Welcome debate
Last Monday, the Inquirer editorial tackled the question of whether “they are all the same, anyway.” Recent news, economics-wise, brings to mind a recent column by Tony Abaya.
First, the economics-related news: we’re seeing Won, peso slide on equities rout, risk aversion as Stock rout deepens; the panicked flee to bonds, with this, shall we say, being the money quote:
“I am sure we are in a bear market, because the mood is very negative. People no longer believe that stocks are the road to riches,” Cannae Capital Partners managing director Hugh Giddy.
“This may be a long slow grind down because earnings expectations will start to fall.”
See also Stocks mark 7th day bloodbath (in light of the above, it will be interesting to see what bloggers like stuart santiago, who’s been keeping tabs not only on the implications of the appreciating peso, but also, what economists think should be done, will have to say about this). Now I’ve heard it said, that goings-on in America are less relevant to us, than they used to be, because our economy is now more closely aligned to China’s than the USA. But even in China, all doesn’t seem to be well. See A Recipe for Disharmony:
An Asia Times article by Martin Hutchinson paints a very sobering picture about China’s bad debt situation. The latest estimate is reported to be between US$1.2 trillion and US$1.3 trillion, which would make the often touted sovereign wealth fund of US$200 billion look almost paltry, not to mention that one-third of this fund is slated for the purchase of bad loans from Chinese banks and another third to recapitalize China Agricultural Bank and China Development Bank which are destined for privatization. What is even scarier is that, according to Hutchinson, all of China’s foreign exchange reserves, to the tune of US$1.4 trillion, might be needed to plug holes in the banking system when the inevitable liquidity crisis occurs. The article also says that China’s banking system bad debts account for about 40 percent of her GDP and are in real terms about five times those of the United States, given her economy is around one-fifth the size of the latter’s.
The article then goes on to draw parallels between Latin America and China in terms of very high inequality, persistently high inflation and rampant corruption, highlighting the fact that China’s government lacks any genuine understanding of the free market and her economy is increasingly dominated by special interests, with a small entrenched elite gorging themselves (immorally and illegally) with the fruits of economic growth at the expense of the disfranchised masses.
Which brings us back to the Inquirer editorial and Tony Abaya. In his column, GMA’s Successes, he writes:
Under Cory, the Philippine GDP grew 3.5 percent in 1986. 4.3 in 1987, 6.8 in 1988, 6.2 in 1989. The coup attempt in December 1989 by then Col. Gringo Honasan and then Capt. Danilo Lim dragged the GDP down to 4.4 in 1990, and subsequently to negative 0.6 in 1991. The average GDP under Cory was 4.1 percent.
Under President Fidel Ramos, GDP grew 0.3 percent in 1992, 2.1 in 1993, 4.4 in 1994, 4.7 in 1995, 5.8 in 1996, and 5.2 in 1997. The Asian Financial Crisis that started in July 1997 dragged the GDP down to negative 0.6 in 1998 as it devastated economies all over the world. The average GDP under President Ramos was 3.1.
It should be mentioned that the low GDPs in 1992 and 1993 were due, not just to the coup attempts of Honasan-Lim in December 1989, but also to the daily power outages of up to 8-hours that plagued the economy.
And the power outages were due largely to the mothballing by President Aquino of the 620 mw Bataan nuclear power plant just before it was to be commissioned, a concession to the anti-US bases and anti-nuclear agitation of the Communist movement. The slack would have been taken up by the 300 mw Calaca plant and the 300 mw Masinloc plant, both coal-fired, but the commissioning of these plants was blocked by environmentalists.
The net effect was that thousands of businesses and industries, and tens of thousands of families were forced to buy and operate their own generators, thus creating as much pollution as, or even more than, Calaca and Masinloc put together. There is a lesson to be learned here, but I doubt if Filipinos have learned it. But I digress.
Under President Joseph Estrada, GDP grew 3.4 percent in 1999 and 4.0 in 2000, until he was deposed from office in January 2001 by a military coup d’etat pretending to be people power. The average GDP under President Estrada was 3.7 percent.
Under President Arroyo, GDP grew 1.8 percent in 2001, 4.3 in 2002, 4.7 in 2003, 6.0 in 2004, 5.1 in 2005, 5.6 in 2006 and 7.1 in 2007. The average GDP under President Arroyo was 4.94 percent. Forecasts for 2008 range from 5.0 to 6.7 percent.
(It takes GDP growth rate of at least 8 percent per annum for 20 years for an economy to reach First World status. This is the level of the achievement of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, from the 1970s to the 1990s.)
