Pilipinas, gising ka na ba?

The Roots of Crisis: A Neo-Colonial State

The sovereign nationhood was pure fiction because the colonial power which supposedly returned to us the independence which it had wrested from Bonifacio's revolution never really left and never really allowed us to exist and act as a free and sovereign people.

BY ALEJANDRO LICHAUCO
Posted by Bulatlat

Any attempt to understand the essence and roots of the nation's crisis must begin with recognition of the nature of the Philippine state. The Philippines isn't - and one must stress that - a sovereign, independent state that it is assumed to be and which its constitution claims it is.

A neocolonial state

The Philippines is a neocolonial state - which, by definition, means a state that is sovereign and independent in theory but which in fact is the colony of another, or of others. As a people, we are the classic victim of what Webster's New World Dictionary calls neocolonialism and which it defines as "the exploitation of a supposedly independent nation as by imposing a puppet government."

This has been so from the day and moment that we assumed the status of sovereign nationhood in 1946. That sovereign nationhood was pure fiction. It was pure fiction because the colonial power which supposedly returned to us the independence which it had wrested from Bonifacio's revolution never really left and never really allowed us to exist and act as a free and sovereign people.

The process by which we have been preserved as a neocolony is a story of its own, and neither time nor space allows that I deal with it in detail. It should suffice to focus on the essentials of that process. We have been preserved as a neocolonial state through the flagrant and systematic intervention of the U.S. government in our political process and in the creation of a collaborator class.

Neocolonialist intervention, of course, hasn't been confined to the political process. You see and feel the hand of that intervention in just about every aspect of Philippine society and the political economy. You see and feel it not only in government and politics but in the business community, in our schools, civil society, media and even the churches.

But the intervention has been most crucial and fatal at the level of our presidential politics. As the late and former President Diosdado Macapagal admitted in an article he wrote for the Bulletin a few years before he passed away, the U.S. government has been a decisive factor in every presidential election since 1935, and no presidential aspirant objectionable to Washington has ever been elected president. By the same token, any sitting president who manages to displease Washington invariably winds up unseated by Washington. That has been generally the fate of all incumbent presidents. They were mounted to office by Washington and eventually unseated by Washington.

That's how puppet governments are mounted and that's essentially how we have been preserved as a neocolonial state.

But that's for another paper. At the moment we are focused on the economic crisis.

The fiscal crisis: a diversionary issue

The fiscal crisis, which you invited me to discuss, is in truth only one of the many facets of the economic crisis that grips the nation. There is the crisis of the peso, the crisis of unemployment and inflation; there is the crisis of the industrial and agricultural sectors, and there is the overall crisis of underdevelopment and poverty.

There is the crisis of the very economic system by which we have lived all these years.

To be lured into a discussion of the fiscal crisis therefore is to be lured away from a discussion of the totality of the crisis and the nature as well as the root of that crisis. And that I suggest to you is exactly what the enemies of the state intend. They intend to lure us away from an examination of the total crisis and to trivialize that crisis by luring us into a discussion of what they call the "fiscal-debt crisis."

But it is the essence and root of the total economic crisis that we should focus on.

The economic crisis of a neocolonial state

If we have a total economic crisis in our hands - a crisis whose most visible and terrifying manifestation is the mass hunger, and not only the mass poverty, that now grips the land and which government itself has acknowledged - it is because in this post-industrial age, we remain a nation of 80 million mired in the pre-industrial stage of history.

The question is: Why have we remained stuck in the pre-industrial age of history when neighbors once more impoverished and backward than we are have either graduated, or are dramatically in the process of graduating, into the age of science and industry?

And the answer is that it has been planned that way. From the beginning, it was planned in Washington that the Philippines shall remain essentially a raw material economy in order to service the raw material requirements of an industrial Japan.

The Dodds Report

In 1946, the Truman administration adopted the recommendation of the report which proposed that Japan be developed as the primary, if not sole, industrial powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific region and that countries like the Philippines should be preserved as raw material economies, obviously to service the requirements of Japan's factories.

As the Asia-Pacific war came to a close, the U.S. obviously made a fateful decision to utilize Japan as the base from which to project U.S. military power, and that required the development of Japan as an industrial powerhouse. But since Japan is a nation bereft of natural resource, the plan obviously required that countries like the Philippines be preserved as raw material economics to ensure Japan with a continuing and permanent source of raw material.

We owe our knowledge of the Dodds Report to the late Salvador Araneta who, during his self-exile in Canada during the martial law years, uncovered the existence of the document and denounced it in his book America's Double-Cross of the Philippines.

These were Araneta's denunciatory words, as he explained the failure of the nation to industrialize: "The indifferent economic development of the country ... was due to America's policy toward Japan and the Philippines. This policy was the result of the Dodds Report which Truman accepted and which had as its objective to make Japan the industrial workshop of Asia and the Philippines a mere supplier of raw materials."

As Araneta bitterly continued: "We do not argue against the wisdom of providing Japan with the means to rehabilitate herself and allowed to become an industrial country once again, although this was contrary to the prior recommendation of a post-war planning committee headed by Secretary Morgenthau, a recommendation which was in line with the prevailing sentiment at the end of the war. But certainly we can argue against a policy that would make Japan the exclusive industrialized country in the Far East, for such a policy was most detrimental to the Philippines. Indeed, the United States could not justify a policy that provided all kinds of stumbling blocks, to the industrialization of her ally (Philippines) in the war against Japan. As a result of this policy, industrialization in the Philippines suffered severe setbacks…”

It was a division of labor, or of functions, which the Dodds, Report crafted for America's allies in the Far East.

