Dear Gemma: A Rejoinder by Herman Tiu Laurel

Below is a rejoinder/reply to an open letter circulated on the internet attributed to a Ms Gemma S. Dimaculangan. Daily Tribune columnist, Herman Tiu Laurel, wrote the following on his March 28, 2008 Die Hard III column. He offered a more deeper and somewhat detailed analysis to what ails this country of almost 90 million people, more than half of which lives in poverty while a great percentage of its middle class are overseas workers.

"Dear Gemma,

Your heartbreak letter pouring your disgust over corruption in the Philippines has circulated all over the Internet and returned to Manila as a piece in one of the mainstream newspapers. You rail as a “taxpayer” against the “criminals in ‘barong’” stealing the 30 percent from your income you pay as a citizen, expressing disgust over the senators associated with crooks (referring to Gloria’s gang).

I especially liked your snide remark on Joker Arroyo for “making a joke of his own ‘pag bad ka, lagot ka!” You missed the mark somewhat when you allowed Gloria leeway in saying “PGMA time and again turns a blind eye to her husband’s financial deals” — as if Gloria weren’t the mastermind of the entire caboodle of corruption.

You correctly lamented the attitude by some expat Filipinos: “They say the few stupid ones like me who remain in the Philippines are no longer capable of showing disgust.” It’s good you said you “…don’t agree” and “Many like me feel anger at the brazenness of men we call our leaders, embarrassment to share the same nationality with them… But I am writing this because I need to do something concrete… I want to make it known that there are also Filipinos who dream of something better … I want them to know that my country is not filled with scalawags and crooks in every corner, and that there are citizens left who believe in decency, fairness…” You called for Filipinos to summon the power of good and implored “mothers out there to raise your children the best way you can…”

Ms. Dimaculangan, your letter struck a powerful chord among Filipinos abroad that they circulated it until your plaintive cry came all the way back to your home country. It rang a powerful bell in the hearts of your countrymen to your call not to be cynical but to let “… your voices be heard” to do “what you can for this land of your ancestors and your heritage.” But the question you have not provided an answer to is “what to do?” Before I proceed to give my response to your cries, Gemma, let me say this country — along with its government — is really replete with good, self-sacrificing and honest citizens — the vast majority of its soldiers and policemen are honest and faithful to their service despite living in pitiful hovels in squatter areas while the elite they protect wall themselves off in Forbes or Dasmariñas Village, or in Makati condos aeries.

There are over half-a-milion Filipino public school teachers and many, like Teacher Julie of Patubig Elementary School in Bulacan and Teacher Deo of Krus na Ligas High School in Quezon City, who work in oversized classes of up to 70 students. Underpaid and they often foot the bill for what the schools lack — such as a busted fluorescent light tube or even electricity payment the provincial and education funds can not cover because 60 percent of the National Budget goes to payment of external debt. Which really brings us to the international dimension of our crisis and the corruption of the country’s top government echelons: we are country endowed with natural bounties other countries covet and exploit while we grow poorer, but we never elected the most corrupt leaders like Arroyo who was installed by foreign powers with their local collaborators.

Take Edsa II which deposed a national leader elected by 11 million Filipinos in only two-and-a-half years in office; Estrada was not even given a chance to fail; he was never given the opportunity to prove the viability programs. Who did him in? This is what most people now know: A combination of local oligarchs in the power, water utility and telecommunications businesses aided by local church potentates like Cardinal Sin, trapos par excellence like FVR with the most corrupt police and military generals and proclaimed by a Supreme Court unfaithful to the Constitution. What few Filipinos realize is that Bush and corporate America were behind it too, to push the “War on Terror” and privatize and plunder the national wealth.

Like many Filipinos, you do not see the methods of the foreign predatory powers that have plagued the country from Lapu-Lapu through Gabriela Silang, to Jose Rizal and Bonifacio down to this day: the foreign powers use their economic and political clout to put in their “gobernador-general”. The foreign powers were appointed to her “Council of Foreign Economic Advisers” Gloria. The foreign powers love corrupt leaders like Mrs. Arroyo because they are “buyable”, and if the financial price becomes too high like Gloria’s (the Chinese are bidding higher) then they are “blackmail-able” like in ZTE-NBN. Worse comes to worse, the foreign power can oust a leader by Filipino generals trained in Fort Bragg staging a “coup” disguised as “people power.” It was in the hope of ousting the foreign powers that Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini et al dedicated their lives to national revolution.