Having compared the economic performance of recent administrations, he goes on to point out that,
Under President Arroyo, the economy has developed an upward momentum. And the biggest element in this upward momentum is the remittances from overseas contract workers, which will reach $14 to !5 billion in 2007, compared to practically zero in the 1970s..
The corollary is that if Presidents Aquino, Ramos and Estrada enjoyed a $10 to $15 billion annual OCW windfall during their watch, the GDP during their presidencies would have been substantially higher. (If any reader has the annual figures for OCW remittances staring in 1980, I would appreciate receiving them.)
The other corollary is that if President Arroyo did not have this $10 to $15 billion annual OCW windfall, the Philippine economy under her management would not have grown as much as it has in the past five years.
Which is not to say, as Abaya points out, the President’s taking credit for things not entirely of her own making:
Whis is not to say that President Arroyo did not make any substantial contribution to economic growth from her own initiatives. Far from it. Her biggest success, in my opinion, is the growth of the call center-business outsourcing industry, which now employs more than 200,000 young, urban middle-class Filipinos, and is still growing fast.
If one were to revisit her Mid-term Development Plan, which was drafted at the start of her presidency in 2001, one would note that it had three major foci: agriculture, tourism and information technology or IT. So the call-center phenomenon was an Arroyo initiative and it is a major success, for which she deserves full credit.
The passage and implementation of the EVAT. is also an Arroyo success, which substantially increased government revenues, enabling it – theoretically at least – to invest more in infrastructure and social services…
….President Arroyo has also achieved moderate success in tourism, one of the three foci in her Midterm Development Plan. Tourist arrivals topped three million in 2007, for the first time ever. I say ‘moderate’ because Thailand drew 13 million tourists, Malaysia 16 million, in the same period.
In 1991, Indonesia and the Philippines drew more or less the same number of tourists: one million. Since then, Indonesia’s tourist arrivals have reached five million, despite the Bali and Jakarta bombings, while we are celebrating only three million. Don’t look now, but tiny Cambodia just topped two million in 2007, and Vietnam is investing heavily to develop its entire South China Sea coast into a tourist magnet..
President Arroyo’s third economic focus: agriculture is, in my opinion, a mixed bag. Even assuming that production has increased in some sectors, the stark fact remains that we are not self sufficient in such staples as rice, corn, sugar, poultry, etc and must import several billion dollars worth every year to meet domestic demand.
This by the country that set up the UP College of Agriculture in Los Banos (when the Americans were running this place), and hosts the International Rice Research Institute (also established by the Americans), both of which trained the agriculturists of Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia etc, which ironically now surpass us in agricultural production.
Perhaps the weakness of our agriculture is not a paucity of modern technology, but an oversupply of people, because of a galloping population growth rate. In the 1970s, the Philippines and Thailand had more or less the same population size: 45 million.
Because it had a population management program all these years, in 2007 Thailand had only 65 million people, while the Philippines had 89 million. By any yardstick of commonsense, it is easier to feed, clothe, house, educate and find jobs for 65 million people than 89 million.
For this, President Arroyo must share the blame with Presidents Marcos, Aquino and Estrada, for their wishy-washy attitude towards population management and their fear of offending the Roman Catholic bishops. (Only the Protestant President Ramos dared to defy the bishops on this issue.)
But, Abaya argues, the policies for which the President deserves credit have reached their own limits:
But this has its limits, which may have been reached already, judging from the frantic efforts to sell government assets, such as those in the power sector. Without the sale of government assets, the government seems to be running out of money. Economists tell us that a government’s tax collection efforts should amount to at least 16 percent of GDP.
Even with his dictatorial powers, President Marcos could manage only 9 to 12 percent. Presidents Aquino and Ramos were able to raise it to 13 to 14 percent. President Arroyo may have been the first president to raise that percentage to 15-16 percent, but apparently not much more than that, which suggest unresolved problems from chronic tax evasion and smuggling.
And so, his conclusion?
In summary, it can be said that President Arroyo’s relative success in managing the economy can be credited largely to the $10-$15 billion windfall from OCW remittances.
Therefore it is not accurate to claim that there is no alternative to or substitute for her. In fact it can be said that the increase in workers deployed abroad – about one million a year – is due to her failure, and the failure of her predecessors, to create enough jobs in the domestic economy, forcing millions of Filipinos to seek employment abroad.
