-driven NGO and PO efforts were often expressly couched in terms of a larger struggle for systemic change which injected an activist dynamism and degree of counter-hegemonic ideology in generally conservative civil society and the public in general. For instance, the community-based health programs (CBHPs) set up by the religious Sisters of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) were explicit in their orientation: “The underlying causes of health problems in society are deeply embedded in the social, economic and political structures… The CBHP is [not] the answer to all health problems, but serves as a means to initiate social transformation.”<sup><a href="#27">27</a></sup> The important role peasant- and trade union-linked NGOs and POs played in expanding political opposition to the dictatorship and even in supporting the armed struggles exemplifies their mobilizing potential. The late 1970s also saw innovations towards environmental, indigenous peoples, women, and migrant workers' issues and even cultural work.<br />
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But this was in the specific historical circumstances of Martial Law, an overt dictatorship and a single dominant channel – the radical Left which gave primacy to mass-based POs organized along class lines – to give vent to the impulse for change. The 1986 “People Power” uprising was quickly hailed as some kind of model for a peaceful transition from authoritarianism to democracy. It was also widely interpreted even in sections of radical Leftist circles as changing the nature of the Philippine state into one more pliable to social and economic reforms such as upon the influence of NGOs, POs and civil society in general. Indeed this was among the major orientational fault lines causing a split within the Communist Left between those who affirmed a “protracted people's war” strategy and those who entertained other paths to social and political change including, among others, more actively engaging the government to implement reforms in a process of gradual transforming the current elite democracy into a more participatory democracy.<sup><a href="#28">28</a></sup><br />
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That premise of a more pliable State dovetailed with the emerging neoliberal governance paradigm of civil society as remedying authoritarianism, improving transparency and accountability, and leading to equitable economic development. Together they impelled the emergence of a systematic framework in the Philippines for NGOs to engage and participate in, rather than contest, the state.<br />
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This governance concept advanced on two fronts since the mid-1980s. From the foreign side, the United Nations (UN), international financial institutions (IFIs) and virtually every major government with neoliberal foreign policy objectives started promoting this notion. NGOs were portrayed as more deeply embedded in communities, innovative, cost effective and development-oriented than government agencies.<br />
<br />
IFIs institutionalized mechanisms to engage civil society organizations (CSO) and NGOs. The case of the World Bank (WB) and ADB which are among the Philippines' biggest sources of official development aid is illustrative. The WB reports that “active CSO involvement” in its global operations has risen steadily “from 21% of the total number of projects in 1990 to 82% in 2009” and that “civil society participation occurs throughout the project cycle from the design and planning stages, to implementation and monitoring.”<sup><a href="#29">29</a></sup> It also reports “civil society engagement in 75% of its loans, 87% of country assistance strategies, and 100% of poverty reduction strategy papers in the period 2007-2009”.<sup><a href="#30">30</a></sup> The ADB in turn reports that 81% of its approved loans, grants and related technical assistance today included some form of CSO participation<sup><a href="#31">31</a></sup>; in 1990, only 5% of ADB loan approvals “involved NGOs directly in some manner”.<sup><a href="#32">32</a></sup><br />
<br />
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw tens of millions of dollars in overseas funding going to NGOs through various windows. Among others the WB gave a US$20 million “biodiversity conservation grant” for the NGOs for Integrated Protected Areas (NIPAS) program and access to its Small Grants Fund. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had a US$25 million debt-for-nature arrangement with the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE) in 1993 aside from over US$30 million for co-financing NGOs in the period 1989-1996. The Canadian government gave US$15.3 million for the <i>Diwata</i> project and the Philippine Development Assistance Program (PDAP), the Swiss government gave US$25 million for the Foundation for a Sustainable Society, Inc. (FSSI) and so on.<br />
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On the domestic front, consecutive post-Marcos administrations built up institutional mechanisms for working with NGOs that established a framework for their participation in governance. The Corazon Aquino government (1986-1992) enshrined the role of NGOs and POs in Philippine development in three articles of the 1987 Constitution. Civil society was also formally given a role in local governance through the Local Government Code of 1991 which created local development councils that must include NGOs and POs (composing a quarter of its members) and gave NGOs positions in local school boards, health boards, peace and order councils, law enforcement boards, and procurement committees. NGO/PO liaison desks were also set up in the government's departments of agrarian reform, environment and natural resources and health.<br />
<br />
The Ramos government (1992-1998) set up a National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) with formal NGO representation, organized a series of multisectoral summits on NGO issues such as the environment, poverty, food, water and peace, and drew up a Social Reform Agenda (SRA) comprehensively covering NGO concerns. CSOs were given spots in the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) which was actively used to coordinate work between these two branches of government. The Estrada (1998-2001), Arroyo (2001-2010) and Benigno Aquino, III (2010- ) governments did not introduce anything substantially new relative to NGOs but built on those previous efforts and further institutionalized them.<br />
<br />
It is also notable that this series of administrations gave rising numbers of government positions to NGO leaders with long histories of political activism.<sup><a href="#33">33</a></sup> These included Cabinet-rank positions in agrarian reform, social welfare, education, health, housing, peace and others aside from various national and regional posts.<sup><a href="#34">34</a></sup> These NGO leaders kept their ties with NGOs and POs which served as important means by which to bring civil society on board in official programs and projects and hence give substance to the NGO/PO-related institutional mechanisms being put in place. NGOs were particularly visible in the implementation of agrarian reform communities, health service devolution, housing projects, environmental projects and indigenous people's programs.<br />
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NGOs apparently also financially benefited from such ties. A prominent controversy in this regard was in 2001 when CODE-NGO was accused of using its influence to make a government flotation of Treasury bonds more profitable in favour of a specific purchaser for which it received a large Php1.5 billion (US$29 million at prevailing exchange rates) commission for zero cash outlay. This was around the time that key CODE-NGO leaders held the top positions in the government's social welfare department, anti-poverty commission, urban poor commission, civil service commission and presidential management staff (aside from the CODE-NGO chair being the sister of the finance secretary).<br />
<br />
The neoliberal governance paradigm, Philippine government civil society mechanisms, and greater NGO openness to work with government were conditions for the proliferation of NGOs in the post-Marcos dictatorship era and by one estimate the number of NGOs increased from an estimated 5,000 in 1986 to over 15,000 by the end of the decade.<sup><a href="#35">35</a></sup><br />
<br />
But it was not only that new NGOs were being formed – even erstwhile protest or activist NGOs were shifting towards socioeconomic programs and participating in government or official aid programs. There was a financial dynamic underpinning this. During the Marcos regime anti-dictatorship NGOs were able to access foreign funding from politically-sympathetic international NGOs, church-based funding agencies, solidarity groups and even political parties. This type of funding dried up upon the “democratic space” of the Corazon Aquino government – often replaced by official government sources – and the demand was increasingly for so-called concrete or tangible gains that were not always compatible with the priorities of NGOs seeking structural change.<br />
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Indeed there was also an ideological dynamic. Left-leaning groups that eschewed armed struggle replaced this with, in effect, an approach of seeking an accumulation of social, political and economic changes through alliances with perceived reformist wings of the local bourgeoisie and landlords as well as through electoral victories.<sup><a href="#36">36</a></sup> Mass-based organizations are still invoked as the axis of struggles but these are not developed as units of democratic political power for eventually replacing the State but rather as vital points of leverage with which to modify the functioning of the existing elite-dominated State. This trend arguably also reduced the activism and militancy of the portion of the country's social movement that relied on these NGOs for intellectual direction and that correspondingly also bought into the poverty alleviation, sustainable development, participatory democracy and good governance agenda.<br />
<br />
In any case it is clear that NGOization in the Philippines was mainly upon the initiative and according to the terms set by the government and international agencies which goes far in explaining the inherently conservative tendencies of NGOs as a whole. It can also be put forward that the way NGOization has developed has created tendencies toward political demobilization and atomistic communities. First is how accepting domestic or foreign official funding could, even inadvertently, diminish NGO independence and their taking up systemic concerns. Second is how NGOs may find themselves entangled in the intrinsic bureaucracies of government or official agencies which further strains their already scarce resources and attention. Third is how the communities the NGOs service may themselves get caught up in a reactionary fund-driven dynamic where they become preoccupied with short-term material benefits and disinclined towards the painstaking efforts needed for structural change and longer-lasting gains; the bias moreover is for self-help rather than farther-reaching collective efforts. This is reinforced by how the immediate gains from externally-funded NGO projects and mechanisms will often surpass those from merely internally-financed but collective efforts. And fourth is how competition for finite funding even means that NGOs, and communities, are in effect competing with each other for this.<br />
<br />
<h5>NGOization today</h5><br />
Developments during the current administration of Pres. Benigno Aquino III which came to power in mid-2010 affirm the continuation of decades-long trends. Among the high-level positions going to NGO leaders are the social welfare department, national anti-poverty commission, human rights commission and presidential adviser for political affairs. The Akbayan Party which was formed by various NGO leaders – some of whom now hold Cabinet-level positions – is also in coalition with Pres. Aquino's traditional political party the Liberal Party.<br />
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The current government also shows how NGOs and community projects are used against challenges to the State. This phenomenon takes sharpest form in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) latest internal security plan for 2011-2016 Bayanihan.<sup><a href="#37">37</a></sup> The plan declares taking a “Whole of Nation Approach [and] People-Centered Security/Human Security Approach” with “community-based peace and development efforts” as one of its four strategic concepts (the others being military operations, peace processes, and internal AFP reforms). “NGOs, POs and CSOs” are explicitly defined as responders astride the government's military and civilian agencies and are declared “indispensable [in filling the gaps] in the dispensation of tasks and functions of national government agencies and local government units.”<sup><a href="#38">38</a></sup><br />
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The result is that NGOs are partners in the implementation of the PAMANA (Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan, or Peaceful and Prosperous Community) and KALAHI-CIDSS (Kapitbisig Laban sa Kahirapan [or Linking Arms Against Poverty]-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services) community development components of the AFP's counterinsurgency program. PAMANA is a tentatively Php90 billion (US$2.1 billion at current exchange rates) four-year program of cash transfers, livelihood projects, post-harvest facilities and road works in armed conflict areas; the WB-supported KALAHI-CIDSS is a smaller Php9.3 billion (US$216 million) program of community education, health, water, farming, access, electrification and environmental infrastructure projects.<br />
<br />
On the face of it the projects are not undesirable and do meet real local needs. The overall motive becomes suspect though inasmuch as they are implemented selectively in armed conflict areas and in the absence of more far-reaching structural changes with longer-lasting benefits. At the local level, such changes could include speedy and free distribution of land to decisively break rural monopolies; at the national level there could be the reversal of destructive neoliberal policies implemented over decades.<br />
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The record of the military itself that NGOs are now working with remains questionable: the human rights group Karapatan reports that violations have continued with 64 extrajudicial killings and nine enforced disappearances so far under the new Aquino administration; the number of political prisoners continues to rise to 356 already. Rural communities continue to suffer forced evacuation due to combat operations with many thousands of families recently displaced from villages in Surigao del Sur, Negros Oriental, Davao Oriental, Agusan del Norte and North Cotabato. These give rise to criticisms that these projects with NGOs merely seek to undermine community support for the rebel groups and cover up for continuing rights abuses by the military.<br />
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The Aquino administration's flagship anti-poverty program also shows how NGOs can be used to make neoliberal policies more acceptable. Some 370 accredited NGOs are participating in a multi-year Php307 billion (US$7.1 billion at current exchange rates) WB- and ADB-supported Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme. Beneficiary families will receive cash grants of up Php15,000 (US$349) per year upon compliance with certain education and health conditions. However this relief for poor families is in the context of unreformed neoliberal economic policies that cause the poverty to begin with so the net effect is a temporary dole-out to mitigate the adverse social consequences of these policies and rationalize their continued implementation.<br />
<br />
The affinity of CCTs to neoliberalism is evident. They are justified as 'efficient' in focusing on 'deserving poor', children are 'human capital' to be invested in for their future income-generating capacity, and the role of 'individual responsibility' in social poverty is overstressed – while the government is excused for privatizing essential social services because the welfare intervention has shifted to selective cash transfers.<br />
<br />
It is worth mentioning that the protracted global crisis may have implications for civil society in general and NGOs in particular. There are two contradictory tendencies. On one hand, the crisis will strain the government funding and private resources that have so far been directed to NGOs in support of state-civil society interaction and “participatory democracy”.<br />
<br />