Ms. Dimaculangan, this aspect of foreign corruption of our national affairs is what you miss in your otherwise comprehensive review of corruption in our society. Putting the moral of the story in a nutshell, I turn to the current rice supply problem, which is a food supply issue. Arroyo’s regime used the agricultural budget for fertilizers to buy the 2004 elections while letting rice smuggling go unchecked the past seven years; President Estrada put as top priority food security, certified an irrigation expansion bill into law and prioritized other food programs — like milk production. The next food crisis is the global shortage of milk which is already felt everywhere in rising prices. Estrada put into law the Carabao Breeding Program, anticipating this milk crisis by a decade. Gloria has done nothing on this score, and it is the youngest Filipinos who will suffer.

President Marcos prioritized irrigation and food productivity while Cory Aquino canceled almost all major irrigation dams Marcos initiated, yet to this day Marcos is demonized while Cory Aquino is lionized by the Western and local elite-controlled media. The fact is, in many surveys, the pining for the “good old days” of tangible economic development and benefits of the Marcos era is growing in the hearts of many poor Filipinos. It is not easy to sort out the truth after the “demonization” of Marcos and Estrada by international and local media, and even by the educational system directed by those in control today. Over time truth will out and the un-Filipino character of the puppet leaders of the foreign powers are sure to be exposed completely while the pro-Filipino will stand out: deposed Marcos and Estrada had Filipino welfare at heart while Cory, FVR and Gloria who have enjoyed Western support have brought us to the present dire straits.

Corruption is always an issue, but not all corrupt countries get poorer and poorer like the Philippines. China and India are corrupt, higher than the Philippines in many corruption surveys but they are growing as economic dragons. You see, Gemma, the greatest corruption is betrayal of your country’s welfare. I have news reports on the milk crisis now in the US, Britain, India and many other countries. Like the early warning the past years on the growing rice shortage, I am alerting Filipinos to the impending milk crisis for the Philippines — but as usual, few will take heed; while the country rails and flails about ZTE-NBN and corruption the next famine is creeping into every crib in every home: the milk shortage."

Resignation Movement's Transformation: An Analysis By Alejandro Lichauco

By Alejandro Lichauco
ANALYSIS Column on Tribune Online (The Philippines' Daily Tribune)

03/06/2008

"The resign movement should transform into war against economic treason of political leaders.
For that treason and not - repeat, not - corruption is what lies at the root of the nation's crisis, of which the ZTE anomaly is but a miniscule aspect and manifestation. The nation's problem with GMA started long before GMA came up the presidential scene. It started after the Marcos dictatorship, with that cursed import liberalization program of 1986 that became the defining signature of the first post Edsa government, and which eventually lead to the mass slaughter of the nation's sources of livelihood. That program would peak with the nation's hasty membership in GATT and the WTO, which GMA as the then lead of the Senate committee on economic affairs, with the prodding of then President FVR, forced down the throat of the nation with the collaboration of the opposition.

And with FVR, the nation simply went on an orgy of selling off just about every crown jewel of the nation - from Fort Bonifacio, to Petron, to National Steel and so on and so forth - to global investors - all in the name and for the cause of FVR's favorite ideology called globalization.
Then came the move to amend the Constitution in order to eliminate remaining national restrictions on foreign ownership, particularly land. That move started with FVR, pursued by Estrada, further pursued by GMA only to end up in the decision of the Supreme Court that the whole damn thing was unconstitutional after all.

Following Edsa I, every government of this accursed - only Christian nation in Asia, was obsessed by one thing, and one thing only: To auction off the entire patrimony of the nation to international investors and to stifle any effort to industrialize the economy. In fact, the present Constitution contains a provision which literally prohibits the kind of industrial policy that made economic miracles of our neighbors.