The Dodds Report explains the continuing obsession to this day of U.S. foreign policy to keep the Philippines a free and open market for imports because a liberal import policy - another name for free trade - ensures that this country will never be able to industrialize and take the same protectionist, nationalistic developmental strategy that enabled once poorer neighbors like Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand, to transform into the newly
industrialized countries that they are today.

The geopolitical plan embodied in the Dodds Report explains what the late Claro M. Recto described as "America's anti?industrialization policy for the Philippines."

Although Recto had no knowledge of the existence of the Dodds Report at the time - its existence would surface only in the 1970s after Araneta exposed it - his enormous analytical power enabled him to deduce from policy statements of U.S. officials that behind U.S. policy in this country was a malevolent design to see to it that we never industrialize.

Conclusive proof of what Recto described as America's "anti-industrialization policy for the Philippines" came when Marcos formally launched an industrialization program in the late ‘70s based on 11 heavy industries led by the steel, petrochemical and engineering industries.

The announcement of that plan was swiftly followed by protest from the IMF and the World Bank and the pro-American technocrats in the Marcos cabinet led by no less than his then Prime Minister.

In the end, after four years of struggle with the IMF, the World Bank and his own technocrats over his industrialization plan, Marcos gave up the plan but not until after he had expressly denounced a conspiracy between his own technocrats and the IMF-WB to keep the Philippines under the heels of the industrial powers.

Soon after his election to the presidency, Joseph Estrada in an interview with Asiaweek confirmed that the U.S. has indeed sabotaged the industrialization plan of Marcos.

The U.S. anti-industrialization policy for the Philippines is what those IMF conditionalities are really about. The anti-industrialization policy has been implemented all these years through the IMF conditionalities and it isn't any coincidence that for the last forty years this country has been under the continuous economic supervision of the IMF. There is no country in the world that can claim to be under the supervision of the IMF for even a fraction of that time.

And it isn't coincidence either that this country, which has been under the continuous supervision of the IMF for 40 years, is the only country in the region that isn't making any headway toward industrialization.

When the Asean was founded in the early 160s by the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, not a single one of them was an NIC.

Today, only the Philippines remains outside the magic circle of NICs. The four other co-founders of the Asean are now acknowledged NICs.

That should explain why the Philippines has the longest and oldest communist
insurgency in the region.

A nation of 80 million without even the capability to produce a decent hammer or a decent toy gun can't possibly have any future except hunger.

We are today a hungry people in a land so fertile that one can drop a seed anywhere and see it sprout into something he can eat. And we are hungry because we are a nation frozen by design in the pre-industrial age, preserved as a raw material economy.

The essence and root of our crisis, to stress, are to be found in the nature of the Philippines as a neocolonial state preserved by U.S. post-war imperialism as a raw material economy to service the raw material requirements of an industrial Japan.

The treason of the Edsa Constitution

The ultimate tragedy of a neocolonial state is that even its own Constitution becomes an instrument of its own and perpetual enslavement.

And the Philippine case is a classic illustration.

I invite your attention to Art. XII, Sec. 1, par. 2 of the Constitution which reads as follows: "The State shall promote industrialization and full employment based on sound agricultural development and agrarian reform through industries that make full and efficient use of human and natural resources, and which are competitive in both domestic and foreign markets. However, the State shall protect Filipino enterprises against unfair foreign competition and trade practices.”

That provision you will note automatically prohibits an industrial policy based on the heavy industries and the application of protectionist measures against foreign competition, whether fair or unfair.

While the provision stipulates that the "State shall promote industrialization" it simultaneously qualifies that constitutional directive with an entire complex of conditions and limiting reservations which makes it impossible for the State to adopt any industrialization strategy other than one that is specifically and exclusively based on "sound agricultural development and agrarian reform" whatever that means.

For example, the provision literally prohibits an industrialization strategy based on the heavy industries, like steel, chemicals, machine tools and machine production. But that's precisely the kind of strategy that made NICS of our neighbors.

Our neighbors - particularly South Korea and Taiwan - didn't transform into newly- industrialized countries through the industrialization strategy explicitly mandated by the above-cited provision of our Constitution. Those countries, imitating Japan, pursued an industrialization strategy anchored on the development of industries based on and moved by machine power rather than on "sound agricultural development and agrarian reform."

A real industrialization program is one that is based on what is known as the capital goods industry - industries based on machine power and the production of what is known as the means of production.

Any other industrialization program can only be a program based on light consumer industries that are totally dependent on industrial raw material and industrial machines produced by the industrialized countries.

You will further note that the constitutional provision insists that industries should be competitive in both the domestic and foreign markets. With that provision, there is hardly any industry that can qualify for government support and protection, and that is precisely what the provision intends. That provision serves as justification for our reckless entry into GATT and the equally reckless accelerated tariff reduction program of the
government - programs which have contributed heavily to the bankruptcy of National Steel Corporation, the closure of Caltex refinery and the financial problems of an enterprise like Hacienda Luisita, all of whom have attributed their crisis to the flood of imports unleashed by the government's commitments to the WTO.