This means that she can be replaced by such reasonably qualified wannabes as Mar Roxas, Manuel Villar, Richard Gordon, Loren Legarda, or Panfilo Lacson – even by Governor Fr. Ed Among Panlilio or Antonio Meloto – and the economy would still chug along at least at the same pace as it does today, as long as whoever succeeds her enjoys the $10-$15 billion windfall from workers’ remittances.
The consequences of a recession in the USA at the start of an election year, are tackled in Economic crisis, political rebirth? in History Unfolding:
The week’s economic news makes clear that a new flock of chickens–not perhaps as large as the one that appeared in 1929, but large enough–is finally coming home to roost. The credit collapse that has begun in the housing market (and, the papers tell me, threatens to spread through unpayable credit card debt) is lowering employment, and it may get much worse. Like the two previous crises in our national life (1860-8 and 1929-45), it has been largely brought about by the unbridled ideological or economic excesses of a Prophet generation–the Transcendentals (b. 1792-1821), the Missionaries (about 1863-1884), and now, the Boomers (1943-1960.) Born into as secure an environment has humankind has been able to create, such generations begin disrupting it in young adulthood, have eaten away the foundations by mid-life, and, as they reach elderhood, have to try to find a few surviving members who can help build a new order with the help of the younger generations.
His generational approach to American politics is one that I find very attractive, since I’ve taken a similar (though far from as highly developed) one concerning our own. This is how he connects the past to the American present:
We should keep in mind that this relentless drive by people who are already rich by any standard to gain yet more money is behind our present predicament–and that it will be harder to climb out of it because the mass of people who really need more money have been getting less and less of it. The Boom generation of managers has also avenged their missionary grandparents by finding new weapons against organized labor–most notably, the weapon of outsourcing.
It is not clear that the political process is ready to deal with the crisis. Last week, Boomer Mitt Romney, who fallaciously claimed that he would bring manufacturing jobs back to Michigan, defeated Silent John McCain, who courageously recognized that those jobs are not coming back. On the Democratic side, as John Edwards fades, identity politics have taken the place of any serious discussion of issues. The question I have been pondering is whether Barack Obama, who will turn 47 this year, is really the counterpart of Abraham Lincoln (who was 51 in 1860 when he was elected), or of John Charles Fremont, the 43-year old Republican candidate in 1856, who was defeated by Compromiser James Buchanan. (If McCain should beat Obama, the parallel would be exact.)
On to other things…
Tonyo Cruz once again takes exception to my response to his comment/entry: see The difference between discreet and central. Let me work backwards and answer his question, what do I mean by “public acceptance” of the Left? Very simply: public acceptance is the refusal to condone the killing of a civilian, simply on the basis of the person being accused (and not even self-proclaimed) by the authorities of being a Leftist.
The constituency of the Left is large, indeed, per official party-list election figures for winning parties (the inclusion of Akbayan won’t go down well with some groups, so the total without it is in parenthesis, for comparison):
Bayan Muna 976,699
Gabriela Women’s Party 621,086
Anak Pawis 369,366
Akbayan ! Citizens’ Action Party 466,019
Total: 2,433,170 (1,967,151)
Comparable national election figures (NASSA-NAMFREL quick count):
Left > Gomez, Richard Independent 2,308,620
Left < Singson, Luis Lakas-CMD 3,468,039
If you use Comelec figures (PDSP is the party of Norberto Gonzales et al., you could argue also technically part of the Left):
Left = Sultan Jamalul D. Kiram III TEAM Unity – PDSP 2,488,553
Let’s argue the Left had only 1 out of every 4 votes cast for it actually counted, a potential constituency of 9,732,680. That puts it on parity with: Prospero A. Pichay, Jr. TEAM Unity – Lakas-CMD 9,798,355
The dictionary says,
dogmatism |ˈdôgməˌtizəm|
noun
the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others : a culture of dogmatism and fanaticism.
DERIVATIVES
dogmatist noun
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: via French from medieval Latin dogmatismus, from Latin dogma (see dogma ).
Which suggests that even if contrary evidence were presented, the assertions of the incontrovertibly trueness of essential principles, would continue, anyway.
Let me just point out that “revisionism” is not just any word, but a word rich in meaning for the like-minded:
revisionism |riˈvi zh əˌnizəm|
noun often derogatory
a policy of revision or modification, esp. of Marxism on evolutionary socialist (rather than revolutionary) or pluralist principles.
• the theory or practice of revising one’s attitude to a previously accepted situation or point of view.