NGOs as a whole have already been facing an increasingly difficult funding environment since the start of the 2000s. For instance, net official development assistance (ODA) loan commitments to the Philippines which has been a major source of funding for NGOs, directly and indirectly, has fallen by 24% between 2001 (US$13.2 billion) and 2010 (US$10.1 billion).<sup><a href="#39">39</a></sup> There are no similarly precise figures for grant funding from Northern NGO donors to Philippine NGOs although the general consensus is that the global funding slump is well-reflected in the country which has driven many NGOs to seek alternative sources and even compete with other NGOs.<sup><a href="#40">40</a></sup> NGO activities are unfortunately not self-sustaining and dependent on what is essentially discretionary funding and so could be among the first to suffer cutbacks in public and private sector budgets.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, civil society and at least some NGOs may yet be encouraged as a countervailing force or social escape valve to undercut the further development of radical alternatives upon worsening social and economic conditions. It is also possible for government-aligned NGOs and POs to be used to justify the imposition of further neoliberal policy measures such as higher taxes ostensibly for state-provided social services and even outright austerity on public education, health and housing services.<br />
<br />
<h5>Philippine neocolonialism and underdevelopment</h5><br />
NGOs and civil society are frequently construed as institutional mechanisms by which the poor, vulnerable and marginalized can empower themselves, improve their conditions and even challenge structural inequities and exploitation. An accounting of NGO projects, civil society efforts and community beneficiaries would doubtless show quantitative increases over the past decades. But notwithstanding such an aggregation, overall socioeconomic and political outcomes in the Philippines are consistent with just narrow and localized NGO gains amid more generalized social, economic and political disempowerment.<br />
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Civil society and NGOs have been absorbed into the margins of policy-making and implementation, especially their social welfare and social mobilization components, but the fundamental policies that truly define the economy and its arc remain in the hands of accustomed domestic and foreign power elites. The direction of development policy has not changed hence the persistence of poverty and backwardness.<br />
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NGOs have been increasingly involved in the formulation of the country's periodic medium-term development plans. Former president Ferdinand Marcos' 1978-1982 and 1983-1987 plans at most mentioned “participatory schemes for the broader base of society will be developed, principally through the rural cooperatives, barangay, and youth mobilization programs”.<sup><a href="#41">41</a></sup> While NGOs rapidly grew under Pres. Corazon Aquino her 1987-1992 plan still only had a generic “All sectors of society, public or private, shall be consulted to the fullest extent to obtain their opinions and positions on matters related hereto”.<sup><a href="#42">42</a></sup><br />
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By Pres. Fidel Ramos' 1993-1998 plan however the government declared: “The plan shall be formulated in close collaboration with other agencies of the executive branch, the legislative branch and private/non-government sectors.”<sup><a href="#43">43</a></sup> Pres. Joseph Estrada's 1999-2004 plan went even further and said “Civil society will complement and possibly substitute for the efforts of government in areas where it is deemed more effective and efficient.”<sup><a href="#44">44</a></sup> Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's 2004-2010 plan mentioned civil society and NGOs prominently in its chapters on environment and natural resources, housing, labor, anti-poverty, elections, peace process, national reconciliation, rule of law, science and technology, culture, anti-corruption, national security and constitutional reforms.<sup><a href="#45">45</a></sup><br />
<br />
Current Pres. Benigno Aquino, III came to power on a platform of “good governance” which is reflected in the overall thrust of its 2011-2016 plan.<sup><a href="#46">46</a></sup> His plan declares: “A big part of the solution to the governance problem however lies outside government itself and involves the active participation of private business, civil society and the media… This gives “voice” to people, enables civil society and the media to become partners of government, and makes the government more responsive to the needs of citizens.” The plan was drawn up in close consultation with civil society and NGOs but remains thoroughgoingly neoliberal and proposes even more free market policies for the country.<sup><a href="#47">47</a></sup><br />
<br />
Economic outcomes have remained poor despite greater civil society and NGO participation and engagement in socioeconomic policy-making – in the periodic medium-term plans, in program and project implementation, in assorted consultative summits, in local government bodies, and actually holding high Cabinet positions.<br />
<br />
The Philippines is the twelfth largest country in the world with its population of some 94 million. Though classified by the WB as a lower middle-income country it still ranks among the world's poorest by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at 131<sup>st</sup> out of 190 countries.<sup><a href="#48">48</a></sup> In 2009, some 65 million or 70% of Filipinos lived off Php104 (US$2.20) or even much less per day.<sup><a href="#49">49</a></sup> Inequality remains as bad as in the mid-1980s notwithstanding two-and-a-half decades of supposedly increasing democratization: the highest income 20% of the population corners over half of total family income (52%) while the remaining poorest 80% divide the leftover 48 percent. Strikingly, the net worth of the twenty-five richest Filipinos continues to rise and at Php1,021 billion in 2009 (US$21.4 billion) is almost equivalent to the combined annual income of the country's poorest fifty-five million Filipinos (Php1,029 billion).<br />
<br />
Filipino producers have suffered under imperialist globalization policies that gave up trade protection and investment support, opened up the national economy, and integrated key sectors into the global economy. The share of manufacturing in the economy is as low as in the 1950s or half a century ago; the share of agriculture is down to the smallest in the country's history. This deprives millions of Filipinos of the opportunity for decent work, livelihoods and their means of subsistence. The period 2001-2010 was the worst decade of joblessness in the country's history with average annual unemployment of over 11% and underemployment of 19 percent – forcing some 9.5 million Filipinos, or roughly a tenth of the population, overseas for work.<br />
<br />
The rural poor meanwhile still suffer backward agricultural systems and feudal relations.<sup><a href="#50">50</a></sup> Despite decades of successive agrarian reform programs overseen by former NGO leaders over half of all farms and total farm area in the country remain under tenancy, lease, and other forms of tenurial arrangement (52%). Less than a third of landowners still own more than 80% of agricultural land. Half of all farms still rely on hand tools, ploughs and water buffalos and only 30% of the total farm area is irrigated.<br />
<br />
If anything, the NGO language of alternative development has been used by the government to embellish its socioeconomic policies and bolster the notion that technical solutions to the intrinsic problems and contradictions of the system are possible and, indeed, can be initiated by the oligarchic state. The 2011-2016 Philippine development plan for instance talks about “human rights, cultural sensitivity, gender equality, people empowerment and sustainable development” and decries the “perennial condition of poverty, inequity and lagging human development” but seeks to solve this merely through “massive investment in physical infrastructure [and] transparent and responsive governance”.<sup><a href="#51">51</a></sup><br />
<br />
Political outcomes have likewise remained poor despite greater civil society and NGO participation and engagement in various aspects of democratic governance – civil society and the NGO sector has not just been active during national and local elections, including presidential elections, but have also formed new political parties and entered into coalitions with traditional ones. Major NGO networks and prominent leaders actively campaigned for or otherwise supported recent presidents.<sup><a href="#52">52</a></sup><br />
<br />
Yet political parties in the country still lack substance, the electoral system remains corrupted and shallow, key government positions remain in the hands of local elites, and the military establishment is still tasked to attack the most active democratic forces in the country (as shown in its record of human rights violations discussed above). This is not to say that traditional elites have not had to adjust to a situation where civil society and NGOs are marginally more prominent and engaged in governance than before – only that despite this situation their hold on power remains consolidated and unthreatened.<br />
<br />
The most recent national elections in May 2010 for instance did not see a significant departure from the country's tradition of elected national and local leaders coming from the ranks of established structures of power and patronage. The popularly elected president hails from one of the country's oldest political and landlord families. The country's peasants, workers, urban poor, indigenous peoples and other marginalized sectors meanwhile remain grossly underrepresented in the elected government including the presidency, vice-presidency, Senate, House of Representatives, and local government units.<br />
<br />
There is actually even violent resistance to political incursions by the Left at even just the congressional and local levels – it is telling of the rigidity and resistance of oligarchic rule that, as reported by rights group Karapatan, over 200 members of Left-leaning partylist groups have been assassinated in the last decade. The external features of democracy such as regular, high-turnout and citizen action-intensive elections coexist with deep social cleavages, economic backwardness and lack of real sovereignty.<br />
<br />
It is also noteworthy that United States (US) “democracy promotion” – a key soft power instrument of the US for stabilizing the global capitalist order – has included support to Philippine NGOs across a wide range of “good governance” areas. These projects have spanned electoral processes, good governance, anti-corruption reforms, building the legal system, assisting law enforcement agencies, promoting a free press, local governance and decentralization.<br />
<br />
All this has given domestic elite economics and politics a human face, more democratic flavour and development façade. Yet post-1986/Marcos dictatorship Philippine governments clearly retain their elite character and do not confront the powerful local and imperialist interests that benefit from unimplemented land reform, non-industrialization, wage repression and liberalization of trade, investment and finance. The last three decades of thriving NGOs and increasing state-civil society interaction in the country has seen continued implementation and deepening of neoliberal “free market” policies of imperialist globalization. The Ramos government for instance actively courted civil society, as discussed above, but this administration also saw the most extensive implementation of neoliberal policies of any post-Marcos government with liberalization of trade, investments, infrastructure, oil, telecommunications, airways, shipping, foreign exchange and banking. The current Aquino government in turn, despite the accumulated failures of neoliberal globalization globally and domestically, is set to push free market policies even further.<br />
<br />
<h5>Conclusion</h5><br />
The Philippine experience over the last decades fits well with a view of neoliberalism as post-Cold War neocolonialism and imperialist domination: opening up markets to foreign plunder, consolidating capitalist market processes and structures, and promoting Western liberal democracy and free elections. The civil society and NGO trend has gained much traction in the course of the neoliberal policy offensive since the 1980s and especially after the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. Social forces in the country spanning the traditional to ideologically-driven counter-hegemonic movements have all seen opportunities in NGOs. NGOs have accordingly flourished and now provide services and even engage in portions of governance to an unprecedented degree. And yet the country remains deeply underdeveloped.<br />
<br />
The Philippine experience with NGOs can be taken as showing their dual character in relation to social transformation. On one hand, they are vehicles for people to mobilize and act on issues and concerns beyond their immediate families and selves. They can potentially support larger struggles for political and economic change as well as deliver concrete benefits at the community level, as they notably did during the Marcos dictatorship. They have a progressive potential to spur change in this regard.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, their service character predisposes them to seeking immediate and concrete gains which is not necessarily undesirable in itself but can have unintended adverse consequences. Two possibilities are particularly problematic. First, in terms of orientation, NGOs may give undue emphasis on parochial community concerns rather than real and sustained political engagement whose gains will only be realized over the long-term. Second, in terms of practice, the chronic need for the funding necessary to deliver services could cause undue reliance on conservative funding sources – such as governments and corporations – and result in a correspondingly conservative political stance. These could diffuse dissent to the extent that people are diverted from political struggles to NGOs or are reduced to merely seeking marginal benefits amid an enduring inequitable state of affairs.<br />
<br />
The crucial element appears to be the extent to which there are genuinely mass-based initiatives, efforts and struggles outside of the unavoidably conformist framework that NGOs are predisposed to – as ever, mass-based organizations are the fundamental dynamic creating the foundations and setting the pace and direction of the overall struggle for social transformation. The challenge is for such organizations to be stronger, have deeper roots among the people, and be more engaged in ideological, political and economic struggles than NGOs whose gains are inherently limited and which can at most have only a subsidiary role.<br />
<br />
The global crisis of capitalism is the most important economic feature affecting the Philippine situation in the coming period and aggravates the chronic domestic crisis of backwardness and underdevelopment. These create the overall conditions for an accelerated resurgence of social and mass movements struggling against entrenched foreign-backed domestic elites. Long-standing poverty and inequality can only worsen which will further underscore the structural nature of the problem.<br />
<br />
The country fortunately remains the site of a vigorous Leftist urban and rural mass movement and of armed revolutionary struggles with embryonic political power in areas removed from government control. Those forces are the most effective counters to any reactionary influence by NGOs and civil society and are the most important means for ensuring that impulses for social reform, such as find expression in NGOs, are directed towards struggles for revolutionary change.###<br />
<br />
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Racelis, M. (2000). New Visions and Strong Actions: Civil Society in the Philippines. In Ottaway, M & Carothers, T (Eds.), Funding Virtue; Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment.<br />
Santos, S M, Santos, P V, Dinampo, O A, Kraft H J S, Paredes, A K R & Quilop, R J G. (2010). Primed And Purposeful: Armed Groups And Human Security Efforts in the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: South-South Network for Non-State Armed Group Engagement.<br />
Santos, S M. (2005). Evolution of the Armed Conflict on the Communist Front. Background Paper for the Philippine Human Development Report 2005. Retrieved from http://hdn.org.ph/2005-philippine-human-development-report-peace-human-security-and-human-development/<br />
Sicat, G. (1979). The Five- and Ten-Year Development Plan, 1978-82 and 1978-87. Manila, Philippines: Ministry of Labor.<br />
Songco, D A. (2007). The Evolution of NGO Accountability Practices and their Implications on Philippine NGOs: A literature review and options paper for the Philippine Council for NGO Certification. Retrieved from www.hapinternational.org/pool/files/philippines-evolution-of-ngo-accountability-implications.pdf<br />
Tuaño, P. (2011). Philippine Non-government Organizations (NGOs): Contributions, Capacities, Challenges. In Yu Jose, L N (Ed.), Civil Society Organizations in the Philippines, A Mapping and Strategic Assessment. Quezon City, Philippines: Civil Society Resource Institute.<br />
United Nations Children's Fund. (2007). Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Armed Conflict in the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: UNICEF & IBON Foundation.<br />
United States Agency for International Development. (2011). USAID in the Philippines: 50 Years of Partnership for Peace and Development. Retrieved from http://philippines.usaid.gov/newsroom/usaid-philippines-50-years-partnership-peace-and-development<br />