No country rose from rags to riches through industrialization by exposing its industries to foreign competition the way we have done. Examine the industrial policies of the Asian NICs and you will see how protective those policies are of their basic industries, even if these are not competitive in the foreign markets.

While the constitutional provision does provide that the State shall protect Filipino enterprises against unfair foreign competition, it doesn't define what unfair foreign competition means. For example, we have exposed our agricultural sector to competition from subsidized agricultural imports, but the authorities don't consider that a contravention of the Constitution. The result is that even the agricultural sector has been marginalized. Apparently, the authorities see nothing wrong with pitting our farmers, most of whom hardly made it to sixth grade, with the corporate farmers of the industrial countries, who do their farming with the aid of satellites.

The authorities must be reminded that any underdeveloped economy struggling to industrialize would have to protect its basic industries from foreign competition, whether fair or unfair. To insist that even infant industries should be competitive in the foreign markets would be tantamount to killing these infant industries from the start.

The question is: Why did the authors of the present Constitution feel it necessary to qualify the industrialization mandate with the kind of restrictions they placed on it?

And the answer is that the authors of the cited provision were the very elements who had opposed the heavy industrialization program launched by Ferdinand Marcos in 1979. The Marcos industrial program was based the establishment of industries driven by machine power and not - repeat, not - by "sound agricultural development and agrarian reform" as stipulated by the present Constitution.

In brief, no less than the Constitution has become the barrier to the real industrialization of our economy. Under the "industrialization" provision of the Charter there isn't any way that this country can transform into a newly industrialized country or NIC. Which means that there isn't any way we can get out of the poverty trap which has now mutated into a hunger crisis.

Article XII, Sec. 1 Par. 2 of the Constitution is the best evidence of our status as neocolonial state. It is also the ultimate weapon which ensures that the anti-industrialization agenda of the Dodds Report will remain unchallenged by any government elected under the present charter.

If by some miracle we should have a government tomorrow bent on industrializing the economy by adopting the same industrial policies that have made industrialized countries of our neighbors, such a government would run afoul of the Constitution.

What then is to be done?

Complete the unfinished nationalist revolution of Bonifacio.

What needs to be done is clearly to forge a national coalition of forces committed to recovering the sovereignty which American imperialism wrested from Bonifacio's revolution and to transform the Philippines from the neocolonial state that it is to the truly sovereign and independent state that it claims to be and should be.

Only when the Philippines becomes a truly sovereign and independent state can it then proceed to pursue the kind of developmental policies necessary to lift the economy out of the pre-industrial age of history and to catapult it to the ranks of newly industrialized countries.

Three processes that should be unleashed if social peace is to be achieved.

Such a coalition could be forged on the basis of a program that would unleash three vital processes, namely: The process of decolonization, the process of industrialization and the process of economic democratization.

Only when these three processes are unleashed simultaneously, through a program of government crafted specifically for that purpose, can the nation begin the journey towards social peace. The reason is that social peace can only come with social justice and economic democracy. But social justice and economic democracy can come about only if there is economic development, and economic development can come about only with an industrial revolution which in turn can come about only with national independence.

I propose accordingly that no time be lost organizing a national coalition based on a program that would unleash the three processes of de-colonization, industrialization and economic democratization.

In 1986, I proposed such a program to the then ongoing Constitutional Commission - which that body completely ignored. I now propose that that program be adopted as a working basis of dialogue among all elements in Philippine society determined to transform the Philippines into a truly sovereign and independent state so that it may proceed with the war on mass poverty and thereby pave the way for the much longed social peace which has long eluded us.

That program is embodied in a slim volume I authored titled Towards a New
Economic Order and the Conquest of Mass Poverty, and which I incorporate by reference in this paper. That program, incidentally, is a synthesis of the basic principles found in the program of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism and the Vatican encyclicals which condemn laissez-faire capitalism and justify on moral grounds the principle of state activism in the economy.

Along with the program outlined in Towards a New Economic Order and the Conquest of Mass Poverty, I recommend the adoption, as a working basis of dialogue, an emergency program of government proposed by the Citizens Committee on the National Crisis last January, which I also incorporate by way of reference.

We must complete Bonifacio's unfinished revolution if we are to face up to the crisis that has made this only Christian nation in Asia a humanitarian disaster, where 80 percent of Filipino households live under hunger conditions. The imperatives of national survival and the revolution against hunger which has now overtaken us call for nothing less than the revolutionary nationalism which forged Filipinos into one nation.

Only when the country commits itself to a program of government that would unleash the three processes of de-colonization, industrialization and economic democratization can it begin the march toward social peace because only a government committed to the unleashing of those three processes would have the credibility to deal with the insurgents and the secessionists.

That is one way of saying that the road to social peace begins with the struggle to regain the sovereignty and independence which U.S. imperialism stole from Bonifacio's revolution.

That sovereignty and independence should be recovered at all cost if we are to survive as a viable society.

One final and concluding note.

Debt repudiation

There isn't any way we can proceed to retrieve our sovereignty and independence unless we first repudiate the foreign debt. The repudiation of that debt should be the starting point of any genuine effort at national independence and sovereignty.