DERIVATIVES
revisionist noun & adjective
The Master Storyteller and thus, the living magisterium of the Left, demonstrates ther rigorous use of such words in intramural Left debates (and more) and extramural debates with those who aren’t affiliated in the party.
Essentially this is arguing apples and oranges but this is one statement that, again, belongs to the Q.E.D. department:
Public intellectuals should also take note that attempts to airbrush the Left out of Edsa 2 and the body politic has resulted in an ongoing massacre (nearly 900 extrajudicially executed, and another 200 involuntarily disappeared), in the arrest and detention of Satur Ocampo and Crispin Beltran, and in the filing of spurious charges against the legal Left which Arroyo considers a considerable threat. In the official script, the airbrushing is most intense. As if no legal movement exists, and as if Arroyo did not work with, sat with, conferred with, cooperated with the same movement she now wishes to kill after airbrushing operations.
Now that is revisionism. From culpability fully belonging to the administration, now even those opposed to it but who aren’t part of the Left, are assigned responsibility for the murders of members of the Left (or those merely suspected of belonging to the Left, particularly as the state definition is broader than some Leftists would admit the Left to be). It ignores the non-Left voices raised in indignation and protest over the killings, the efforts of those who tried to bring the situation to the attention of the world, since Filipinos were proving pretty much unmoved.
And this is what I mean by dogmatism. Tactical considerations aside, much as the Left will criticize those it considers non-Leftists for branding them with certain names, it is something they do so, all the time: distinctions are only to be made by the Left but non-Left-originating distinctions on the other hand, are simply unacceptable. the underlying message is pretty much the same as the administration’s: same-same (and I won’t go into the public support given by some members of the Left for Joker Arroyo’s senatorial reelection in 2007).
Now what did I mean when I said, “Since 2001, however, the Left has found itself unable to really find a place for itself in legitimate politics”? First, legitimate politics for me are obviously non-revolutionary politics, that is, participation, without molestation, in electoral politics; and as for not really finding a place, by this I mean that the government has, with some success, mobilized public opposition to the Left by calling all Leftists communists, and by generally showing itself unmoved by local opinion in contrast to the way it’s been disturbed by foreign concern over the liquidation of Leftists. And again, in the absence of a nationwide poll specifically asking people how they feel about the Left, one can only go by what one hears and reads, and that has been on the whole unsympathetic to the Left.
What is my factual basis? The murders. The indifference far too many, and outright delight far too many, have shown; the concern far too few have demonstrated. the support, tacit or overt, for the “all-out war” policy.
Again, this is a question of interpretation, not of “truth.” The truth is obvious. Civilians are being killed, on the pretext that it is justifiable to kill them based on their ideological beliefs. This is wrong; those who justify it, are wrong.
Tonyo ends with,
I hope Manolo will be kind enough to recognize the advances made by the Left not just in mobilizing “warm bodies†for elite-led mobilizations, but also in public discourse, in reframing the public debate, in offering the public some alternatives to the status quo, among others.
This is not mine to recognize, out of the kindness of my heart; it’s to be assumed. My criticism of where we are, now, is that we’re far off from assuming what Tonyo wants recognized. But it is a wonderful thing that he takes the time to painstakingly point out where my assertions may be too sweeping, or demanding that they be clarified. It is an exercise not only in public debate, but in fraternal correction; certainly, our exchange is something the administration, for one, would rather not happen at all, and most certainly wouldn’t want repeated by members of the public.
In his blog entry Death of a cycling companion (and the latest activist killing), Howie Severino describes how a statistic for officialdom is a tragedy, for him. And points to what separates Tonyo from those he disagrees with: it is his comrades who are being killed.
Philippine Politics 04 reiterates his disagreement with my views concerning the victory of Joseph Estrada in 1998.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Edsa, ideas, people power, philippines, politics
Norberto Gonzales is a fascist and PDSP is close the Nazi party in ideology
a voter votes for only 1 partly list and has the option to vote for 12 senators. hindi yata magandang comparison
That *Inquirer* editorial you cited said in its last paragraph:
“When the youth say “they†are all the same, they obviously don’t include themselves. And if they are the majority (which they are) then it means the youth can seize the day―but don’t want to. They have judged, but refuse to be judged themselves.”
I don’t know if it is THAT obvious and certainly it cannot be said with acceptably certainty that they “refuse to be judged themselves”. That’s reading too much into the apathy that the youth exhibited through the lens of the elderly mind.