World Bank. (2005). Stocktaking of Social Accountability Initiatives in the Asia and Pacific Region, (The World Bank Institute – Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion Learning Program) . Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/Sirker_StocktakingAsiaPacific_FINAL.pdf<br />
World Bank. (2009). World Bank-Civil Society Engagement: A Review of Years 2007-2009 (World Bank Civil Society Team). Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/CSO/Resources/CivilSocietyBook2009final.pdf<br />
World Bank. (2010). World Bank Country Assistance Strategy for the Philippines (FY 2010-2012). Retrieved from http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000112742_20090519114325&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679<br />
World Bank. (2011a). WB and Civil Society: Frequently Asked Questions [Fact sheet]. Retrieved December 29, 2011 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/CSO/0,,contentMDK:20093224~menuPK:225318~pagePK:220503~piPK:220476~theSitePK:228717,00.html<br />
World Bank. (2011b). Philippines data. Retrieved December 29, 2011 from http://data.worldbank.org/country/philippines<br />
World Bank. (2012). The Role of Non-Profit Organizations in Development: the Experience of the World Bank. Retrieved February 1, 2012 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/EXTPCENG/0,,contentMDK:20507529~isCURL:Y~menuPK:1278313~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:410306,00.html<br />
Wurfel, D. (2002, March). Civil Society and Democratization in the Philippines. Paper presented at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, United States.<br />
<br />
<h5>Notes:</h5><br />
This article was originally published by Zed Books in NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects edited by Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor. Reprinted here with permission from the publisher.<br />
<a name="1"></a>1 See Asian Development Bank (2007), “Civil Society Brief: Philippines”, ADB NGO and Civil Society Center, December 2007 and World Bank (2005), “Stocktaking of Social Accountability Initiatives in the Asia and Pacific Region”, The World Bank Institute – Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion Learning Program (CESI).<br />
<a name="2"></a>2 These are the Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (PHILDHRRA), Philippine Support Services Agencies (PHILSSA), Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), National Council for Social Development (NCSD), National Confederation of Cooperatives in the Philippines (NATCCO) and the Association of Foundations (AF).<br />
<a name="3"></a>3 This is how Philippine civil society is characterized in: USAID (2011), USAID in the Philippines: 50 Years of Partnership for Peace and Development, 2011; World Bank (2010), World Bank Country Assistance Strategy for the Philippines (FY 2010-2012); and Freedom House (2007), Countries at the Crossroads 2007: Country Report-Philippines, 2007,<br />
<a name="4"></a>4 Songco, D A (2007), “The Evolution of NGO Accountability Practices and their Implications on Philippine NGOs: A literature review and options paper for the Philippine Council for NGO Certification”.<br />
<a name="5"></a>5 ADB (2007), op cit.<br />
<a name="6"></a>6 World Bank (2012), “The Role of Non-Profit Organizations in Development: the Experience of the World Bank”, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/EXTPCENG/0,,contentMDK:20507529~isCURL:Y~menuPK:1278313~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:410306,00.html, accessed February 1, 2012.<br />
<a name="7"></a>7 Philippine Council for NGO Certification (2011), “Philippine Council for NGO Certification: Background and Rationale”, http://www.pcnc.com.ph/bgandrationale.php, accessed December 29, 2011.<br />
<a name="8"></a>8 Tuaño, P (2011), “Philippine Non-government Organizations (NGOs): Contributions, Capacities, Challenges” in Yu Jose, L N (ed) (2011), Civil Society Organizations in the Philippines, A Mapping and Strategic Assessment, Civil Society Resource Institute (CSRI).<br />
9 Ibid.<br />
<a name="10"></a>10 Estimate of NGO employment from Tuaño (2011), op cit and of public sector employment and total employment from the 2011 Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistics Office (NSO).<br />
<a name=""></a>11 Association of Foundations (2001), Philippine NGOs: A Resource Book of Social Development NGOs, 2001 and Tuaño (2011), op cit.<br />
<a name="12"></a>12 Association of Foundations (2001), op cit.<br />
<a name="13"></a>13 Ibid.<br />
<a name="14"></a>14 Ibid.<br />
<a name="15"></a>15 CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and Caucus of Development NGO Networks (2011), Civil Society Index: Philippines – An Assessment of Philippine Civil Society.<br />
<a name="16"></a>16 Ibid.<br />
<a name="17"></a>17 CIVICUS (2011), op cit.<br />
<a name="18"></a>18 See for instance European Commission (2002), Participation of Non-State Actors in EC Development Policy.<br />
<a name="19"></a>19 CODE-NGO (2012), “Members: Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP)”, http://code-ngo.org/home/membership/pbsp.html, accessed February 1, 2012.<br />
<a name="20"></a>20 Tuaño (2011), op cit.<br />
<a name="21"></a>21 United Nations Children's Fund (2007), Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Armed Conflict in the Philippines and Human Development Network (2005), Philippine Human Development Report 2005: Peace, Human Security and Human Development in the Philippines.<br />
<a name="22"></a>22 Santos, S M, Santos, P V, Dinampo, O A, Kraft H J S, Paredes, A K R and Quilop, R J G (2010), Primed And Purposeful: Armed Groups And Human Security Efforts in the Philippines.<br />
<a name="23"></a>23 This discussion of strategy draws from Armando Liwanag, Chairman, Central Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as Guide to the Philippine Revolution”, Contribution to the International Seminar on Mao Zedong Thought, November 6-7, 1993.<br />
<a name="24"></a>24 ADB (2007), op cit.<br />
<a name="25"></a>25 Management Systems Advancement, Inc. (2000), “The roles of Northern NGO activities directed at poverty reduction through service delivery and income generation”, Paper for the Danida Seminar on ”Civil Society in the South in the 21st Century: Governments and NGOs, Which Roles?”, January 2000.<br />
<a name="26"></a>26 Ibid.<br />
<a name="27"></a>27 Council for Health and Development (1998), “25 Years of Commitment and Service to the People Onward with the Struggle for Social Change!”.<br />
<a name="28"></a>28 See for instance Santos, S M (2005), “Evolution of the Armed Conflict on the Communist Front”, Background Paper for the Philippine Human Development Report 2005.<br />
<a name="29"></a>29 World Bank (2011a), “WB and Civil Society: Frequently Asked Questions”, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/CSO/0,,contentMDK:20093224~menuPK:225318~pagePK:220503~piPK:220476~theSitePK:228717,00.html, accessed December 29, 2011.<br />
<a name="30"></a>30 World Bank (2009), World Bank-Civil Society Engagement: A Review of Years 2007-2009, World Bank (WB) Civil Society Team.<br />
<a name="31"></a>31 Asian Development Bank (2011a), “ADB and Civil Society: Overview”, http://beta.adb.org/site/ngos/overview, accessed December 29, 2011.<br />
<a name="32"></a>32 Asian Development Bank (2011b), “The Bank's Experience with NGOs”, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Policies/Cooperation_with_NGOs/ngo_experience.asp?p=coopngos, accessed Dec 29, 2011.<br />
<a name="33"></a>33 See for instance ADB (2007), op cit, Racelis, M (2000), “New Visions and Strong Actions: Civil Society in the Philippines”, in Ottaway, M and Carothers, T (eds) (2000), Funding Virtue; Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion, 2000, and Wurfel, D (2002), “Civil Society and Democratization in the Philippines”, March 2002.<br />
<a name="34"></a>34 Some examples of prominent NGO personalities in government included Juan Flavier as health secretary during the Corazon Aquino government, PBSP's Ernesto Garilao as agrarian reform secretary during the Ramos government, PRRM's Horacio Morales as agrarian reform secretary during the Estrada government, CODE-NGO's Corazon Soliman as social welfare secretary, and long-time NGO activist Ronald Llamas as presidential adviser on political affairs in the Benigno Aquino, III government.<br />
<a name="35"></a>35 Management Systems Advancement, Inc. (2000), op cit.<br />
<a name="36"></a>36 Exemplified by the Akbayan Citizen's Action Party project of the so-called independent and democratic socialists and ex-popular democrats. Santos (2005), op cit.<br />
<a name="37"></a>37 Armed Forces of the Philippines (2011), Internal Peace and Security Plan.<br />
<a name="38"></a>38 Ibid.<br />
<a name="39"></a>39 National Economic and Development Authority (2011a), CY 2010 ODA Portfolio Review, 2011.<br />
<a name="40"></a>40 CIVICUS (2011), op cit and Tuaño, P (2011), op cit.<br />
<a name="41"></a>41 Sicat, G (1979), “The Five- and Ten-Year Development Plan, 1978-82 and 1978-87”, January 1979.<br />
<a name="42"></a>42 Philippines (1986), Memorandum Circular No. 4 - Directing the Formulation of the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan for 1987-1992, Manila, March 18, 1986.<br />
<a name="43"></a>43 Philippines (1997), Memorandum Circular No. 166 - Directing the Formulation of the Philippine National Development Plan for the 21st Century, Manila, August 21, 1997.<br />
<a name="44"></a>44 National Economic and Development Authority (1999), Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan, 1999-2004.<br />
<a name="45"></a>45 National Economic and Development Authority (2004), Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan, 2004-2010.<br />
<a name="46"></a>46 National Economic and Development Authority (2004), Philippine Development Plan, 2011-2016.<br />
<a name="47"></a>47 IBON (2011, June), “The Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011-2016: Social Contract With Whom?”, June 21, 2011.<br />
<a name="48"></a>48 World Bank (2011b). Data from http://data.worldbank.org/country/philippines, accessed December 29, 2011.<br />
<a name="49"></a>49 Country socioeconomic data in this paragraph and the next are from IBON (2011, January), “Yearend 2010: Real Change, or More of the Same?”, January 13, 2011 and IBON (2011, July) “Midyear 2011: Failing Economy, Growing Disenchantment”, July 14, 2011.<br />
<a name="50"></a>50 Agricultural data in this paragraph from IBON (2011, November), “Submission by IBON Foundation, a Philippine NGO, to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Philippines during the 13th UPR Session (21st May 1st June 2012)”, November 28, 2011.<br />
<a name="51"></a>51 National Economic and Development Authority (2011b), Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016.<br />
<a name="52"></a>52 For example PRRM's Horacio Morales campaigned for Pres. Estrada and became agrarian reform secretary, CODE-NGO supported Pres. Arroyo and took a number of Cabinet positions, Akbayan campaigned for Pres. Aquino and its NGO leaders are likewise in the Cabinet.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-45863314225601168902015-06-21T07:51:00.002+08:002015-06-21T07:51:28.734+08:00Media For Understanding And ChangeREMARKS BY LUIS V. TEODORO DURING THE PROGRAM MARKING<br />
THE 50TH YEAR OF THE U.P. COLLEGE OF MASS COMMUNICATION<br />
June 19, 2015, Plaridel Hall, U.P. Diliman<br />
<br />
MEDIA FOR UNDERSTANDING AND CHANGE<br />
<br />
Over the last fifty years, from the turbulent 1960s when it was founded, and through the terrors of martial law, the promise of EDSA, and the restoration of elite rule, the College of Mass Communication has not only survived but has even more importantly also defined its fundamental responsibility to the Filipino people. That responsibility is summed up in its commitment to the defense of media freedom and the making of media for liberation--"midyang malaya at mapagpalaya"--in recognition of the human need for, and the media duty of, interpreting the world so an informed and free people can change it.<br />
<br />
Never since the martial law period has that commitment been more vital and more relevant than today. The media are under threat not only from those forces that would silence journalists but also from practitioners' low skills levels and unethical practice, and the conflict between public and private interest inherent in a system of corporate ownership.<br />
<br />
The result is an epidemic of inaccuracy, bias, corruption, incompetence and a focus on trivia, which has reduced much of the dominant media into instruments of mass hypnosis, ignorance, amnesia and stasis rather than as purveyors of understanding and change. Supposedly pillars of democracy, the corporate media are the tools of oligarchic rule in perpetrating the political and social structures that define the lives of millions of our countrymen and which condemn them to a long night of poverty, violence and injustice. Supposedly functioning in behalf of truth-telling, they spread falsehood and mendacity in behalf of their limited interests.<br />
<br />
We need to recall not only today, on the 50th year of this College, but throughout each day, each week, each month and each year as well, CMC 's necessary role not only as the trainor of ethical and professional practitioners, but also as the critical and informed monitor and public custodian of a media system that is failing to provide the people the information and interpretation they need to make sense of the present as the necessary condition for the construction of an alternative state and future.<br />
<br />
May this occasion not only be a celebration but --despite the difficulties and perils inherent in that task-- also a reaffirmation by everyone of us --by the faculty, the students, the administrative staff as well as our alumni-- that the College will continue to rise to the challenge of excellence, criticalness and relevance as it enters its next decades. Fifty years from now may those who would have survived us be able to truly say that we were there when the people needed us most. Mabuhay ang MassComm para sa midyang malaya’t mapagpalaya.<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lvteodoro/posts/10206568372191591">Facebook post of Luis Teodoro</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-89247370354417226752013-02-12T07:33:00.000+08:002015-06-12T07:34:50.056+08:00The Philippines between two greedy giantsAn Interview<br />
<br />
<b>The Philippines between two greedy giants</b><br />
January 22, 2013<br />
<br />
Interview with Prof. Jose Maria Sison<br />
Founding Chairman, Communist Party of the Philippines<br />
<br />
By John Toledo<br />
Features Editor, Philippine Collegian<br />
<br />
<h3>1. Historically, who are the original claimants of the West Philippine Sea? Where did this dispute come from? Who are the claimants today?</h3><br />
Prof. Jose Maria Sison (JMS): Let us first put into context what you refer to as the West Philippine Sea. The Spratlys are a group of 250 islets plus the shoals and reefs spread over 265,542 square kilometers. They are claimed entirely by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and in part by Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. The part of the Spratlys claimed by the Phiippines is what it calls the Kalayaan group of islets located in the West Philippine Sea.<br />
<br />
China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim ownership of all the Spratlys supposedly since ancient times on the basis of historical references, seasonal visits by their fishermen and assertions of claims against colonizers as well as yielding of the Spratlys by the Japanese to the French and thus to Vietnam in the San Francisco peace treaty after World War II. Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines claim parts of the Spratlys that are geographically closest to them and within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone under the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) plus prehistorical and historical claims that the islets concerned have long been the fishing grounds of their respective fishermen.<br />
<br />
<h3>2. Why is the West Philippine Sea being claimed by China and Philippines? Is it economically and politically useful? Why or why not?</h3><br />
China arrogantly claims not only the entire Spratlys but also the entire sea south and east of China as its property and by making military shows of strength to assert its claims. But the Kalayaan group of islets, the Recto (Reed ) and Panatag Shoal (Scarborough) are all within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines under the UNCLOS. It is wrong for China to claim these.<br />
<br />
In economic terms, the contested islets and shoals and the waters around them are at least rich fishing grounds and sources of corals but they also have a high potential as sources of gas and oil. The Recto Bank is well known for having rich gas and oil deposits as a result of explorations. In political and military terms, the contested islets and shoals can serve as outposts for military vessels and for controlling navigation and commerce or evoking power and influence.<br />
<br />
<h3>3. Why is US joining in the conflict? Why is it strategic for US to support the Philippines with many armed forces and materials?</h3><br />