I have written the Senate a letter-memorandum outlining the case for unconditional debt repudiation and I incorporate that letter-memorandum to this paper by way of reference.

I suggest that the Pilgrims for Peace initiate a signature campaign urging the Senate to adopt the letter-memorandum for debt repudiation. Such a campaign could well serve as the catalyst for a nationwide coalition that would complete the unfinished revolution.

The principal contradiction

The contradiction between colonialism and nationalism remains the principal contradiction of Philippine society. To the resolution of that contradiction all other contradictions should be subordinated.

The road to peace starts with that. It starts with the drive to eliminate colonialism in all its forms and from whatever source.

Recto, the consummate Filipino nationalist and Mao, the consummate Chinese Communist, will shake hands on that.

Isa pang dagok sa press freedom

For whom the bill talks: A primer on the Right of Reply Bill

Prepared by the College Editors Guild of the Philippines

February 2009


This primer seeks to shed analysis and explain in detail why the College Guild of the Philippines is steadfastly rejecting the Right of Reply Bill.


What is the Right of Reply Bill?


In June 2004, Senate Bill (SB) 1178 was filed by Senator Aquilino Pimentel during the 13th Congress. The said bill, however, passed the third reading but failed to get approved due to lack of time. When Congress resumed sessions in June 2007, Pimentel immediately re-filed his bill and gained Senate approval by June 2008. SB 1178 was then effectively substituted by SB 2150.



On July 29, 2008, the Senate passed SB 2150, otherwise known as: “An Act Granting the Right of Reply and Providing Penalties for Violation Thereof,” on its third reading. It was supported by Senators Ramon Bong Revilla Jr., Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Mar Roxas, Loren Legarda and Pimentel, among others.



Meanwhile, Bacolod City Representative Monico Puentevella filed House Bill (HB) 1001 and Aurora Congressman Juan Edgardo Angara filed HB 162 as counterparts of SB 2150 in the Lower House. These two bills were combined and were substituted by HB 3306. HB 3306 is currently being heard in the Lower House, with Congressmen Bienvenido Abante, Angara and Puentevella as main sponsors.



It is interesting to note that although SB 2150 and HB 3306 were filed in different houses, they bear identical titles and has a hair strand difference.



The Right of Reply Bill would mandate media companies, outfits and entities to provide “equal space or airtime” to anyone who is a subject of critical reports, to reply or react as form of the latter’s freedom of expression, thus, the right to reply. The bill, furthermore, stipulates that this be done within three (3) days of a news item’s publication or airing.



The House measure furthermore seeks to punish the publisher and editor-in-chief of a publication or the owner and station manager of a broadcast outfit if they fail to comply or give “equal treatment” to a complainant’s reply to a specific report.



The Senate approved the passage of the bill by a vote of 21-0. Congress, on the other hand, has delayed the hearing of the bill following strong opposition from media organizations and civil society groups. Supporters of the bill in the House of Representatives, however, are preparing a so-called ‘watered down’ version of the said bill following strong opposition from various media organizations.



Senators Escudero, Legarda and Roxas have also retracted their signatures on the Senate version, while Malacanang has vowed to veto the bill if and when Congress approves it.



This initial triumph of exposing the Right of Reply Bill can only be attributed to the overwhelming unity of campus press, media practitioners and concerned groups over the bill’s threat to press freedom and freedom of expression.



Why reject the Right of Reply Bill?



1. The Bill is unconstitutional. It violates Article III, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution, “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances,” as well as several principles of criminal law.



National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) secretary general Neri Colmenares cited the overly broad and vague provision in the bill mandating the right of reply of all persons “who are criticized by innuendo, suggestion, or rumor for any lapse in behavior in public or private life” in saying that the elements of a supposed crime are “not clear.” “Who decides what is ‘innuendo, suggestion, rumor or lapse in behavior’?” Colmenares said.



Moreover, once the bill is signed into law, Filipinos will also, directly or indirectly, be denied of their right to information which is the building block of any sound judgment that will lead to actions meant to preserve the rights and welfare of the citizenry.



2. The Bill is repressive. Should the bill pass into law, many journalists and/or media outfits will be hindered from performing their prime tasks as watchdogs of society out of fear of paying sums of pesos as punishment for not printing the reply of a “ridiculed or maligned” person.



The Guild believes the bill, which requires or mandates media outfits to publish or air replies in the same space, be it front page or inside story, encroaches on the right of the editorial board to determine the content of publications according to the relevance of issues.



With this bill, the prerogative of the press to determine what to publish or broadcast is undermined for it compels the media to print or air the reply of the “aggrieved” person who does not even have the burden to prove that he has been affected by a report.

Prof. Danilo Arao of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communications states, “As it is, the bill has negative repercussions on the workings of the press. Editors, normally referred to as the gatekeepers of information, should be allowed to choose which stories get published, aired or uploaded and which stories are given due prominence based on the time-tested elements of news.

Instead of coming up with bills that seek to legislate how the media should function, it would do well for legislators to help strengthen self-regulation in media by creating an environment conducive for the effective practice of the media profession.”

Consequently, Section 3 of the Right of Reply Bill is sure to undermine especially the campus press. Due to lack of resources and its common operations, it is impossible for majority of campus publications to comply “not later than one day” as prescribed by HB 3306 or “not later than three days” according to SB 2150. Never has there been a daily student publication in the entire history of campus press.