Young people simply have their whole lives ahead of them. They are in a unique position to determine how they want to spend that life from their selfish perspective (which they are entitled to). Young Filipinos who go or choose to not care it seems simply find no personal benefit in investing their abundant time and energies in something they perceive to be a dud.
A society that views young people as property rather than as assets cannot comprehend this SIMPLE reality.
Back in the days when most of the world’s people were relatively equally poor, it made sense to invest in one’s own society (there was no 1st World to migrate to and no 3rd World to languish in). Nowadays, there is an abundance of options for young people and a far more enormous gap between the fabulous First World and the wretched Third World. They can (a) choose to apply themselves to societies that appreciate and AMPLY reward their talents or (b) stay put and flog what is essentially a dead horse.
It’s a no-brainer in my book.
Read the PDF file. Communists don’t speak like this, do they? I’ve read communists articles from England and the US. They are not as obscure and as opaque and full of jargon as this… what is it? Intramurals? I see that people have died because of your purely idiotic love of jargon. That’s why these people become communists: communist dogma flatters their intellectual pretensions.
Nobel Economics prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has this to say about GDP:
http://www.gnh-movement.org/press_detail.php?id=120
“I’ve read communists articles from England and the US. They are not as obscure and as opaque and full of jargon as this… what is it? Intramurals?”
Commies in general are bad enough.
FILIPINO commies take the badness of communism to even lower levels.
Go figure.
Of the youth: They were led by a charming man in Edsa II. Now Jim Paredes has fled the country.
“Of the youth: They were led by a charming man in Edsa II. Now Jim Paredes has fled the country.”
Jim Paredes tore up his Green Card in a moment of monumental stupidity back in the heady aftermath of Edsa I. Not too many people get that second chance he enjoys today in Australia. He is an old dog who seems to be successfully learning new tricks (and thus expanding the breadth of what he is able to comprehend — outside that small square of traditional Pinoy thinking) in a new and challenging — but far more fair — environment.
A lot of those who choose to stay (and grandstand about it) have options up their sleeves (some of their parents went to the U.S. just to give birth and lock in a Green Card for their offspring). Kudos to those who actually manage to leave without the benefit of those options afforded people like Paredes.
just a correction, benign0: if someone went to the usa to give birth, their kid doesn’t get a green card. their kid gets us citizenship, period.
Jeg, many economists also think that GDP is just that, a “gross” measure of economic performance. Using it alone can grossly mislead people into believing that growth is really happening when, in fact, it is not. Economic performance is better judged by other indices or their combination (Gini index of inequality, balance of payments, purchasing power parity, consumer price index, etc.). Try using them and you may find that, the country appears running fast only to stay in the same place.
Sounds absurd to many, but Bhutan’s proposal to use GNH (Gross National Happiness) may be better for pleasure-seeking citizens than the wily politicians!
If the Left is able to transcend its dogma, it will be better able to translate the successes in other countries to its advantage. After all, two of the most successful economies in the region (China and Vietnam) are run by Communist governments. A little bit further afield, you have Kerala (in India) which has achieved the equivalent of first world levels of Human Development under the ruling Communist party.
Thanks mlq3!
“The constituency of the Left is large, indeed, per official party-list election figures for winning parties (the inclusion of Akbayan won’t go down well with some groups, so the total without it is in parenthesis, for comparison):”
well, you know how it is with “some people”…
MLQ3
“Now I’ve heard it said, that goings-on in America are less relevant to us, than they used to be, because our economy is now more closely aligned to China’s than the USA.”
I’ve heard that said too by rosy scenario pundits.
But here’s what they ignore : our economy is now more closely aligned to China whose economy is closely aligned to America.
MB: which brings up the interesting (and not just theoretically) question: what if both economies are fucked?
because if there’s a spill-over to us, then you have a government unable to crow “the peso is high and the stock market is strong.” which goes to a concern i’ve expressed for some time: you may be able to hold things together, because your domestic shortcomings are compensated for by a benign foreign business environment. but if that goes away, you’re left purely with your domestic shortcomings.
and in such a situation, if you do not enjoy widespread domestic support, then government’s deprived of a public opinion buffer at a time when it will have to make unpopular decisions to keep the country afloat and tide it over until things get sunny again.
“and in such a situation, if you do not enjoy widespread domestic support, then government’s deprived of a public opinion buffer at a time when it will have to make unpopular decisions to keep the country afloat and tide it over until things get sunny again.”
Goes to the heart of the fundamental weakness of ultra-representative democracy and how fatal an application it is to an intellectually-underdeveloped society with no track record of bottom-up achievement.