The US is fishing in troubled waters. As a matter of fact, it is responsible for stirring up trouble in the first place. It has undertaken controlled trouble-making just to make the Philippine reactionary puppet government run to it for support, to have the reason for entrenching US military forces in the Philippines and to have the Philippines as a base for influencing policies and development within China. The US has strategic objectives in using the Philippines as a strategic base in the US encirclement of China.<br />
<br />
<h3>4. Is it logically possible that China will wage war on the Philippines because of this West Philippine Sea dispute? Or is it just a ploy for US to wage war with China? Why or why not?</h3><br />
China will not wage war on the Philippines but it will continue to take calculated actions, including shows of force, to discourage and prevent Philippine attempts to control and occupy the contested islets and develop the gas and oil resources there. Neither will the US wage war with China to support the Philippines in the territorial dispute. It has far more economic and political interests in good relations with China than in those with the Philippines.<br />
<br />
The US has repeatedly proclaimed that it is neutral in the territorial dispute between China and Philippines. The most it can say is that it is militarily entrenching itself in the Philippines in order to discourage China from attacking the Philippines. However, it will not act militarily against the calculated military moves of China to prevent Philippine attempts to explore and develop the gas and oil resources in the contested islets and shoals.<br />
<br />
But China and the US might even make a deal to exploit the gas and oil resources for the benefit of US and Chinese corporations and some big comprador Filipino-Chinese firms or the Indonesian-Chinese firm (Salim group) being managed by Manuel V. Pangilinan. The whole world knows that the mineral ores of the Philippines are being wantonly excavated by US, Japanese, Canadian, Australian, Swiss, Chinese and other foreign firms, together with their big comprador allies. And China has been a major destination of the mineral ores.<br />
<br />
In an attempt to look nationalist, the US-Aquino regime is obviously play-acting against China over the well-hyped territorial disputes. It is well within the bounds of the collaboration between the US and China. The US is steering the Philippine government towards the attainment of the narrow self-interest and strategic objectives of the US.<br />
<br />
One more reason why the US is entrenching itself militarily in the Philippines and using this as part of the US encirclement of China is not to wage war soon but to influence policies and developments in China. The US is trying to realize the complete privatization of the most strategic state-owned enterprises in China and to promote the liberalization of Chinese politics to the point of doing away with the authoritarian rule and causing the weakening or even disintegration of the bureaucrat monopoly capitalism.<br />
<br />
<h3>5. What are the implications of the Sino-Philippine territorial dispute in relation to the sovereignty of the Philippines?</h3><br />
What is tragic about the Philippine ruling system of big compradors and landlords is that it is weak and servile to imperialist powers and that both the US and China take advantage of the Philippines. The US pretends to protect the Philippines but it is a bantay salakay. Having long become a capitalist country, China cannot be expected to be a gentle and generous giant.<br />
<br />
The Filipino people can best assert their national sovereignty and defend their territorial integrity by overthrowing the ruling system and establishing a people´s democratic state that is truly independent and democratic, determined to carry out land reform and industrialization, realizes social justice and aims for socialism. Such a state is capable of using effective diplomacy and defending its territory against intruders. ###Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-77745892795558238742011-07-24T10:07:00.000+08:002015-05-24T10:07:36.097+08:00Why the NATO powers are trying to assassinate Moammar Gaddafi<span class="boldfont">Why the NATO powers are trying to assassinate Moammar Gaddafi<br />
Protecting civilians or western oil companies?</span><br />
June 13, 2011 <br />
<br />
By Brian Becker<br />
<br />
Wikileaks-released State Department cables from November 2007 and afterwards show the real reason for the mounting U.S. hostility to the Libyan government prior to the current civil war.<br />
<br />
NATO has been dropping devastating bunker-busting bombs on Muammar Gaddafi's home in an attempt to assassinate him. One son and several grandchildren have died but Gaddafi has survived. The State Department cables give background to the hostility directed against Gaddafi by the United States and other NATO powers.<br />
<br />
One State Department cable from November 2007 (Wikileaks reference ID 07TRIPOLI967) sounds the alarm of “growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism” by the Gaddafi government. This was almost identical language employed by the U.S. and British governments against Iranian Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh when he nationalized Iran’s oil field in 1951. Mossadegh was overthrown by a 1953 CIA coup that restored the Shah to the throne. It allowed U.S. and British oil companies to re-take ownership over Iran’s oil until the 1979 revolution.<br />
<br />
The crime of “resource nationalism”<br />
<br />
Condemning “Libyan resource nationalism” is diplomatic language. The U.S. government was furious that Gaddafi was moving to rein in and limit the power and profits of the western-owned oil giants that he permitted to come back into the country after George W. Bush in 2004 lifted economic sanctions against Libya.<br />
<br />
The same cable refers to an angry speech that Gaddafi made in 2006 which was interpreted as a virtual act of war by the oil companies and the U.S. and western governments.<br />
<br />
Gaddafi's speech included these unacceptable words: “Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them—now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money.”<br />
<br />
Oil reserves in Libya are largest in Africa<br />
<br />
Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa and the ninth largest in the world with 41.5 billion barrels as of 2007. The U.S. government and oil industry surveys conclude that Libya has 63 years of reserves at current production rates if no new reserves were to be found. But Libya is considered to have many unexplored reserves. Libya has been a big prize for the western oil giants both because of the quantity of oil and of the particularly high quality of Libyan oil.<br />
<br />
In 2008, according to another leaked State Department cable, Gaddafi summoned Conoco-Phillips Chief Executive Jim Mulva to a meeting in Sirte, Libya. There he threatened to expel U.S. oil companies and “threatened to dramatically reduce Libya’s oil production.”<br />
<br />
The oil companies and the State Department, as the cables indicate, were increasingly agitated by Gaddafi’s interference with their operations. The Washington Post, which is a big cheerleader for the U.S./NATO bombing campaign, published a story on June 11, 2011, about the leaked Libya cables: “Labor laws were amended to ‘Libyanise’ the economy, and oil firms were pressed to hire Libyan managers, finance people and human resource directors.”<br />
<br />
Gaddafi 2009 speech suggested nationalizing Libyan oil<br />
<br />
Another Wikileaks-released State Department cable from Jan. 30, 2009, (Wikileaks reference ID 09TRIPOLI71) discusses a January 2009 speech by Gaddafi, stating, “Muammar al-Qadhafi suggested that Libya and other oil exporting states could nationalize their oil production in view of sharply plummeting petroleum prices.”<br />
<br />
The U.S. government fully backed the Saudi monarchy and the Mubarak dictatorship, but turned on Libya—not because the regime violated human rights or democracy, but because Gaddafi sought to limit their power. The oil companies, however annoyed they were by having to work with the Libyan government, would have certainly continued their current business operations. The opening of a civil war inside of Libya in February 2011, however, gave a perfect pretext to overthrow the regime and place in power a government that the NATO powers hope will serve as a client regime.<br />
<br />
In any country, Libya included, the masses of people can have many valid and legitimate grievances against their government. Even those who support Gaddafi against the NATO bombers probably have grievances. But the U.S., British, French and Italian governments are at war to protect their own interests. Protecting civilians and promoting democracy is of zero concern to Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil or any of the other oil giants.<br />
<br />
The Wikileaks-released State Department cables make it clear that the basis for U.S. hostility to the Gaddafi regime was about who should control Libya’s vast oil reserves. Should it be Libya or should it be the biggest capitalist oil enterprises from western countries?<br />
<br />
“Those who dominate Libya’s political and economic leadership are pursuing increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector that could jeopardize efficient exploitation of Libya’s extensive oil and gas reserves,” the November 2007 cable states.<br />
<br />
Anti-Gaddafi rebels in Washington, D.C.<br />
<br />
In mid-May 2011, just six weeks after the NATO bombing of Libya began, leaders of the anti-Gaddafi rebel movement came to Washington, D.C., for “talks.” They spoke at the U.S.-Libya Business Council. The big oil companies were present. The rebels have employed a public relations/lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., called the Harbour Group.<br />
<br />
The principals of the Harbour Group include Hillary Clinton’s staff director from the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. Another served as a spokesperson for the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and other conservative Republicans. The third served as a public relations figure in the last three Democratic presidential conventions, according to Reuters.<br />
<br />
“Now you can figure out who’s going to win, and the name is not Gaddafi,” Nansan Saleri, the founder of the Houston-based Quantico Reservoir Impact company told the Washington Post. Saleri, former head of reservoir management at Saudi Aramco, explained why the company wouldn’t do business in Libya until now. “Everything in Libya—everything—had to be approved by Gaddafi or one of his sons,” he told the Post. Saleri continued, “Certain things about the mosaic are taking shape. The western companies are positioning themselves.” Within five years, he predicted, “Libyan production is going to be higher than right now and investments are going to come in.”<br />
<br />
Libya today is resisting the new colonialism. The colonizers assign noble names such as “protecting civilians” to their military mission. But their role in Africa and the Middle East during the past decades and centuries deprive such propaganda of any credibility. They rely though on the uniformity of the corporate-owned media coverage about their “humanitarian motives” to disguise their crass and cynical plans in Libya and elsewhere.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-86419402493837111452014-02-25T10:00:00.000+08:002015-05-24T10:01:49.107+08:00EDSAEDSA<br />
Ni ROLAND TOLENTINO<br />
February 24, 2014<br />
<a href="http://bulatlat.com/main/2014/02/24/edsa/">Bulatlat.com</a><br />
<br />
Ito ang pangunahin at pinakasiksik na kalsada sa Metro Manila. Ang dating henerikong kalsada na Highway 54, ang EDSA ay ipinangalan sa bayaning si Epifanio de los Santos noong 1959. Nawala ang mga publikong espasyo at pribadong bahay, mabilisan ang transformasyon tungo sa tuloytuloy na hilera ng mga pabrika’t negosyo.<br />
<br />
Sa simula ng Highway 54, ito ay kinatatakutan dahil sa pagiging mapanganib. Literal na highway robbery dahil walang nagpapadilim sa pagdaan dito. Pinalawak ang dating grabang pandalawahang sasakyang kalsada, naging labindalawahan. Matapos, isinalansan ang mga flyover noong panahon ni Corazon Aquino para maibsan ang trafiko.<br />
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Nakumpleto ang underpass at flyover pero nanatili ang trafiko. Isinalansan pa sa ground level ang MRT na lalong nagpasikip sa trafiko. Nakadagdag rito ang higit na nagsisiksikang malls at shopping centers na hindi nakakapagtakang nasa mga underpass at flyover, pati sa stops ng MRT.<br />
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Ang konsentrasyon ng kapital sa EDSA ay patunay na nagsasaad ng modernidad ng syudad at bansa na may koloraryong paglikha ng invisibilidad sa politikal. Ang EDSA ng pagbabago ng serye ng People Power ay naglaho na. At ang memorialisasyon ng pagdanas nito–ng isang higanteng birheng tanso sa bukana ng mall at flyover, at sa walang kalatoylatoy na tableau ng sama-samang pagkilos sa kanto naman ng military camp at exklusibong subdibisyon ng nouveau riche–ay hindi na nakakatawag-pansin sa nadanas na masibong kolektibong pagkilos ng mamamayan.<br />
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Ang memorialisasyon sa pamamamagitan ng spektakulo ng monumento, sa pagkaliblib ng ebentwal na pagtatayo ng literal na infrastruktura ng kapital (flyover, subdibisyon, mall, MRT, military camp), ay higit na nakapagpatago sa posibilidad na ang politikal ay muling mangyari. Kahit pa ang hindi napapansing mga monumento ay pagpugay sa mga awtor ng People Power–ang Katolikong simbahan sa harap ng Robinson’s, at ang natatanging si Ninoy Aquino sa foreground at ang tsuwariwap na mamamayan sa likod nito sa White Plains–ito pa rin ay sekular na memorial sa patuloy na pagpapadaloy ng kapital at depolisitisadong pagkilos sa EDSA.<br />
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Lalo pang nagsisiksikan ang EDSA ng karagdagang high-end malls at high-rise condos. Mas siksik, mas maganda. At dahil kulang na ang espasyo, walang ibang paraan para masiksik kundi paitaas. Ang kolonisasyon ng kapital sa EDSA ay nagpapahiwatig ng pananakop sa field of vision na rin nito: ang tanging natatanaw sa EDSA ay mga eksena ng kapital sa kaliwa’t kanan ng pagtunghay.<br />
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Kabilang dito ang mga higanteng tarp, ang enclosure na likha ng MRT at mga gusali ng negosyo, ang panorama ng trafiko ng mga behikulong nagsasakay ng mga manggagawa, manager at estudyante, at mga mall at condos. Ang paradox ng pagtanaw ay tila walang hanggan ang pwersa ng kapital pero mula sa statikong posisyon ng tumatanaw.<br />
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Sa literal na antas, statiko dahil nakapako o pausad-usad lang ang tumatanaw sa trapiko ng EDSA, o kung nasa MRT man, madalas sa madalang, ang mimikong pagsisiksikan ng mga pasahero sa hindi umuusad na trafiko sa ibaba. Sa figuratibong antas, statiko dahil sa dinami-rami ng dinadaanan ng biswalisasyon ng kapital–mga produkto sa mga tarp, nag-aayang mga mall at condo, magagarang sasakyan, mararangyang subdibisyon, at iba pa–ay hindi naman accessible ang tinatanaw sa tumatanaw.<br />
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Ang statikong pamamaraan ng pagkilos sa EDSA ay siya ring panuntunan sa pagdanas ng mayoryang mamamayan sa kapitalismo: sa reprodusibilidad ng pagdanas sa franchise na negosyo ng fastfood, tarp subkultura, malls at gasolinahang magtitiyak ng pagtuloy na padaloy sa tumutunghay sa iba’t ibang panig ng bansa, pati na rin ang pribatisasyon ng pagdanas sa mismong mga bahay. Tumatanaw, nakakadanas pero parating kulang o said.<br />
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Ang EDSA ng buhay ng syudad ay siya ring EDSA ng buhay ng bansa sa kapitalismo. Maraming natatanaw pero wala naman talagang tinatanaw. Lahat ng dumadaan ay overdetermined na maging sabjek ng kapital, pero hindi naman lahat ay may kapangyarihang makapamili kaya nagiging objek na lang ng kapital. Ang katawang may aksesorya ng kapital, pati ang katawang wala, ay katawang pinapadaloy ng kapital sa mismong pagpapadaloy ng kapital sa mga lansangan at sityo ng negosyo.<br />
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Kinikilabutan ako tuwing iniisip kong kailangan kong dumaan ng EDSA dahil walang katiyakan kung kailan ako makakarating at makakabalik. At may batayan naman pala ang aking pangamba. Ang EDSA ko ay EDSA na hindi ko naman inakda, inakda para sa akin para maglangkap ng pangamba at takot, at sa statikong pagkatengga sa trafiko, ang maaliw sa nakakapanghalinang imaheng namumutiktik sa kalsada. Wala akong magawa kundi tumingin, tumanaw at tumanga.<br />
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<i>Si Roland B. Tolentino ay faculty sa UP College of Mass Communication at kasapi ng Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP). Para sa komentaryo, maaring mag-email sa roland.tolentino@gmail.com.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-79096468223786708012015-05-05T09:58:00.000+08:002015-05-24T09:58:20.758+08:00Marx livesMarx lives<br />
May 5, 2014<br />
By SARAH RAYMUNDO<br />
<a href="http://bulatlat.com/main/2014/05/05/marx-lives/">Bulatlat.com</a><br />
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Karl Marx is 196 years old today. With his birth nearly two centuries away from the present, it is amazing how his life and works continue to speak of a man who truly possessed a willpower that was hardly ever negotiable.<br />
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Those who follow his thought would know that the brilliance and clarity of his writings were borne out of difficult conditions of living. It is not despite but precisely because of destitute circumstances that Marx hammered out a methodical plan for the world proletarian struggle.<br />
