REMARKS BY LUIS V. TEODORO DURING THE PROGRAM MARKING
THE 50TH YEAR OF THE U.P. COLLEGE OF MASS COMMUNICATION
June 19, 2015, Plaridel Hall, U.P. Diliman
MEDIA FOR UNDERSTANDING AND CHANGE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Source: Facebook post of Luis Teodoro
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Ka Bel, guro ng uring manggagawa
Ka Bel, guro ng uring manggagawa
by Mandy Felicia
May 22 2015
Pinoy Weekly
(Mensahe sa ika-7 taon ng paggunita sa kamatayan ni Ka Bel sa Plaza Miranda, Mayo 20, 2015)
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.
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
by Mandy Felicia
May 22 2015
Pinoy Weekly
(Mensahe sa ika-7 taon ng paggunita sa kamatayan ni Ka Bel sa Plaza Miranda, Mayo 20, 2015)
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.
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Marx lives
Marx lives
May 5, 2014
By SARAH RAYMUNDO
Bulatlat.com
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.
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.
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.
Was Marx ever “normal”?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
This tender testimony of a daughter of her father is so telling of the kind of relationship Marx cultivated with his children.
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?”
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.
Marx and Communism
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.
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.
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.
Marxism and the Working Class (3)
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Marxism and Neoliberalism
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Long Live Marx, Long Live Communism!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Notes:
(1)All quotes from on the letters of Heinrich Marx are lifted from Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel. 2011. LondonLittle Brown and Company.
(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
(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.
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.
May 5, 2014
By SARAH RAYMUNDO
Bulatlat.com
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.
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.
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.
Was Marx ever “normal”?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
This tender testimony of a daughter of her father is so telling of the kind of relationship Marx cultivated with his children.
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?”
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.
Marx and Communism
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.
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.
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.
Marxism and the Working Class (3)
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Marxism and Neoliberalism
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Long Live Marx, Long Live Communism!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Notes:
(1)All quotes from on the letters of Heinrich Marx are lifted from Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel. 2011. LondonLittle Brown and Company.
(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
(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.
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.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Biggest secret of all: Aquino’s P220 billion pork barrel
Biggest secret of all: Aquino’s P220 billion pork barrel
by RIGOBERTO TIGLAO
June 29, 2014
The Manila Times
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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:
• 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.
• 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.)
• 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?
• Can she promise the nation that the audit of Aquino’s pork barrel will be finished this year, and not after the 2016 elections?
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.
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.
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.
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.)
Another P4 billion was disbursed to congressmen in 2012, at P15 million each, for having filed the impeachment case against Corona.
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
Note also COA’s wrong priorities to support Aquino’s fake anti-graft campaign.
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.
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.
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!
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.
by RIGOBERTO TIGLAO
June 29, 2014
The Manila Times
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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:
• 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.
• 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.)
• 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?
• Can she promise the nation that the audit of Aquino’s pork barrel will be finished this year, and not after the 2016 elections?
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.
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.
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.
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.)
Another P4 billion was disbursed to congressmen in 2012, at P15 million each, for having filed the impeachment case against Corona.
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
Note also COA’s wrong priorities to support Aquino’s fake anti-graft campaign.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
EDSA
EDSA
Ni ROLAND TOLENTINO
February 24, 2014
Bulatlat.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ni ROLAND TOLENTINO
February 24, 2014
Bulatlat.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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