Also, advocacy press, which includes student gazettes, would certainly fall victim to this bill due to the nature of their writings. It does not appease at all that the status quo of politics and press freedom in the country has been known to favor politicians and other prominent individuals in legal venues. Suffice to say, under such conditions that press people are working in, the Right of Reply Bill is not democratic at all, it is ultra democracy at the expense of press freedom and freedom of expression.



3. The Bill is pointless. There is no need for the Right of Reply Bill at all. The “aggrieved” person/s that the bill claims to protect has long been valued by the media in its practice of always getting two sides of the story.



While the Guild relents that media’s record is not entirely spotless, it echoes the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) sentiment that “we cannot allow the sins of the few to be an excuse for the wholesale muzzling of a free press and the suppression of free expression. To do so would to allow bad governance to triumph.”



There are, also, inevitable reasons why sometimes only one side is aired or published: the person either refuses interview and/or the person is out-of-reach.



Moreover, as a practice, the media accommodates not just replies but even criticisms and statements through spaces such as the letter to the editor and opinion sections.



Furthermore, if the claim that this bill seeks to mitigate journalist killings in the country is to be believed, there is no reason, still, to discuss the bill at all. In resolving the culture of impunity, what the Philippine press needs is political will, not a mere bill.



What can we do?



1. Publish opposition to the Right of Reply Bill in campus papers, blogs and websites, emails and forum threads, or you may re-post this material. Write letters to the editors and opinion columns.



2. Organize fora and/or small group discussions in campus publication offices and other venues on the Right of Reply Bill. This primer may be reproduced or reprinted.



3. Email or send a letter rejecting the bill to offices of congressmen and senators, especially the bill’s sponsors.



4. Sign the petition against the Right of Reply Bill. (Attached herewith is CEGP’s petition.)



5. Join protest actions against the Right of Reply Bill.



Gag us NOT! Reject the Right of Reply Bill!



Defend Press Freedom! Uphold Campus Press Freedom!

Madre ug tulo ka environmental advocates gidakup!

SAMIN
SISTERS' ASSOCIATION IN MINDANAO

Statement

Justice for Sr. Stella Matutina, OSB and environmental advocates!

It is disturbing that Church people are persecuted for their work with the poor and for Creation.

Sr. Stella Matutina of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters and three environmental advocates Maria Fe Matibo, Wenceslao Mapa, and Gil Sentinales were illegally arrested, arbitrarily detained, and harassed by the 67th IB in the Brgy. Hall of Taytayan, Cateel, Davao Oriental last February 16.

They have committed no crimes; they have committed no acts that make them deserve detention and being suspected as rebels. Sr. Stella and her companions were in Taytayan on the invitation of local officials to talk on environmental awareness and protection.

But still, the 67th IB officials insist on doing things their way. They blame officials for not coordinating with them in holding the forum. They have conveyed a "veiled threat" to Sr. Stella that she should have rather stayed in the convent than work in a "critical" area where NPAs thrive. They have raised the specter of "fake nuns" roaming the rural areas "to organize the people and turn them against the government."

What shameless insolence towards human rights, the rule of law, and the mission of the church!

These statements disturbingly show that in the communities, the military rules over the people. It is a culture that has remained with the military since Martial Law. It is a culture that disturbs the peace of the community and tramples upon the rights of individuals. It is a culture that does not tolerate freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to organize, and for us religious, the freedom to evangelize. It is a culture too that looks at people who serve the poor, marginalized and oppressed with suspicion, derision, and hatred. It is a culture that currently takes the form of Oplan Bantay Laya 2.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines is sending out the chilling message that no religious can disrupt their plans of protecting the interests of logging, mining, and big business interests. When shepherds of the flock are themselves the ones under attack, the wolves scatter the flock and make them easy prey. Yes, if they could do it with impunity to Sr. Stella and environmental advocates, they care less about violating the rights of ordinary Filipinos.

Church people, including our members who serve and live with the farmers and Lumads in Mindanao have faced this persecution. Sr. Mary John Dumaug of the Religious Good Shepherd had been harassed for her missionary work with the Banwaon in Agusan del Sur. Mateo Morales, an RGS lay worker also from Agusan del Sur, was killed by Cafgu men in 2006. The convents of the Missionary Sisters of Mary and the Contemplative Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Butuan City were raided by police in November 2006 without any basis at all and without search warrants.

We are afraid that Sr. Stella's case is another example of the Arroyo government's tacit, if not direct, approval of state-sponsored human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and displacements.

It is disheartening that today, while those who stand their ground to protect the environment are being intimidated and killed, the First Family --- Mrs. Arroyo and First Gentleman Mike Arroyo--- is embroiled in mining interests including those in Mt. Diwalwal, Compostela Valley.

Amidst this state of oppression, we remain steadfast to fulfill the mission of the Church which is to assert the dignity and rights of people and the integrity of Creation. We carry this task to care for the environment as "a matter of common and universal duty." (Compendium of Social Doctrine # 466).

As we work to protect the integrity of Creation, we also call for Justice for the people. The Arroyo government must stop militarization in the communities, and stop the plunder of large-scale mining and other aggressive destruction of the environment.