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With his uncompromising style, whether in his writings or live debates, Marx, as a young man, started to brood on what was behind various strands of non-proletarian socialism and petit bourgeois socialism. Marx, for this writer, had the eye for detail. He would recognize a scrim’s constitution in all three senses of the word. Reading Marx, one can tell that this is a person who does not cut corners and will have no mercy on those who do.<br />
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Was Marx ever “normal”?<br />
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Asked what of Karl Marx’s life he might want to know, a top analyst and trainor in a BPO firm quips: Was he ever normal? The response is actually a brilliant problematization. How far did a revolutionary like Marx go in terms of transgressing the norms? Unfortunately (or fortunately), Marx did not live long enough to witness the rise of so-called post-politics.<br />
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This condition, according to Nancy Fraser is marked by the eclipse of class politics by identity politics. Advocates of New Social Movements (NSM) argue that after the fall of socialism in China and the Soviet Union—a claim that sits well with Fukuyama’s triumphalism, which proclaims capitalism as the end of history for it has defeated all challenges against it—the wager has shifted from redistributive justice to cultural recognition. The world is now dealing with “new grievances” and “changed aspirations,” as it were.<br />
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In Marx’s world, transgression of the norm was not the name of the game. In fact, he did not buy the metaphor “game” to refer to life. Why, any serious scientist in a laboratory, construction worker building an edifice, surgeon at the operating table, dressmaker in a factory, filmmaker working with an editing machine, or teacher on whom students’ intellectual development depend cannot just be gaming as they do their jobs. Only those who profit from the uncertainties of capitalism — made up of busts and booms — see life as a game. They are the only ones who will only have to master the rules in order for them to win.<br />
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Identitarians might find Marx painfully heterosexual. He met Jenny; they had a good time; they made it. And what did they think it was, true love? Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel makes it look like it certainly was. But Marx was not the normative father figure. He was not defined by the hackneyed paternalism that marks out fatherhood from other roles in the family. Eleanor Marx to Kautsky in 1896: “I, unfortunately only inherited my father’s nose – (I used to tell him I could sue him for damages as his nose had distinctly entailed a loss on me) and not his genius.”<br />
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This tender testimony of a daughter of her father is so telling of the kind of relationship Marx cultivated with his children.<br />
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Was he a “normal” son? Marx had a thorny relationship with his father when he was already a married man. The latter accused him of “neglecting his home.”* He was once described by his old man as “self-consumed to the point of irreverence.” The older Marx also hilariously accused his son of “[squandering] his talents and [spending] nights giving birth to monsters; and of spending more money in one year than the richest of men, mockingly asking how a man who every week or two discovers a new system and has to tear up old works laboriously arrived at, how can he, I ask, worry about trifles?”<br />
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But his last letter to Marx before he died had the kindest words a father could tell his “self-consumed” and “irreverent son: “Always believe and never doubt that you have the innermost place in my heart and that you are one of the most powerful levers in my life…I am exhausted, dear Karl, and must close. I regret that I have not been able to write as I wanted to. I would have liked to embrace you with all my heart.” Marx was undoubtedly his father’s precious one. On Marx’s burial, Engels placed a ragged photo in his best friend’s grave. It was a photo of Marx’s father which Marx carried in his chest pocket the whole time.<br />
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Marx and Communism<br />
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Marx’s approach to communism does not consist in an unassailable support for the latter. Rather, Marx was emphatic about ruthlessly criticizing everything existing, and that includes communism for it is also affected by its opposite—private property (2). Marx promulgated that history since the middle ages is a development through various modes of production.<br />
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This progression is by no means peaceful for it entails a dislodgment of a dominant class by a revolution. While Marx affirmed the French Revolution as a bourgeois revolution that displaced feudal state power, he espoused the necessity of a revolution in the name of the workers in order to extend the gains of modern industry to all. Contrary to pop versions of communism, this progression is not a road map to the “perfect society” that is communism.<br />
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Marx’s big idea came with a comprehensive critique of capital and the actual organizing of political parties of and for the workers. Revolution is not a means with communism as its end goal. Rather, communism embodies the most programmatic and organized discontent within capital. The idea and practice of communism have been a means in and through which Marx took on the challenge of constructing a new conception of the world while addressing a historically significant mass movement.<br />
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Marxism and the Working Class (3)<br />
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Marxism is the set of ideas founded by Karl Marx and enriched by working-class struggles in history and summed up, theorized by subsequent Marxists. One of the most poignant anecdotes about Marxism comes from Hans Morgenthau, a political scientist who was not himself a Marxist. Morgenthau’s father was a doctor who attended to working-class patients in the early 20th century. He would dutifully go to his patients homes to cure them of various sickness including tuberculosis. But many times, all the doctor could provide instead of cure was a dignified death—when asked for their last request, workers would invariably whisper an instruction to the doctor, “When the priest is not looking, remove the Bible and replace it with the Communist Manifesto.”<br />
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Against the abstraction and mysticism that obscured the true nature of labor under the capitalist system, Marx clarified that the condition of possibility for history is the production of material life itself, which is none other than labor – that which once freed from the clutches of capital will have put the pre-history of human society to an end. Labor is then foregrounded as the vehicle for the historical self-creation of humankind. Yet labor under global capitalism is reduced to an instrument of its own tautological logic.<br />
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The historical loot committed by capital involves not only the capture of historical time away from living labor through the wage system. This condition structures human experience through ideological naturalization whose processes can be mapped through the particular conduct of social formations intelligible, in the last instance, on the basis of its mode of production. The primacy of the economic infrastructure upholds the primacy of labor processes over the processes of production. It is in this proper context that labor-power must be appreciated as one of the elements of the productive forces. Meanwhile, the primacy of labor processes constitutive of the relations of production implies the conclusion that the undeniable exploitation within the realm of the former is class struggle. Within capitalist production, technical questions such as the management of finance capital and the real economy are integral yet subordinate to the class struggle.<br />
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That Marxism holds fast to the class struggle is the reason why workers have a special place in it. The working class is defined precisely by labor. It is the class that produces the wealth appropriated by the few through the commodification of labor. On account of the dire conditions of labor under the rule of capital, the working class has no interest in wage slavery or exploitation.<br />
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In the academe, many concede that Marxism is an instructive mode of analysis to comprehend the workings and woes of capitalism. The same academics, however, deny vehemently that Marxism is of any use when it comes to actually changing reality. More than articulating the prospects of alternatives, this merely reveals the interests of these social forecasters. Meanwhile, in the streets, in the factories, in the communities of the urban and rural poor, in the guerilla zones where people’s armies exist, Marxism is a guide to practice.<br />
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Marxism and Neoliberalism<br />
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The Marxist critique of Neoliberalism exposes the latter as an international strategy of profit accumulation. This is made possible through ideological institutions that impose various forms of social discipline that range from economic policies to regulations on culture, from the creation of consumers to the act of reducing people to bare life. This politico-ideological process is possible through the division of the population into different classes. In this context, the State as the executive committee of the ruling class becomes a sovereign power who decides on who lives and who dies.<br />
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Furthermore, the global capitalist system is structured by the hierarchic relations of nation-states currently dominated by an imperialist power that is the United States of America. Having been challenged by one devastating crisis after another since its entry to the advanced accumulation of profit, global capitalism has managed to make itself appear as naturally irreplaceable at the expense of millions of laboring people all over the world. Crisis management has been controlled and operated mainly by the ruling elites in imperialist nations and their allied elites in the neocolonies through their hold on key social institutions.<br />
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The neoliberal doctrine preaches that for the free market to flourish and function at its best, business should be its own best regulator. State regulation of the economy, by all means, must be obliterated. The creation of a “borderless world” through globalization is a process which involves the implementation of the three pillars of neoliberalism: deregulation liberalization and privatization. These policies are carried out on a global scale through multi-lateral institutions. The consequences of these policies demonstrate that neoliberal globalization is a ruse to seek new markets for goods and finance. Undeniably, the financial meltdown and the crisis in the real economy are effects of the neoliberal policies implemented by states of imperialist countries.<br />
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Those who fancy themselves as socially concerned economists now call for a return to Keynesianism. For them, resolving the current crisis is cutting interest rates and saving the big banks. This is supposed to go hand in hand with balancing the government budget by cutting taxes and creating jobs. But how far can monetary and fiscal stimuli go? Not too far.<br />
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It is significant to recall that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) administration was confronted with the Great Depression, the rise to power of the socialist bloc and the emergence of fascism in certain parts of Europe. FDR had to contend with these factors by opting to lead a powerful force that would primarily contain socialism. The reforms instituted under the New Deal which included the US government’s recognition of workers’ right to form unions and the right to strike were meant to derail the moment of socialist politics and to reinforce the moribund capitalist mechanisms that were then shaken by the crisis.<br />
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While all traditional demands like living wage, freedom of organization and strike, insurance and other benefits remain crucial to this day, it is also worth recalling that they were once won at a time when the people’s struggles weren’t confined to the merely economic. They were claimed through struggles that were predominantly political. It is then of utmost importance for us to be vigilant towards the false solutions to the current crisis. A wager for the Welfare State can only be dictated by the current coordinates of the socioeconomic structure already in deep crisis. Historically, and thinking of the system globally, Welfare States do not respond to the needs of the majority, not even of the many. At best, they can only project state regulation of the market as a mode of welfare when it is nothing but a style of governance that promotes a paternalistic relationship between the strong, masculine image of the state and market tandem and an infantilized and feminized citizenry whose democratic participation is reduced to dependence and obedience to the former.<br />
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What this cursory survey shows is that Neoliberalism and the Kenynesian policy stress are only false solutions to a malignant problem endemic to capitalism.The need to synchronize economic and political struggles has never been as pressing as in the present. For shifts between these policy stresses are made whenever there is a need for imperialism to do so. It is incumbent upon us to find the alternative in this paralyzing impasse.<br />
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Long Live Marx, Long Live Communism!<br />
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This alternative is one that will not make us pay for the multi-billion losses of corporate and financial giants. An alternative that will not merely tell us to resort to austerity measures while the corporate and financial elites splurge on their bonuses and indulge in luxury spending. An alternative that will not impose a gradual but sure death to millions of families of working peoples of the world through inhuman minimum wages and restricted opportunities. An alternative that does not ask us to save the Faustian monster that kills us: Capital.<br />
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What we need is an alternative that will end capitalism and all its crises. An alternative that values people and not profit. An alternative that will be a seizure of control over our lives. An alternative that will provide jobs, education, health care and uphold human rights, as well as the most human right to participate in the shaping of our destinies.<br />
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Contrary to all black propaganda, what all of this stand for can only be called Communism. The ruling class has tried all sorts of remedies for capital’s incurable ills, from the “Free” Market to the Welfare State. Former Socialist States, faced with the so-called triumph of Capitalism, were in a hurry to accommodate the tyranny of the market through Neoliberalism.<br />
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The era of privatization and speculation that aimed at effacing the wager of communism has only proven to be the worst time in human history. And while the laboring people suffer the consequences of the anarchy of capital, the ruling class can only recite the trite dictum that “there is no alternative to capitalism.” But If we want a just and humane future, what we need is, in fact, a corrective to that terrible lie. There is no alternative to Communism.<br />
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Notes:<br />
(1)All quotes from on the letters of Heinrich Marx are lifted from Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel. 2011. LondonLittle Brown and Company.<br />
(2) I owe this observation to Chris Cutrone’s review of Alain Badiou’s The Communist Hypothesis in http://platypus1917.org/2010/11/06/the-marxist-hypothesis-a-response-to-alain-badous-communist-hypothesis/#_foot23<br />
(3) Sections from here on in draw heavily from a paper entiled “The Validity and Vitality of Marxism in the 21ist Century”, which I read in a panel discussion organized by Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and the International Solidarity Affair on May 6, 2009. My gratitude to KMU’s RC. Asa for his invaluable insights in the drafting of the paper.<br />