Kung baga, in the U.S. this weakness is buffered by Americans’ inherent ability to achieve. In the Philippines where there is no track record of collective achievement emanating at the grassroots and indigenous private enterprise, the society’s fortunes are imprisoned by the six-year electoral cycle it had doomed itself to dance to.
MLQ3,
Mismo!
And if both economies are fucked then will the rest of the world follow?And then what happens to OFWs?
And then who will buy the assets that Gloria is privatizing to inflate her revenue?
If, but hopefully not, a serious recession occurs in the US, we will see whether Gloria’s economic policies have any substance to them or whether they are only ampaw like FVR’s which collapsed when the Asian crisis hit.
Gloria concentrated on doctoring the books to make our county look attractive to investors and lenders rather than on spending for infrastructure, education, and health when she had the money to spend from VAT, sale of assets, remittances, trade surpluses and all that. Mayors are now complaining of cuts in their IRAs.
Does she think we have enough in foreign reserves to weather a global economic meltdown? Will 50 billion dollars or less save an unhealthy and poorly educated people who live in a country with limited transportation and communication infrastructure?
Benigno,
Your generalizations and racist remarks sound serious but hahaha.
Benign0, in terms of bottom-up achievement, the Philippine economy has been sustained by the collective efforts of the grassroots. When the 1983 crisis came, it was the ‘underground economy’ (aka your ‘indigenous private enterprise‘) that helped us survive while the rich salted their dollars abroad. Today, as Abaya notes above, it is the remittances of the millions of OFW’s who buffer against a lackluster oligarch-led government.
You know, I get really, REALLY, dissed when the apathy word comes about. In all my experiences working with and training young people, apathy is the LAST thing in their minds.
Surprising? It shouldn’t: part of being young is being passionate. But young people are only passionate about the things that, as benigno has pointed out, they either find worthy of their time, or believe in.
I saw both on the streets of the Second People Power, the young who found it worth their time to be on EDSA – it had somehow become the in thing then! Hey, Ma, I’m on EDSA!!! – alongside the young who believed that the Philippines is better than an envelope kept closed or a dancing senator.
Don’t blame us for not acting or believing. Don’t blame us for being quiet. Don’t blame us if we don’t do another EDSA. We gave you a chance that second time around.
Rather than call the young apathetic, perhaps the young should be convinced why it should care in the first place.
And if some insensitive smartass retorts with, “ano pa ba kailangan nyo?”, well perhaps that should be a question the questioner should ask him or herself, neh? I mean, why is it so easy for young people to go to a GK Build, and even to go back to one, but you can’t even convince people who supposedly hate Gloria – wow, look at the surveys! – to kick her out?
“Your generalizations and racist remarks sound serious but hahaha”
People who are quick to cry “racism!” at the drop of a hat tend to be those who are imprisoned by chronic case of victim mentality.
“it was the ‘underground economy’ (aka your ‘indigenous private enterprise‘) that helped us survive while the rich salted their dollars abroad. Today, as Abaya notes above, it is the remittances of the millions of OFW’s who buffer against a lackluster oligarch-led government.”
Three points:
(1) Is “survival” the best you can come up with in terms of a benchmark for ACHIEVEMENT?
(2) Again you blame the rich’s “salt[ing] their dollars abroad” for the broader issue of the society’s chronic inability to prosper. Tsk tsk. you’ve got victim mentality written all over your face, dude.
(3) OFW remittances — how long can we survive on that? That our society is so pathetically dependent on that merely highlights the chronic failure that is Pinoy society.
Rob’ Ramos,
Well said. Maybe the old fars here whose minds have been conditioned by decades of lawyerspeak need to be re-acquainted with the actual SIMPLICITY of the situation:
(1) the elderly mind is imprisoned by its beholdenness to no-results traditions and the primitive notion that young people are to be spoken to rather than spoken WITH.
(2) young people have far more options today than what today’s old farts had in their own youth. They expect to be told WHY before they can be expected to DO.
(3) The WHY needs to be convincingly fresh enough to today’s youth. If all we see today are the same old campaign slogans and the tired old rallying cries of aging leftists and Edsa “revolution” veterans, then we will have lost them already
(4) All the elderly have to offer today (as Mr. cvj will attest to) is the promise of the next OFW remittance instead of assurance of stable PARENTAL PRESENCE in the most formative years of the next generation of Pinoys.
jeg, thanks for that link.
manolo, yes, i’m watching developments closely and doing more research (which always includes your blog).