Justice for Sr. Stella Matutia, OSB and environmental advocates!
Stop Military Persecution of Church People!
NO to large-scale Mining and Militarization!
Uphold the Integrity of God's Creation!

For reference:

Sr. Elsa C. Compuesto, MSM
Executive Secretary
Mobile No.: 09174350089

February 19, 2009

Ipagdasal natin na matanggal na sa puwesto si Gloria

Philippine President Arroyo’s Attendance at National Prayer Breakfast Draws Demand for Human Rights in the Philippines

Contact: Katrina Abarcar, Katarungan: Center for Peace, Justice, and Human Rights in the Philippines, katarungan@comcast. net

February 5, 2009--Outside the National Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton in the U.S. capital, Filipino-American and American human rights advocates assembled to project the message, “Pray for the victims of injustice and human rights violations in the Philippines.”

The contingent, organized by Katarungan: Center for Peace, Justice, and Human Rights in the Philippines, targeted their message to President Obama, US lawmakers and global leaders, including Philippine President Arroyo, who attended the breakfast.

“Arroyo’s presence at the Prayer Breakfast gives us the opportunity to call attention to the ongoing problem of military involvement in political killings, abductions, illegal arrests, and harassment of government critics,” said Redante Asuncion-Reed of Katarungan. “I think it’s important that a concerned contingent expose President Arroyo’s brazen unwillingness to seriously address the Philippines’ human rights crisis whenever she makes an official visit to the U.S.”

United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston has specifically criticized the Philippine government’s policy of identifying and neutralizing these fronts, integral to the Arroyo administration’ s counterinsurgency program, for the extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and other human rights abuses. Other independent human rights watchdogs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also published reports documenting these abuses and putting responsibility for them to the Philippine military.

In addition, President Arroyo’s administration has been widely criticized for its failure to convict any military personnel for involvement in the killings and abductions of over 1000 government critics, despite credible evidence. In fact, the President has praised and rewarded one of the most notorious suspects behind the political killings, retired Major General Palparan. He is currently being considered for a post on the Dangerous Drugs Board.

“US Public Law No: 110-161 placed three conditions on a portion of military aid to the Philippines with one of them being the prosecution of those in the military and others responsible for the human rights violations. President Arroyo’s administration failed to meet any of the conditions but still received the full amount of aid in 2008,” explained Katrina Abarcar of Katarungan. “We hope President Obama’s administration will more thoroughly scrutinize President Arroyo’s actions with regards to human rights than the previous administration.”

“In fact as US taxpayers, we believe we should be calling for a complete cut in military aid to the Philippines given its abysmal track record in obtaining justice for the thousands of human rights victims,” added Ms. Abarcar.

“The Philippines received a massive increase in US military aid when President Arroyo gave her unconditional support for former President Bush’s 'War on Terror.' It is pork barrel spending on an international scale that should be cut out,” ended Ms. Abarcar.##

Kasalanan ni Gloria itong kahirapan ng mga Pilipino

GMA's Government Must Take Blame for Crisis
by BAYAN MUNA Rep. Satur C. Ocampo
Privilege Speech delivered at the House of Representatives

30 July 2008

Mr. Speaker,

I rise on a matter of personal and collective privilege on behalf of my colleagues from the progressive party list bloc to give our views on the President's State of the Nation Address delivered last Monday in time for the opening of our second session.

We in the progressive party list bloc feel it is our obligation to at least give an alternative and truthful view of reality, from the point of view of the underrepresented and marginalized majority that we represent both by commitment and by mandate through popular election. In the face of the President's lies and distortions, we hope this attempt at presenting the truth will be taken constructively by our colleagues in the Majority.

Ginoong Speaker, Noong Lunes, sinimulan ni Gng. Arroyo ang kanyang talumpati sa pamamagitan ng paghuhugas kamay sa matinding kahirapang nararanasan ng ating mamamayan. Ibinaling niya ang sisi sa buong daigdig – sa paggalaw umano ng presyo ng langis at bigas sa international market at paghina ng ekonomiya ng US.

The President was trying to be clever by blaming everything but herself, her government, and her policies for the miserable state of the Filipino people. Worse, she even had the gall to claim that if not for her "foresight, grit and political will," the situation would have been worse. In the end, she turned reality on its head by repackaging the unjust and oppressive VAT into an ultimate panacea.

Clearly, the President is so used to lying that she can't help it.

Ano ba ang katotohanan, Ginoong Speaker? What is the real state of the nation?

The fact is that even before the dramatic increases in world oil and food prices, the poverty rate in the Philippines was already rising, family incomes were falling and the gap between the rich and poor was widening. Mula pa 2003, dumarami na ang bilang ng ating mahihirap, bumabagsak ang kita ng karaniwang pamilya, at lumalaki ang pagitan ng mahirap at mayaman.

Ayon sa pinakahuling Family and Income Expenditure Survey (FIES), bumaba ang kita ng halos siyam sa bawat sampung pamilyang Pilipino. Bumaba nang 20% ang netong kita ng karaniwang pamilyang Pilipino o bumaba ng P20,400 kada taon (batay sa 2000 consumer price index. Kontrolado ng pinakamayamang 20% ng pamilya ang mahigit kalahati (52%) ng kabuuang kita habang ang yaman ng pinakamayamang 20 Pilipino ay katumbas ang sa 10.4 milyon nating kababayan.