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<i>Sarah Raymundo is a full-time faculty at the University of the Philippines-Center for International Studies (UP-CIS Diliman) and a member of the National Executive Board of the All U.P. Academic Employees Union. She is the current National Treasurer of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and the External Vice Chair of the Philppine Anti-Impeiralist Studies (PAIS). She is also a member of the Editorial Board of Interface: A Journal for Social Movements.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-46113442576392195582013-03-19T09:55:00.000+08:002015-05-24T09:55:51.017+08:00Cacique diplomacyCacique diplomacy<br />
March 12, 2013<br />
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo<br />
<a href="http://bulatlat.com/main/2013/03/12/cacique-diplomacy/">Bulatlat.com</a><br />
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Why is it taking forever for Malacanang to state whether it acknowledges the official claim of the Philippines to Sabah and will pursue it with vigor or will drop it like a hot potato?<br />
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Many are beginning to surmise that the Aquino regime is not all convinced that the Sabah claim has merit and his description of it as a “hopeless cause” is not just a slip of the tongue indicating “ignorance or incompetence” as Sultan Jamalul Kiram III suspects but his regime’s point of view and even policy on the matter.<br />
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The objective of the so-called study ordered by Mr. Aquino appears to be to find holes in the claim rather than determine its veracity and validity. Otherwise, why has the “study” not come up with anything at all so far? Surely the DFA and other government agencies can dig up the documentation on the Philippines’ Sabah claim whilst Mr. Aquino consults the many experts that have specialized in scholarly, legal and historical, study of the same.<br />
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The Aquino regime’s indifference to the Philippines’ Sabah claim underlies his 1) disdain over Sultanate’s political act of asserting their claim of ownership; 2) belief that this is merely part of a grand conspiracy by his political enemies to make trouble, in particular to throw a monkey wrench into the GPH-MILF peace negotiations; 3) refusal to negotiate in earnest with the Sultanate’s heirs instead resorting to publicly-aired ultimatums and threats of criminal prosecution against Sultan Kiram III and other “co-conspirators”; 4) speaking and acting as if he fully concedes Malaysia’s sovereignty over Sabah, that is, the Sultanate’s unarmed followers and members of its “Royal Security Forces” are the transgressors and the Malaysian government is justified in using all-out force to exterminate them.<br />
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Too bad for Mr. Aquino it is not going to be easy to rewrite the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial history with regard to North Borneo now Sabah.<br />
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The facts are clear and incontrovertible. The Sulu Sultanate came to own and rule over North Borneo in 1704 when the Sulu Sultan’s relative, the Sultan of Brunei, granted the territory to the former in return for helping him quell his enemies.<br />
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In 1878, the Sulu Sultanate entered into a lease agreement with the British North Borneo Company, a private trading company; for a consideration of 5000 Malayan dollars per year, the BNBC could exploit and develop North Borneo’s natural resources and administer the territory in the Sultanate’s behalf. This was upped to 5300 dollars in 1903 when Sultan Jamalul Kiram II signed a document leasing additional islands in the vicinity of the mainland of North Borneo.<br />
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Subsequently, the British Crown in collusion with the BNBC deliberately misinterpreted the term “padyak” in the 1878 agreement to mean “cession” instead of “lease” in order for the British to land grab North Borneo and falsely claim dominion or sovereignty over it.<br />
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The Sulu Sultanate came under the control of Spain in the 1880s but not North Borneo. The 1885 Madrid Protocol signed by Great Britain, Germany and Spain consolidated Spain’s continued sway over the Philippine islands while Spain renounced all claims of sovereignty over the territories of Borneo belonging to the Sultan of Sulu.<br />
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The United States officially notified Great Britain that North Borneo remained part of the Sulu Sultanate in 1906 and 1920; nevertheless, Britain proceeded to annex North Borneo as a colony in 1946.<br />
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The 1935 Constitution defined Philippine territory to include “all other areas which belong to the Philippines on the basis of historical rights and legal claims” and thus effectively covered North Borneo. The Sulu Sultanate’s act of ceding sovereignty to the Republic of the Philippines on 12 September 1962, during the Diosdado Macapagal administration authorized the Philippine government to file the Sabah claim with the United Nations and other international forums.<br />
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The so-called plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the British colonialists and their Malayan subalterns in 1963 predictably resulted in a vote in favor of Sabah’s incorporation in the Federation of Malaysia. And so it came to pass that when Malaysia was formed in 1963, Britain’s illegal annexation of North Borneo was bequeathed to the new Malaysian state.<br />
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It is evident from the above that the Philippines has a solid claim to sovereignty over Sabah, to say the least. What is incomprehensible to many is why Presidents Macapagal and Marcos, who showed some interest in pursuing the claim at the beginning of their terms, eventually backed off. Successive regimes after Marcos chose to let the claim lie dormant, with Ramos and Estrada ordering “studies” on the bases and prospects for pursuing the claims, without any concrete or at least announced results.<br />
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The answer lies in the fact that the Philippine government’s foreign policy is still very much aligned with and influenced, if not dictated by US foreign policy and national interest. Thus, attempts to explain various regimes’ position on Sabah purely on the basis or in the context of Philippine national interest prove inadequate. Oftentimes, what is good for the US is misrepresented as good for the Philippines, too, especially on questions of “regional peace and stability”. What the US says is good for “regional peace and stability”, is good for the Philippines too.<br />
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With respect to Sabah, Philippine regimes invariably relegated the Philippine claim to the back burner to avoid confrontation with Malaysia or even antagonizing it in any way. Especially so since 1974 when Malaysia started playing a key role in the Organization of Islamic Conference’s intervention in the peace negotiations between the GRP and the MNLF, and more so since 2001 when Malaysia became the official Third Party Facilitator in the GPH-MILF talks.<br />
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This partly explains why Aquino, more than his predecessors, evidently has no interest in supporting the Kirams in renewing the Philippines’ claim to Sabah. As the Framework Agreement nears completion with most of the annexes agreed upon by the GPH and MILF panels, this is not the best time to incur the displeasure, if not ire, of the Third Party Facilitator, Malaysia. At the very least, it would appear to be an unpardonable act of ingratitude. At worst, Malaysia could retaliate and put the agreement in peril.<br />
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But this does not explain why Aquino has gone a lot farther to the extent of clearly siding with Malaysia. Not only has Aquino refused to acknowledge the peaceful intent of the Sultanate’s expedition to Sabah he has desisted from supporting the Kirams’ mostly symbolic and political move. He has threatened them with arrest and prosecution, broadcast his supposed doubts on the legitimacy even of their royal lineage, and practically accuses them of acting only at the behest of and in conspiracy with the much discredited Arroyos.<br />
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Mr. Aquino had virtually given the Malaysian government the green light to use coercive and armed means to end the stand-off and crush the Filipinos.<br />
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To top it all, Mr. Aquino has chosen to do a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the bloody outcome of his regime’s hard-line position against the Kirams. He has since relegated the handling of the Sabah crisis to his underlings while he blithely campaigns for his senatorial candidates and indulges in pontificating about the Sultan’s culpability for the ignominious end of his followers in Sabah.<br />
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Many who are still trying to understand the actuation and statements of Mr. Aquino with the assumption that his standpoint derives from the national interest are bound to be stumped and confused forever. In truth, Mr. Aquino’s derisive attitude can only be traced to his cacique upbringing and mindset.<br />
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Mr. Aquino, scion of landed elites and heir to the Cojuangco-Aquino political dynasty, can readily sympathize with the land grab of North Borneo perpetrated by the Malaysian state and ruling elite, because this is something he can relate to in light of the experience of the clan’s Hacienda Luisita. He is dealing with the Kirams in much the same way he and his clan has dealt with the Hacienda’s farm workers and tenants for decades – using deceit and force – to maintain an unjust status quo. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
8-9 March 2013Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-90238191115112147852013-08-15T09:51:00.000+08:002015-05-24T09:52:16.846+08:00Beyond internet activismBeyond internet activism<br />
By Mong Palatino<br />
August 8, 2013<br />
<a href="http://bulatlat.com/main/2013/08/08/beyond-internet-activism/">Bulatlat.com</a><br />
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The opposite of internet activism is not street activism but no-activism. Online petitions and political hashtags are indispensable in the campaign for change while non-action is a convenient option that only serves the interest of status quo.<br />
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Internet activism is sometimes equated with impotence but at least it exists. There are no TV activists and newspaper activists but there are internet activists. Why is this so? Because corporate ownership of mainstream media has made it impossible for the people to dictate the agenda in major media networks. Meanwhile, the internet has become truly social by allowing the people to create and exchange cyber tools that can be used for political purposes.<br />
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We are still in the stage of experimentation on how the internet can be redirected and reshaped to serve the community. Various forces are still competing for dominance in the online world at a time when corporate conglomerates and government bodies are not yet able to impose an absolute hegemony on how we use and practice the potential of the internet technology.<br />
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Indeed, because of intensified militarization and commodification, the internet has become a more dangerous place than ever where the space for independent thought and practice is under threat. But since total government regulation is still unenforceable at the moment, this technology should not be easily surrendered to the enemy. The internet-plus-activism equation must be continually pursued.<br />
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And the undeniable fact is that among the most resolute and creative practitioners of internet activism in the country are the militant activists of the parliament of the streets. They have been consistently maximizing the most effective social media tools to promote their causes and recruit members. They have successfully initiated several campaigns that combine the offline and online to make a greater political impact such as the text jokes at the height of Edsa Dos, Hello Garci ringtones, and disappearing Facebook profiles. Activists are as tech-savvy as they are often caricatured to be grim and determined. Connecting, networking, collaborating, crowdsourcing – these are actually popular keywords of traditional activism.<br />
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Internet activism became a real reality not because activists have stopped shouting and marching in the streets in order to join the so-called virtual rallies in wired world. On the contrary, activists continued to ‘occupy’ the streets while they actively shared apps and status updates online. In other words, offline activism is inevitably online as well. This is internet activism. This is activism in the 21st century.<br />
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But what separates activists from internet worshippers is the belief of the former that what really matters in the end is the political empowerment of the people. And to do this, the grassroots must learn to struggle and fight for broader political goals. They must organize not just their inbox but the whole society.<br />
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Unfortunately, there are self-proclaimed internet activists who also claim to empower the citizens but emphatically reject politics. They simply want the magic of IT to deliver the message minus the radical threat of politics. They aim to restrict the scope of internet activism by focusing on issues that can be accommodated by mainstream media. Their political strategy consists of dismissing street politics and depoliticizing the content of internet activism, or what is left of it. They engage in infinite conversations about peripheral social issues, or political concerns that do not address the roots of injustice and inequality in society. They gossip about the lifestyle of the rich, they ridicule the poor, and they assuage their guilt by lampooning corrupt politicians and shady public characters.<br />
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This brand of internet activism is embraced by closet conservatives, pseudo-reformists, and even by politicians who pretend to be social media enthusiasts.<br />
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Politics-less internet activism, not internet activism, is the problem that must be dealt with decisively. The challenge should not be simply about exhorting the netizens to support the masses but to restore politics proper in online activism.<br />
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What’s the use of persuading a Twitter user to attend an offline event organized by the state to distract the attention of the public and weaken the fighting enthusiasm of the online citizens? There is little to celebrate if netizens turned off their gadgets and integrated in the communities just so that they can spread the doctrine of cash transfers and self-demolition. This is activism that disempowers the poor and it should be outrightly rejected.<br />
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Internet activism must remain political, subversive or revolutionary even. If necessary, it must not be afraid to cut links with corporate sponsors, state functionaries, and knowledge-producing institutions to promote digital democracy. It must aggressively espouse the truth even if it would disrupt the comforts of the networks and even if it would contradict popular opinion. Otherwise, it would degenerate into a useless but arrogant drone.<br />
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<i>Mong Palatino is an activist, blogger, and representative of Kabataan (Youth) Partylist in the 14th and 15th Congress of the Philippines. He is the Philippines’ first blogger turned legislator and the first elected youth representative in the legislative body. As a student leader, he chaired the UP Diliman University Student Council in 2000 and was national president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines in 2001. He was former news editor of Yehey.com, a leading local web portal and columnist for UPIAsia.com from 2007-2009. He is currently the regional editor for Southeast Asia of Global Voices Online, a pioneering social media platform. He also writes a political column for the ASEAN Beat of The Diplomat web magazine. His <a href="http://bulatlat.com/main/category/commentary/mong/page/5/">column “Question Everything”</a> will appear weekly at Bulatlat.com</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-65795569512010963282014-08-29T08:11:00.000+08:002015-05-24T08:16:07.250+08:00Biggest secret of all: Aquino’s P220 billion pork barrelBiggest secret of all: Aquino’s P220 billion pork barrel<br />
by RIGOBERTO TIGLAO<br />
June 29, 2014<br />
<a href="http://www.manilatimes.net/biggest-secret-of-all-aquinos-p220-billion-pork-barrel/107780/">The Manila Times</a><br />