It has finally dawned on me what bengin0′s recommendation is to solve the country’s problems. I called to mind all his previous comments that Ive had the privilege to read. Benny’s solution is this: Migrate. The utter SIMPLICITY of this solution! Must be why I missed it.
Forgive me, benny, for taking this long.
Benigno,
“People who are quick to cry “racism!†at the drop of a hat tend to be those who are imprisoned by chronic case of victim mentality.”
Hahahahaha. And you’re a psychiatrist too!
Should I call you Dr Phil?
make this solution even simpler: when you migrate, POR FAVOR, please stash along the current leaders in your luggages.
rob’ramos:that’s exactly the kind of puerile whining that makes people discount the youth.
WTF? Acting for a cause, or believing in one – these are choices we make. We don’t need to be given a reason to believe. And we don’t need to be given a reason to speak up either. Either you speak up or you don’t. The stupidity of other around you is no excuse for your own refusal to go beyond your own self-indulgent, hedonistic, comfort zone. Oh, and who exactly did you give a chance to? You mean EDSA2? I suppose you think the youth waS some frigging cavalry that saved the day and that the youth have to be thanked for that? C’mon man. You talked about youth having passion. True enough. But you’ve just proven that the youth – or at least, your kind of youth – do so adore drama. Newsflash! We are not some army that other people mobilize; we are not fremen waiting to “give” some upstart atreides a “chance” to use our power. More to the point, we are not some outside group or privileged subset that the rest of the flipinos need to convince to help them. You’re a filipino too, believe it or not, for all your pretensions to being a westernized global citizen. and if you’re truly not apathetic, then you should not just be waiting in the wings for someone to come along that you can support.
This tired old trick of supposedly turning the tables on the person asking the question is just a roundabout way of saying that you don’t know the answer. Don’t be a sissy. Either answer the question or admit that you don’t know how to.
Because GK provides the rush of instant gratification. You sweat it out for an hour, you already get bragging rights. You build a house, you see it right there in front of you. It’s gratifying. You’re ego swells up because you were able to make a tangible good appear right before your very eyes. But the work of building and defending democracy – like kicking out a hated president – that doesn’t offer instant gratification. But it requires more conviction than picking up a hammer and pounding in a few nails. And it is not necessarily a mark of maturity that kids go to GK. For many, It’s just a new way of being cool. And if you think that that is proof that you’re not apathetic … well, then you’re just pathetic.
Let me guess…because you don’t feel that it is your responsibility to stand up for those who were cheated of their right to vote?
For the record, i think Rom is younger than Rob.
rob, off hand, some thoughts. if you go to GK you don’t run the risk of being tear-gassed or truncheoned on behalf of some old fart. also, you can go to a GK build and go home and forget about it until the next time.
but i am very curious about the idea that someone needs convincing to care. one would suppose caring should be the default condition. but since the reality is there, and the caring’s absent, then indeed, how do people get to care, again?
personally i think the problem is that the transmittal of culture broke down so you can’t expect people to care if they haven’t been grounded in how government ought to work, how citizens ought to be engaged, etc., etc.
Sometimes I think that we older ones have to share the blame on why today’s middle class youth turned into cellphone-toting, gadget-loving, Starbucks-sipping, trend-following, apathetic fashionistas. But then again maybe not.
The malady of the middle class is that it identifies itself with the ‘elite’. The middle class is the most class-insecure of all classes, hungry for the attention of the elite, asking for approval from them, begging to be adopted into their social circles — to be identified as jologs is anathema. Perhaps that’s why they have abdicated their traditional role as leaders of the masa.
Sometimes I think that we older ones have to share the blame on why today’s middle class youth turned into celfone-toting, gadget-loving, Starbucks-sipping, trend-following, apathetic fashionistas. But then again maybe not.
The malady of the middle class is that it identifies itself with the ‘elite’. The middle class is the most class-insecure of all classes, hungry for the attention of the elite, asking for approval from them, begging to be adopted into their social circles  to be identified as jologs is anathema. Perhaps that’s why they have abdicated their traditional role as leaders of the masa.
Aha! One mystery solved. Spell it celfone (instead of c-e-l-l-p-h-o-n-e) and it passes MLQ3′s spam filter.
mlq3:true, GK is a safer alternative. but for some of the youth, safer isn’t always the more attractive option. so i guess it all depends on who is doing the choosing.
cvj: i think so too, uncle.
jeg: in a sense, i think you may be right about parents …
I have a friend who goes to GK building projects for the “babes.” it seems GK building projects also draws beautiful foreigners who’s also on a guilt-absolving trip. not that GK is bad. only that some people have the wrong motivations.
well, that’s the youth for Rob.
hey, am i still included in this demographic?
as for our billions of dollars in reserves acting as buffer when a worldwide recession does happen (and it will happen since the US and China are now perched precariously on that posn) it will all be useless. methinks the world will switch back to the gold standard. either that or the euro becomes the new international currency.