The ZTE is but a manifestation of what the late Claro M. Recto called the colonial mentality of the nation's political leaders: The mentality of giving in to just about everything demanded or just requested or merely wished for foreign governments and foreign investors.
And that colonial mentality was implanted by guess whom? By no less than the US government, which as far back as 1949 made it official policy of Washington to see to it that this country is governed by leaders who owe their election to the CIA and other agencies of the US government.
That policy was even given the official designation of PPS 23, or Policy Planning Staff Memorandum 23. And if you don't believe that ask Dick Pascual of the Star who exposed that in several of his columns.

Any nation whose leaders have been deliberately programmed and habituated to be nothing but the servile executors of a particular foreign power eventually transforms into a nation whose leaders become the servile executors of just about any foreign power prepared and capable of buying those leaders off. Whether it be the US or, in the latest case, China. Next time around it could be Russia, South Korea or even tiny Taiwan and even tinier Singapore.

This is what the general membership of the ongoing Resign Movement should realize. GMA is a problem and should go. But she is only the shadow of a more real problem which should be identified and recognized for what it is. And that problem is imperialism. Whether it be the imperialism of the US or the imperialism of China. For any great power - whether it be capitalist or communist would have an inner inclination to expand and dominate and that's what happened to America, and that's what beginning to happen to China.

Modern wars today aren't won by armed conquest but by economic conquest. And the foreign conquest of the Philippines can be achieved by a foreign power acting indirectly through Filipino political and economic leaders in whom the colonial mentality has been implanted. That's GMA and that's just about every president we have had since 1946 with the exception of the late Carlos P. Garcia who was maneuvered out of power by the CIA for his "Filipino First" policy and who used former President Macapagal for its (CIA's) purpose.

If you don't believe that then read the confessions of the CIA man in charge of that affair. His name is Joseph Smith and his book was titled Portrait of a Cold Warrior.

The ZTE affair is actually an affair of rivalry between two great powers fighting for control of the Philippine economy and its politics. And that's the point which the Resign Movement should realize. That's the point which the Armed Forces in particular whose constitutional duty is to secure the sovereignty and the integrity of the national territory should realize.

To maintain one's allegiance to the present globalist regime is to commit nothing less than treason. For globalism, for reasons to be explained in further articles, is treason incarnate. And all our political leaders since Edsa have been confirmed globalists.

Read their lips."

My Comment: This is a spot on analysis by Mr Lichauco on the "State of Affairs" of the corruption, greed and the general malaise besetting our country.

A friend of mine from high school forwarded to me the "NSCB DATA VALIDATES RP'S WORSENING POVERTY SITUATION" report. After reading this and reacting to it, I've read this column by Mr Lichauco. This is it, I said to myself; another "fresh viewpoint" in the vein of nationalists Claro M Recto and Renato Constantino.

I don't think this is another conspiracy theory, as this goes beyond theories. As one astute US diplomat says: "we are here to protect US interests." And he was right. We have our own government officials; whether elected or not to protect OUR OWN interests. They are there as public servants, elected or appointed to do just that: to be of public service and to protect or interest against competing international interests.

When our own government officials: our own leaders; stop doing that, Mr Lichauco is right to brand them as committing treason.

We are not harking for more nationalist movement or becoming militant nationalists, we just wanted what is good and fair for our own citizens. What is rightfully ours in the first place.

When we start to liberalize and privatizing our public assets, we start to lose control. And that experience is nothing new. All around the world, when a particular public utility is privatized the consumers suffer. Let us not kid ourselves, private companies are there to make a profit, and profit they make. We are always being guiled into thinking that opening our public utilities and natural resources to liberalization would give more competition and hence, lower costs: wrong! Experience around the world proves that thinking wrong.

As members of GATT and the WTO, we like to think we belong to the big boys' network. What we do not know is that we are the pawns that big boys in the GATT and TWO play with. Free trade is a one way street, and that street goes the way to the big boys like the US and EU.

Those who are for global liberalization obviously wants that precisely because there is something in it for them. Smaller countries like us are gullible enough to believe that. Why do you think there is always a large of protesters in any given GATT or WTO meeting?

We should therefore heed the call of people such as Mr Lichauco. For our leaders to pay attention and start leading us into a more glorious future. For every citizen to make sure that whoever commits "treason" be punished and expelled from public office. If we fail to do that, we will become a country of poor for eternity.

M Baylon Jr