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In my column on Friday, I explained that behind the pork barrel furor engulfing the nation are three cover-ups managed by the Aquino administration.<br />
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The first is the fact that with the utter demonization of “pork barrel queen” Janet Lim Napoles, the Aquino government has covered up the bigger operations of a mysterious person or gang that in fact siphoned off P4 billion of taxpayers’ money into legislators’ pockets. That is practically double the P2.2 billion Napoles allegedly handled.<br />
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The second cover-up involves the fact that out of 325 House of Representatives members and 17 senators, the Justice Department, the Ombudsman’s investigators, and their stable of whistle-blowers have singled out only three senators—Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Ramon Revilla—leaders of the opposition, with the latter two in fact having declared that they would be running either for president or vice president in 2016.<br />
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Isn’t that way too convenient, that the barrage of charges against the two, their arrest and incarceration have painted them as crooks, two years before elections in 2016? Isn’t that too convenient, with the ratings of Mar Roxas—Aquino’s bet for 2016—slipping from about 17 percent at the start of the year to single-digit levels in recent polls, with his rival Jejomar Binay, allies of Enrile and Estrada, moving from 53 to 57 percent?<br />
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The third cover-up is the Commission on Audit’s (COA) failure, refusal, or foot-dragging in undertaking an audit of the use of funds from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) from 2010 to 2013, or during Aquino’s watch, as well as of his patently unconstitutional new form of pork, the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds.<br />
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The PDAF releases from 2010-2013 (already the Aquino administration) totaled P62.5 billion, double the P26.1 billion from 2007 to 2009, which is the subject of the current pork-barrel cases at the Sandiganbayan.<br />
<br />
But these are dwarfed by the DAP, which totaled P157 billion from 2011 to 2013 according to official data from the Budget department itself (www.gov.ph/2013/10/07/qa-on-the-disbursement-acceleration-program).<br />
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That is, Aquino’s pork barrel since he assumed office amounted to P220 billion –P62.5 billion PDAF released in his first three years, plus the P157 billion DAP. Yet so far, the COA has turned a blind eye to these suspicious siphoning off of public funds committed during the term of Aquino.<br />
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COA Chairman Grace Pulido-Tan—who provided the theatrics in Napoles’ demonization by calling the use of 2007-2009 pork barrel funds as “kahindik-hindik”—must answer four questions:<br />
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• Has she issued the office directive ordering the COA’s special audits unit to undertake an audit of the PDAF from 2010-2013, and of the DAP from 2011-2013, in the rigorous manner the agency audited the funds released from 2007 to 2009? It is not just me who’s asking for an audit of the PDAF funds from 2010-2012. It was the second highest official of land, Vice President Jejomar Binay, who as early as last year, and as reported in newspapers on August 31, 2013, demanded that the auditing should not only include the years 2007 to 2009, but also the years until 2012.<br />
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• Is the Department of Budget and Management cooperating fully in providing the COA all the documents it has been asking for? (For the 2007-2009 audit, it refused to surrender all documents the COA asked for, most probably those dealing with Aquino’s allies and Liberal Party stalwarts.)<br />
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• Given the fact that such an audit of Aquino’s PDAF and DAP would clear the COA and this administration of the accusations that they are not really on an anti-corruption drive but on a campaign to bury the political opposition, has Tan deployed more auditors so the audits can be accelerated, considering the amounts involved are eight times bigger than those for 2007-2009?<br />
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• Can she promise the nation that the audit of Aquino’s pork barrel will be finished this year, and not after the 2016 elections?<br />
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Would Tan stonewall the audit of Aquino’s pork barrel as a quid pro quo for her to be appointed soon as a Supreme Court justice? We hope not.<br />
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COA must immediately audit Aquino’s pork because it involves a much larger amount of P220 billion, which is eight times the P26 billion pork for 2007-2009.<br />
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More importantly, Aquino had blatantly used the PDAF and the DAP especially in 2011 and 2012 to bribe first members of the House in filing an impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona, and then the senators to convict him.<br />
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This has been established not only by testimony of those receiving the funds (it was Jinggoy Estrada who exposed it in October 2013), but also by the timing of the funds’ releases. (See my columns: “P559 million released before Senate vote vs. Corona”, Sept. 29, 2013 and “DBM data confirms P100M ‘bribe’ to 16 senators each,” Oct 3. 2013.)<br />
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Another P4 billion was disbursed to congressmen in 2012, at P15 million each, for having filed the impeachment case against Corona.<br />
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Think about it. With Aquino bribing congressmen and senators by throwing at them millions of pesos worth of pork barrel funds, would he or his officials have tightened up procedures to make sure that the legislators don’t steal the proceeds, as they had done in 2007-2009?<br />
<br />
Or, as rumors have circulated, was it Napoles herself and another still unidentified mastermind of the pork barrel scam who helped the legislators, with Aquino’s endorsement, to steal from the pork barrel bribe the president gave them so they’d remove Corona?<br />
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Was Napoles’ participation in the pork barrel bribes in 2011-2012 the reason for her inexplicable confidence that she would survive her current nightmare, for Aquino to personally see her in Malacañang when she surrendered in August and accompany her to the police headquarters?<br />
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Or was it an Abad-Napoles tandem in this bigger pork-barrel scam under Aquino? Note that Abad was a congressman for nine years, from 1995 to 2004, who religiously collected his pork barrel that was used for his 16,000 constituents in his tiny province of Batanes.<br />
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Especially since the COA had asked him for documents for its 2007-2009 audit, it is impossible that Abad did not know how people’s money was being stolen through the pork barrel system.<br />
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Did he advise Aquino that this is the easiest way to bribe Congress so it would remove Corona, and recommended Napoles to help out? Was it this that Napoles was really referring to when she wrote in her sworn statement that it was Abad who taught her how to use NGOs for the pork barrel scam?<br />
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For all of Aquino’s sickening blah-blahs about “walang mahirap kung walang corrupt,” did he ever talk against the pork barrel system before it was exposed in 2013?<br />
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Since he, and he alone, directed the use of the DAP, Aquino used these funds as his own personal treasury. Undeniably, Aquino’s hands are tainted with pork barrel money.<br />
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Note also COA’s wrong priorities to support Aquino’s fake anti-graft campaign.<br />
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In another move to persecute former President Arroyo as well as to pin down Napoles and the three senators, the COA undertook a special audit of P900 million of the Malampaya funds coursed in 1999 through the agrarian reform department starting in 2011.<br />
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But what may be compared to the Agrarian reform department’s Malampaya scam is the P8.6 billion—ten times the Malampaya money—Aquino gave to the ARMM from the DAP funds, purportedly to accelerate the region’s development.<br />
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And how were these distributed? Through Aquino’s hand-picked ARRM Governor Mujiv Hataman who even had a media-covered ceremony distributing P10 million in checks to officials of the region in January 2013. Aquino even complained at that event that Hataman wasn’t disbursing the funds quick enough!<br />
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For all its posturing as an anti-corruption body, the COA under Tan will be judged by history as another institution prostituted by Aquino, unless she orders the audit of this president’s P220 billion pork barrel, the biggest amount of government money ever put under a president’s sole whim in our history, and the biggest secret of all in this saga.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-43978794776689357552015-05-24T07:54:00.002+08:002015-05-24T08:00:39.300+08:00Ka Bel, guro ng uring manggagawaKa Bel, guro ng uring manggagawa<br />
by Mandy Felicia<br />
May 22 2015<br />
<a href="http://pinoyweekly.org/new/2015/05/ka-bel-guro-ng-uring-manggagawa/">Pinoy Weekly</a><br />
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<i>(Mensahe sa ika-7 taon ng paggunita sa kamatayan ni Ka Bel sa Plaza Miranda, Mayo 20, 2015)</i><br />
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Una kong nakadaupang palad si Crispin “Ka Bel” Beltran nang minsang nakisilong kami at nakigamit ng opisina ng PANALO dito sa Gusaling URC sa Espana Avenue. Mga kabataang aktibista kami noon na malaking bagay na ang makagamit ng opisina para sa mga pulong kaysa naman sa Luneta na nakabuyangyang o sa Fort Santiago na mahirap pumuslit dahil may entrance fee o kaya naman sa mga lobby ng ospital o kaya’y makipaglamay sa mga punerarya.<br />
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Bukas lagi ang opisina ng PANALO para sa mga estudyante at naaalala kong kabilang si Ka Bel sa mga masiglang tumatanggap sa amin doon. Tulad ng maraming kabataan, si Ka Bel ang idolong imahen ng abanteng uring manggagawa. Noong nag-crackdown ang diktadurang Marcos sa kilusang paggawa, kabilang na kami sa mga kabataang nakikisigaw ng “Ka Bert, Ka Bel, Palayain!”<br />
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Pero marami nang nakuwento sa kanya bilang lider-manggagawa: Kung paano siya nagsimula bilang lider ng mga taxi driver sa Yellow Taxi drivers Union na bag-as ng Amalgamated Taxi Drivers Association, sa Confederation of Labor Unions in the Philippines, na humantong sa Federations of Union in Rizal, sa PANALO at sa ANGLO hanggang sa napakahalagang papel ni Ka Bel sa pagtatatag at pagsulong ng Kilusang Mayo Uno bilang pinakamalawak, pinakamilitante at kinikilalang tunay na sentrong unyon sa Pilipinas.<br />
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Marami na ring nakuwento sa kanya bilang internasyonalista at sa mahalagang papel niya sa International League of Peoples’ Struggle. Gayundin maging sa kanyang maningning at walang bahid na rekord bilang mambababatas ng masa at para sa masa mula sa panahong ng BU-BU-CA-SA-TA-BE-MO ng Partido ng Bayan hanggang sa Bayan Muna at sa pinangunahan nitong Anakpawis Party-list. Marami nang nasabi tungkol sa kanyang di-matatawarang papel at kontribusyon pagbubukas ng pagbibigay-depenisyon sa larangang ito.<br />
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Ako po’y guro at si Ka Bel ang isa sa pinakamamahalagang nagturo sa akin kung paano maging guro at edukador. Hayaan n’yong ikuwento ko si Ka Bel bilang edukador ng mga manggagawa at ng mga maralita. Alam naman ng lahat na si Ka Bel ay aral sa noo’y sanayan ng mga lider-manggagawa na Asian Labor Education Center (ALEC) noong dekada ’50 at ngayon ay tinatawag na Solair sa UP. Kaya naman, pagdating sa diskusyon ay hindi mapapaikot si Ka Bel lalo na sa mga paksa sa kasaysayan ng kilusang paggawa at sa diskusyon ng taktika at estratehiya sa unyonismo, kilusang paggawa at kilusang welga.<br />
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Matapos ang eskuwela, nag-eskuwela akong muli sa paglahok ko sa mga institusyong pangmanggagawa bilang istap. Nakakasalamuha ko na noon si Ka Bel pero higit na naging mahigpit ang aming ugnayan nang maging istap ako ng kagawaran sa edukasyon ng KMU nang ang pambansang opisina’y sa Gusaling Jopson sa Bustillos. Kabilang si Ka Bel sa espesyal na mga guro sa Edgar Jopson Labor Training Center. Kahit abala, hindi humihindi si Ka Belk kapag nahilingang magtalakay ng mga paksa. Buong giliw siyang sumasama sa mga diskusyon at buong tiyagang nagpapaliwanag. Mula sa praktika ng pag-oorganisa hanggang sa mga klasikong araling manggagawa tulad ng sahod, presyo at tubo, o kaya’y imperyalismo: pinakamataas na yugto ng kapitalismo, o kaya’y mga prinsipyo ng tunay, palaban at makabayang unyonismo. Pero higit pa rito ang kanyang itinuro sa amin.<br />
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Siya’y edukador higit pa sa instruktor. Mahalaga sa kanya hindi lamang ang kanyang itinuturo kung di ang natutuhan mula sa diskusyon. Mahalaga sa kanya hindi lamang kung paano ipinapaliwanag kundi paano siya higit na mauunawaan. Itinuro niya na gawing buhay ang mga diskusyon sa pamamagitan ng mga halimbawang nakabatay sa mga aktuwal na kalagayan ng mga kalahok.<br />
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Madalas sabihin ni Ka Bel noon: “Yaong nangangahas magturo’y hindi dapat nagsasawang mag-aral. At ang mga nagsasalita’y dapat matutong makinig.” Itinuro ni Ka Bel na ang pagkatuto ay hindi isang direksiyon lang. Paborito niyang banggitin ang isang sipi mula kay Mao Zedong: “Saan nagmumula ang wastong ideya?” Nasa praktika, nasa produksiyon, nasa interaksiyon sa mga tao.<br />
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At tunay ngang ginagawa ni Ka Bel ang kanyang itinuturo. Hindi siya nagsasawang mag-aral. Magugulat ka na lang na sa kanyang notebook (kadalasan ay napaglumaang planner) ay may mga nakasingit na clippings ng diyaryo o kinopyang datos. Masarap basahin ang mga sulat ni Ka Bel dahil napahusay ng kanyang penmanship, praktisado kasi magsulat. Masinop ang kanyang notes kaya siguro sistematiko din niya itong nahahanap kung kailangan.<br />
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Kabilang si Ka Bel sa mga aktibong nakibahagi bilang discussant at reader nang binubuo noon ang “Kurso sa Pambansang Demokrasya” (KPD), nang nirerebisa ang sulating “Genuine Trade Unionism” (GTU), nang binabalangkas ang Kurso sa Sosyalismo. Napakarami na niyang gawain noon. At nahaharap din sa organisasyonal na mga paghamon noon ang KMU, pero laging may oras si Ka Bel para magkomentaryo sa mga borador, o kaya ay sumingit para magbigay kahit ilang paksa kapag sa Gusaling Jopson ang mga pag-aaral. Lagi niyang iginigiit noon na di dapat isakripisyo ang mga iskedyul ng mga pag-aaral at pagsasanay kahit na maraming gawain. Para sa kanya, ang edukasyon ang nagbibigay ng lalim sa organisasyon.<br />
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Sa okasyon ng ikapitong anibersaryo ng kanyang kamatayan, patuloy ang ating pinakamataas na pagpupugay kay Ka Bel, lider-mangagawa, lider-anakpawis, lider ng aping uri sa buong daigdig. Pero higit sa lahat, primera-klaseng edukador siya ng mga manggagawa at maralita.<br />
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Kung narito si Ka Bel, sigurado akong kasama natin siyang nagagalit sa nangyari sa Kentex, sa binuwag na piket sa Tanduay. Pero sigurado rin akong sasabihin niya: “Magalit tayo, pero hindi sapat ang galit. Kailangan nating patalasin ang ating isip, buuin ang pagsusuri, kailangan nating patatagin ang ating diwa at paninindigan. Hindi lang mga kalakal ang lilikhain ng mga manggagawa, kundi ang isang bagong sistemang panlipunan.”<br />