According to research think tank IBON Foundation, the number of people jobless or otherwise looking for more work because they were earning so little from their current jobs increased by 2.2 million in 2007 from 2001. The number of unemployed increased by over 400,000 and of underemployed by 1.8 million. The 630,000 jobs supposed to be created each year are not enough to make up for the annual increase in labor force of some 690,000.

Alam ng ating mamamayan na walang saysay ang pinagyayabang na paglago ng ekonomiya noong 2007. It was during this period that the share of agriculture to GDP reached a historic low of 18.4%. In 2007, the share of manufacturing to GDP had deteriorated to its lowest level since 1956. Dahil higit pang humina ang agrikultura at pagmamanupaktura, mahigit 10 milyon ang walang trabaho o naghahanap pa ng dagdag na trabaho.

Dumarami rin ang bilang ng mga batang hindi nakakapag-aral, pati mga ina at sanggol na hindi naseserbisyuhan ng ating mga ospital at health center.

The point I'm making, Mr. Speaker, is that despite glowing GDP and GNP figures, poverty is increasing, incomes are dwindling, prices are skyrocketing, and joblessness is increasing. For Mrs. Arroyo to casually blame this phenomena of jobless, inequitable growth on external shocks is to evade responsibility and accountability for her flawed economic policies.

Mrs. Arroyo's much loved value added tax is a prime example of such unjust and oppressive economic policies. In 2006, the already miserable situation of our people was further exacerbated by the expansion and increase of the VAT to include oil, power, medicines,
instant noodles and a host of other products and services. Overnight, government coffers were overflowing from the increased taxes imposed on our ordinary, mostly poor, consumers.

Today, the cruelty of the VAT is manifested in the VAT on oil. Not only does VAT make oil prices higher by P6 to P7 per liter, it also rakes in an annual bonanza of P18.8 billion to P30 billion in windfall tax revenues. These are surplus collections and therefore not covered by the General Appropriations Act. Through the VAT on oil, the government is actually cashing in on the people's misery.

Ang sabi ni Mrs Arroyo, pumayag na tayo sa VAT dahil meron namang limang bilyong "Katas ng VAT" na ipinamumudmod sa mahihirap. Unang-una, talaga bang sa mahihirap ito napupunta at hindi sa bulsa lamang ng kanyang mga opisyal? Pangalawa, limang bilyon lang ang ipinamimigay pero mahigit P18 hanggang P30 bilyon ang sobrang kinokolekta. Saan napupunta ang iba?

But that is just as far as the VAT on oil is concerned. How about the other windfall VAT revenues resulting from the general increase in prices of goods and services, considering that inflation is at 11.4%, the highest in 14 years? No wonder that the DOF, in several hearings of the House Ways and Means Committee, has refused to provide Congress with pertinent data on VAT collections and disbursements. Ayaw nilang malaman kung gaano talaga kalaki ang kotong sa VAT.

Indeed, where does the VAT go? The fact is that the biggest beneficiaries of VAT are not our people but our creditors who will be paid 62% of all government revenues this year. During the deliberations on the tax measures in 2005, we were informed by the Department of Finance that as much as 80% of additional revenues from the new taxes would go to our creditors. No wonder a year after the imposition of VAT, we were paying loans in advance to the detriment of the budgets for health, housing, education and other social services. No wonder the credit rating agencies are ecstatic that we are taxing our people to death just to pay our debts.

Kinumpirma ni Gng. Arroyo na pambayad ng utang ang VAT. Sa kanyang
SONA sinabi niya: "Napakahalaga ng VAT…una nabawasan ang ating mga utang…" Again, it is a clever ruse of Mrs. Arroyo to justify an oppressive, windfall-earning tax by saying that she's returning it to the poor anyway.

In the first place, the poor would be better off without the government collecting kotong on their taxes. Removing the VAT on electricity would immediately and perpetually reduce the bills of lifeline rate customers by at least P66.79 a month forever, definitely more than a one-time dole out of P500. This will cost the government a mere P12.4 billion, a pittance compared to the more than P140 billion in annual uncollected duties on imported goods.

Removing the VAT on oil, on the other hand, would immediately prevent another round of fare hikes and possibly even lead to a rollback in jeepney and bus fares. That may be nothing to the rich but definitely something substantial for the poor.

Kung talagang nag-aalala si Mrs. Arroyo sa mga mahihirap na maybahay, sa mga manggagawa at magsasaka, dapat ay tanggalin na niya ang VAT sa langis at kuryente.

Katulad ng pagdepensa niya sa VAT, pinagpililitan din ni Mrs. Arroyo ang patakarang deregulasyon sa industriya ng langis. Perhaps the most glaring example of the failure of neoliberal economic policy can be seen in the oil industry. Sampung taon na mula nang ma-deregulate ang industriya ng langis at ibenta ang Petron sa mga dayuhan. Mula noon, hindi man lang natupad ang pangako ng murang gasolina o pagbuwag ng kartel ng dayuhang oil companies.

Today, the government is reduced to pleading for mercy from the oil companies who continue to rake in superprofits from their cartel operations in the country. In fact, the DOE can not even explain to us the oil cartel's pricing mechanism. Their claims of under-recoveries are considered Gospel truth. Under deregulation, government has become inutile in the face of the oil companies rapacious greed.