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Inspirasyon, huwaran at gabay sa mga edukador na tulad ko—Salamat, Ka Bel. Salamat sa lahat ng aming mga natutunan. Nais namin kayong dakilain sa pagsusulong at pagpapatuloy sa inyong simulain.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbRiuSKoLmZ8I_lEqpUodXYYUp0zYwC5kXkWs-pfjDDCsO_saY_kjTWI-d16Zr_dzEsodzkmg-pqhNer-kJt3WpjaBzYXLwCOP-YobGjlCQlwfwkzhHO8Hmct5riMM9vQ3o6xR/s1600/PW-ka-bel-edukador-mandy-felicia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbRiuSKoLmZ8I_lEqpUodXYYUp0zYwC5kXkWs-pfjDDCsO_saY_kjTWI-d16Zr_dzEsodzkmg-pqhNer-kJt3WpjaBzYXLwCOP-YobGjlCQlwfwkzhHO8Hmct5riMM9vQ3o6xR/s800/PW-ka-bel-edukador-mandy-felicia.jpg" width="100%"/></a></div><i>Si Mandy Felicia ay kasalukuyang direktor ng Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations at Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology sa Polytechnic University of the Philippines.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-15071060919639219792012-02-23T18:16:00.004+08:002012-02-23T18:25:54.364+08:0026 years after EDSA uprising...EDSA HIJACKED<br />By Luis V. Teodoro<br /> <br />DESPITE its failure to deliver on its promises, some Filipinos still hail the 1986 EDSA uprising as a model of how peacefully change can be achieved.<br /> <br />The shift in Thailand from military rule to democracy in 1992, and the fall from power of Indonesia’s Suharto in 1998, for example, were supposedly among the political upheavals the event inspired. Changes in other parts of Asia and in Eastern Europe have similarly been credited to the demonstration effect of Philippine People Power, or EDSA 1986.<br /> <br />These claims, however, were mostly based on the broad similarities between what transpired in other countries and what happened in the Philippines in 1986. By the 1980s the United States was abandoning its global anti-communist strategy of fomenting dictatorial rule in favor of supposedly supporting the democratic aspirations of the people its own previous policies had forced into such tyrannies as Pinochet’s in Chile and Marcos’ in the Philippines. This shift in US strategy resulted in a number of US-encouraged pro-“democracy” uprisings all over the world similar to EDSA.<br /> <br />Most of those who have been doing the hailing are also conservatives who define “change” solely in terms of the removal of Marcos from the scene, and who’re still trying to prove that the EDSA uprising was in that sense not only their sole creation, but also a rousing success.<br /> <br />But the suspicion that EDSA 1986 had not changed anything beyond removing Ferdinand Marcos from power didn’t take long to develop. The most visible leaders of that event, Fidel Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile, were after all also the most visible symbols of martial law when Marcos proclaimed it in 1972: Ramos as chief of the dreaded Philippine Constabulary, and Enrile as Secretary, and later Minister, of National Defense.<br /> <br />By the time of the Mendiola Massacre of January 1987, or less than a year into the administration of Corazon Aquino, the suspicion had turned into a conclusion. It was after all the very same police and military goons that during the Marcos dictatorship had suppressed protests that opened fire on the farmers massed at Mendiola street (only a few blocks from the Presidential Palace) who were demanding land reform, and killed thirteen of them, in a bleak demonstration that the same state apparatus of repression was still in place.<br /> <br />Today the country is still mired in poverty; the vast income gap between the very rich and the very poor is growing; elite rule has turned the country into a vast den of corruption; justice, whether social or the simple variety that punishes the guilty and exonerates the innocent, is as elusive as ever; and human rights are still being violated, in many cases so flagrantly the martial law period might as well not have ended.<br /> <br />That’s as far as the “change” part is concerned. The “peaceful” part is also contentious. EDSA 1986 occurred in the context of a 14-year struggle against the Marcos dictatorship by a united front of anti-dictatorship and democratic forces and people’s organizations, including the New People’s Army and the Moro National Liberation Front. EDSA did not spring out of nothing overnight, but was the culmination of a process that included mass protests and the use of revolutionary violence against state violence. In the five days of EDSA itself, the presence of about a million people constituted a physical threat against the soldiers manning the tanks of the dictatorship, who could at any time have fired into the crowds.<br /> <br />If successfully changing society is the criterion, EDSA 1986 would not be a model. But, warns Michael James Barker of the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict, what happened during and after EDSA does offer lessons to activists and revolutionaries in other parts of the world.<br /> <br />In his <a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/barker150211.html">“A Warning for Egyptian Revolutionaries: Courtesy of People-Power in the Philippines," </a> Barker contends that even a powerful popular movement such as the Philippine resistance to dictatorship could be undermined and hijacked, and its reformist, even revolutionary agenda transformed into its opposite: the preservation of the limited, anti-people interests of the local and foreign elite.<br /> <br />Barker reiterates in this essay his argument in an earlier paper, <a href="http://www.swans.com/library/art17/barker79.html">“The American Hijacking Of The Philippines' ‘People-Power’ Struggle,”</a> that the United States undermined the nationalist and democratic aspirations of the anti-dictatorship movement and that this has to be understood if it is not to happen in the Arab Spring uprisings against dictatorships in the Middle East, specially Egypt. Otherwise, the end result would be similar to what happened in the Philippines.<br /> <br />Marcos’ overthrow was indeed the result of a popular uprising, says Barker, but official US circles prior to EDSA had been disturbed by the development of a broad political and social movement that among other demands wanted the US bases out of the Philippines and society restructured to reflect the hopes of workers and farmers for social justice and the equitable distribution of wealth.<br /> <br />“Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the poor and oppressed citizens of the Philippines had been gathering political strength. This emerging power was significantly bolstered by the August 1983 assassination of the most visible leader of the elite opposition, Benigno Aquino Jr.,” Barker points out, and there seemed little doubt by the mid-1980s that Marcos’ days in power were numbered.<br /> <br />To prevent the removal of Marcos from morphing into a real revolution that would democratize political power and restructure the economy and society, the US dispatched operatives to the Philippines to redirect the movement of popular resistance from the reform and revolutionary path to what was essentially the return to power of the wing of the elite Marcos had swept aside, and the preservation of US influence and military bases in the country.<br /> <br />Barker quotes University of California sociology professor William I. Robinson’s Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Robinson said in that work that in 1984, Corazon Aquino was working with other opposition leaders to develop plans that “spelled out a nationalist-oriented program of social reform and development and also called for the removal of US military bases from the Philippines.”<br /> <br />To prevent that from happening, the United States, says Barker, funneled financial and political support to the conservative and middle-class segments of the opposition. It also “dispatched (its) finest experts in conflict resolution to meet with Cory Aquino and the leader of the right-wing opposition, Salvador ‘Doy’ Laurel, to convince them to abandon the program and to keep the US bases in the Philippines.”<br /> <br />They did, and the result was a police and military still committed to preserving elite rule and foreign domination, the return of some of the very same personalities, including the Marcoses, who had been so instrumental in establishing the dictatorship and keeping it in power, and hence the preservation of the status quo of poverty, social inequity, injustice, mass misery, and limited democracy.<br /> <br />“US intervention,” Barker quotes Robinson, “was decisive in shaping the contours of the anti-Marcos movement and in establishing the terms and conditions under which Philippine social and political struggles would unfold in the post-Marcos period.”<br /> <br />“The Egyptian people,” Barker then argues, “need to learn from the Philippine experience, and to do all they can to keep (what happened in the Philippines) from happening.”<br /> <br />In short, EDSA 1986 does have a lesson to offer other movements across the planet that are fighting for authentic democracy and social change: as a negative example of how NOT to wage a revolution.--###<br /> <br />Comments and other columns: <a href="http://www.luisteodoro.com">www.luisteodoro.com</a><br />Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and TwitterUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-51299786810465715442011-11-11T18:36:00.000+08:002011-11-18T18:39:02.302+08:00Pagkampo sa militar sa eskwelahan ginabawal sa internasyunal nga balaudnonAFP violate children’s rights in areas under armed conflict<br /><br />By ARTHUR L. ALLAD-IW<br /><a href="http://www.nordis.net/?p=10969">www.nordis.net</a><br /><br />BAGUIO CITY — In a remote town of Sadanga, Mountain Province, detachments were established by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in school compounds allegedly to neutralize the usual presence of the New Peoples Army (NPA), a revolutionary force which operates in the area and in the whole Cordillera region.<br /><br />Sources said that there are at least three schools in the said town where military camps were established: in the Sadanga Elementary School in Tap-ag, Sadanga National High School in Sangey, and Belwang Elementary School in Belwang. Troops camped there were identified to be from the 54th IB led by a certain Lt. Joseph Sabas.<br /><br />With the troops’ presence, some teachers positively favor and justify the armed presence that they are there to guard the schools from the influence of the rebels.<br /><br />Reached to verify the presence of military camps in the said schools, the mayor of the town confirmed the troops’ encampment inside the campuses. When residents were interviewed they even identified the locations to be within the campuses mentioned.<br /><br />“Yes, it is with the permission of the barangay officials kasi ayaw namin umaumay NPA nga agrecruit young people me” (because don’t like the NPA visits to recruit our youth), explained Sadanga Mayor Gavino Ganggangan in an SMS message.<br /><br />This revealed that the presence of the military troops in the area is traceable to the anti-insurgency campaign of the government to maintain “peace” because various mining applications covering that area are already inked.<br /><br />While Mayor Ganggangan, alleged barangay officials, and some teachers welcomed the military presence in the area, others are more concerned of the validity of the military presence and its effect on the school children.<br /><br />In June this year, a team of UNICEF officials headed by Robert MacTavish went to visit the area. As the camps were proven to be inside the school campuses, they reportedly wrote the AFP to act on the removal of the camps as it endangers the safety of the children, a local member of the team revealed. But the troops remained there to the present.<br /><br />Armed conflict<br /><br />In an interview with Anastacia B. Tamayo, she explained that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) applies in the areas (in the Philippines) where two contending forces exist. As indicated by the information from the mayor and the teachers both the AFP and the rebels operate in Sadanga area (as in other areas of the region), various instruments under IHL apply. These instruments are to protect civilians, children, non-combatants and institutions like schools, hospitals and church, she added. <br /><br />The children are caught in the “crossfire” in this situation due to the presence of the two forces, hence there is the intervention of the IHL, opines Tamayo, chapter administrator of the Philippine Red Cross here. She cited that the Philippine Congress passed, on December 11, 2009, Republic Act 9851 which mandates that government act on crimes against the International Humanitarian Law.<br /><br />More instruments protect children<br /><br />In a media seminar on child protection in this city, speakers explained that the presence of the military camps inside school campus is tantamount to the violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child.<br /><br />The presence of armed groups unduely influenced and in-still fear on the children, explained Cesar Giovanni Soledad, program manager of the International Labour Organization. <br /><br />Protection and care of children affected by armed conflict are mandated by the Convention on the Rights of the Child which the Philippine government is obliged to implemented.<br /><br />Children in armed conflict are even protected under our national system, reiterated Ariel Hans Sebellino, executive director of the Philippine Press Institute.<br /><br />To implement the convention, the Philippines particularly passed Republic Act (RA) 7610 which provides special protection for children against abuse, exploitation and discrimination, including children in armed conflict.<br /><br />FPIC necessary<br /><br />An expert on indigenous people’s rights pointed that the presence of military in the community needs the free, prior and informed consent from the concerned citizens.<br /><br />The source said that the FPIC as mandated by the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 is required as the program or policy of military deployment affects their existence or self-determination as a collective group.<br /><br />On the other hand, in a phone interview, Cordilleras’ Department of Education office, Delfin Salidao, the legal officer, points out that military detachment or barracks inside the school campus is not allowed as a policy of their office.<br /><br />He referred this reporter to call their division office in Mountain Province if they had granted such request by the AFP, which, he claimed, maybe allowed. The calls to check their MP Division failed due to typhoon-cut communication lines.<br /><br />Rights vs. Military camps non-negotiable<br /><br />Rights advocates – both in the international and local – claimed that the rights of the children against military camps and barracks inside school campuses are prohibited and non-negotiable, as provided by the UN instruments, Convention on the Rights of the Child and local laws.<br /><br />The UNICEF said that the convention contains universally set of non-negotiable standards and obligations which provide protection and support for the rights of the children.<br /><br />“As the Philippine state is a signatory to the said convention and ratified it on July 26, 1990, it must strictly observe it without exemption,” said Jude Baggo, secretary-general of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) reiterating RA 7610, Art X, Sec. 22, paragraph e which states: “Public infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and rural health units shall not be utilized for military purposes such as command posts, barracks, detachments and supply depots.” # nordis.netUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377570.post-53582576087871711052011-06-20T13:51:00.001+08:002011-06-20T23:03:31.054+08:00Korte Suprema inutusan ang military na palayain si Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeño, at Manuel Merino<span class="boldfont">SC to military: Release student activists</span><br />By Ina Reformina, ABS-CBN News<br />Posted at 06/20/2011 8:07 AM | Updated as of 06/20/2011 10:53 AM<br /><br />MANILA, Philippines - *The Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed a decision of the Court of Appeals(CA) ordering the military, led by retired army general Jovito Palparan, to immediately release University of the Philippines(UP) student activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno, along with Manuel Merino, from their detention.*<br /><br />In a decision by the court En Banc promulgated last May 31 and penned by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio Morales(ret), the high court directed Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, Jr.(ret), Lt. Col. Rogelio Boac, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, Lt. Francis Mirablelle Samson, Arnel Enriquez and Donald Caigas, who were once assigned to the 7th Infantry Division and the 24th Infantry Battalion, and found by the high tribunal as the "responsible and accountable individuals," to immediately comply with the appellate court's decision on September 17, 2008, acting on a case for Writ of Amparo, for the activist's immediate release.<br /><br />"Respondents Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, Lt. Francis Mirabelle Samson, Gen. Jovito Palparan, Lt. Col. Rogelio Boac, Arnel Enriquez and Donald Caigas shall remain personally impleaded in the petitions to answer for any responsibilities and/or accountabilities they may have incurred during their incumbencies," the decision read.<br /><br />"Owing to the retirement and/or reassignment to other places of assignment of some of the respondents herein... the incumbent commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division and the incumbent battalion commander of the 24th Infantry Battalion, both of the Philippine Army, are enjoined to fully ensure the release of Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeño and Manuel Merino from detention."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/06/20/11/sc-military-release-student-activists">Basahin and buong balita</a><br /><br />Kaugnay na balita: <a href="http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/05/04/11/charges-filed-vs-palparan-cadapan-empe%C3%B1o-enforced-disappearance">Raps filed vs Palparan for enforced disappearances</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0