Kung talagang nag-aalala si Mrs. Arroyo sa mahihirap, ibabasura niya ang deregulasyon sa langis, kokontrolin ang presyo, ibabalik ang Petron sa pagmamay-ari ng publiko, at sisimulan ang sentralisadong pag-angkat ng ating pangangailangan sa langis at produktong petrolyo.

In her SONA, the President made much ado about her thrust towards self-sufficiency in rice, as if this were really her policy. The fact is that the Arroyo government had long abandoned the policy of self-sufficiency in rice and agriculture. We have not been self-sufficient in rice not because of the limits of our topography but due to the limits of our government's imagination and political will.

It is an outrage, for example, that a substantial portion of the NFA's resources are used to subsidize farmers from other countries where we import rice from. While farmers in other countries get full support in terms of technology, production inputs, credit and infrastructure, our lowly rice farmers are basically left to fend for their own. Wala na ngang suporta, kinokotongan pa ng mga opisyal ng gobyerno ang fertilizer at seed funds at iba pang pondong pang magsasaka.

Central to the issue of agriculture is the issue of agrarian reform. Mrs. Arroyo is pushing for the extension of an agrarian reform program that has proven to be insufficient at best, a sham at worst. In her SONA, Mrs. Arroyo noted, "There are those who say agrarian reform is a success – if only because anyhting is better than nothing." Now she would even make it worse by allowing CARP lands to be used as collateral, a measure that would further transform CARP beneficiaries into not into agribusinesses as she claims, poor and indebted
peasants.

Mr. Speaker, the bankruptcy of the government's economic policies is reflected in its penchance for quick-fixes, palliative measures and dole outs. All government wants to do is to create safety nets because they don't have the guts to change their disastrous free market economic policies.

Mrs. Arroyo refuses to accept the flaws in her economic policy and so is limited to scrambling for dole outs to quell the people's dissatisfaction. Such is the so-called new social welfare program unveiled by her last Monday. These dole outs are especially attractive to Mrs. Arroyo and her candidates for the 2010 elections who are desperately trying to score brownie points in the face of their dwindling popularity ratings.

Speaking about satisfactory ratings, Mrs. Arroyo was conspicuously silent on the systematic plunder of the national coffers under her administration. Since 2005, it has been the policy of the Arroyo government to cover up every anomaly involving the President and her family. Until now there is no closure to the IMPSA deal, the Jancom contract, the Diosdado Macapagal Avenue overprice, the fertilizer fund scam, the Hello Garci tapes, the Venable contract, the NBN-ZTE deal and similar questionable transactions involving the highest leaders of the land.

This policy of cover up has led to the undermining of systems of transparency and accountability that are supposed to be the bedrock of good governance. In particular, the Executive's actions have led to the bastardization of the impeachment process and the sabotaging of Congress' function of legislative oversight.

She was also conspicuously silent on the issue of human rights and peace. In the face of the people's protests against the government's flawed economic and political policies, Mrs. Arroyo has resorted to the systematic violations of the people's civil and political rights in order to quell dissent and ensure her survival in office.

The killings and enforced disappearances have not stopped. Since Mrs. Arroyo's presidency in January 2001 to June this year, the human rights organization Karapatan has documented 910 victims of extrajuidcial killings, 193 victims of enforced disappearances, and 331 cases of frustrated killings. For the first six months of 2008,

Karapatan has documented 20 cases of extrajudicial killings, one case of enforced disappearance, 41 cases of illegal detention and 67 cases of illegal arrest. The surveillance, harassment and physical attacks against progressive organizations and their members have likewise not stopped.

Hardly any of the perpetrators have been investigated, arrested or tried, leading to a culture of impunity among state security forces and state-backed para-military groups. Again, this is a question of policy, particularly the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya which, since 2001, has targeted activists and political dissenters as enemies of the state. Mr. Speaker, the true state of the nation is quite the opposite of what Mrs. Arroyo envisioned last Monday.

Gloria Arroyo cannot evade blame for this dire state of the nation by pointing to external causes as the culprits. What cannot be denied or hidden by contrived statistics is that the Philippine economy's growth has been gravely stunted. It has remained basically backward, with neither a modern agricultural base nor an industrial backbone to speak of, all because the Arroyo regime, like her predecessors, has adamantly stuck to the anti people neo-liberal globalization prescriptions of the IMF-WB-WTO triad – liberalization, deregulation and privatization.

By her canine devotion to both these multilateral instruments of global capitalist plunder and to the discredited George W. Bush administration, Mrs. Arroyo has encouraged the marginalization of our farmers, the demise of many industries, the assualts of labor unions.

By her policies she has deprived the economy and her government of any defensive shield and flexibility to withstand the destructive impacts of the frequently recurring crisis of global capital.

The fact is that there are more poor, hungry and jobless Filipinos than ever before. The fact is that it is government's neoliberal economic policies that has magnified the negative impacts of external shocks on the local economy. The fact is that unabated graft and corruption has made matters even worse. The fact is that human rights
continue to be trampled and peace remains a pipe dream.

And the fact is that the government and the President is to blame for the hardships that have befallen our people.

This is the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. The earlier we recognize this the better it will be for efforts to address our people's yearning for democracy and reform.

Thank you.