Read the PDF file. Communists don’t speak like this, do they? I’ve read communists articles from England and the US. They are not as obscure and as opaque and full of jargon as this… what is it? Intramurals? I see that people have died because of your purely idiotic love of jargon. That’s why these people become communists: communist dogma flatters their intellectual pretensions. — BrianB
Yes, Pinoy commies speak like this! How could I ever forget? When I was 17, a freshman studying under the leafy confines of Diliman, I was so enarmored with becoming a communist. It took only one thing to shatter my fantasy of working for the masses ek-ek: reading Jose Maria Sison’s book, Philippine Society and Revolution and adjudging it as the most pretentious, probably worst book ever written (yukk, what a dud, and I waited for one month so that I could finally borrow it from the library).
It figures, Joma was an English major in college. The worst thing that could happen to a movement is to fall under the spell of an aspiring poet/writer for a leader who fell victim to dogma or fanaticism.
Lol, the uring manggagawa have long been had by this guy whose ass is safely esconsed in Utretch while his flock are out fighting it out here against Gloria’s army.
Inidoro,
I meant Dr Phil that fat bald fuck who dishes out tough love psychobabble on Oprah Winfrey’s show.
Devils, at 26 i think you still are. I was told that the ‘youth’ category ends at 40 so that means i also have a few months more to go.
“one would suppose caring should be the default condition. but since the reality is there, and the caring’s absent, then indeed, how do people get to care, again”
It is a “default condition” if the caring you are talking about is directed to other humans. But if this is about the caring directed towards one’s country, it’s a bit presumptious to consider this a “default condition”.
Just because one is baptised a Catholic doesn’t mean this person wanted or even cared to be Catholic in the first place. Similarly so, just because one is born on a bunch of rocks known laughably as “the Philippines” does not necessarily mean one wanted to or even cared to be Filipino in the first place.
I’m sure tens of millions of Pinoys living in the Philippines will attest to the REALITY that they’d rather be somewhere else and rather be something else other than Filipino. Just ask the executives who market skin whiteners for their latest sales stats and you’ll catch my drift.
Unless being “Filipino” stands for SOMETHING that one can be objectively proud of, the term will forever mean squat to the average teenager who craves to see and be seen in the latest Starbucks cafe working continuously on refining their American twang.
devils: re
voluntourism, i think its called. and those beautiful foreign types, voluntourists.
“I was told that the ‘youth’ category ends at 40 so that means i also have a few months more to go”
On the contrary, youth is a state of mind characterised by openness to new ideas and outside-the-square thinking.
It is when you start imprisoning your mind in old ideas and no-results traditions, stop evaluating new ones simply because they are *different*, and place a premium on conformity that one can truly be categorised as an Old Fart.
Re: Tonyo Cruz
I wonder if he would care to explain why the communists endorsed Joker Arroyo in 2007?
I might add that one who uses age as a determinant of how youthful or elderly one is is a typical specimen of that species known as Old Farts.
That reminds me of my conversation with my best friend back in high school. He was asking me what does love of country mean and why should there be such a thing. At that time, i told him that perhaps ‘love of country’ meant ‘love of our fellow countrymen’ and he said that put in that way, that is something he can accept. Today i realize that love of country is something more than that.
You seem to be confusing Filipino as a racial category which it is not.
As the Korean who wrote us that Open Letter said, it works the other way around. Love of country is not like romantic love in which you love someone because of their attributes. It’s more like love of family which is more unconditional and less utilitarian in nature. I don’t expect you to understand though.
I take it you’re over forty.
On the contrary, youth is a state of mind characterised by openness to new ideas and outside-the-square thinking.
Ah, the irony.
@cvj, you think? and i thought, the youth demographic only consisted of high school and college students. and the late 30′s already starting their mid-life.
@rom, hehee. that made me laugh.
I’d like some of them voluntourists to go with my voluntourism, please.
Benigno is a lost soul, floating amongst us, who is awaiting entrance to the coldest, lowest part of Dante’s hell. Tough luck Benigno, that part of hell is reserved for those who are trecherous to kin and trecherous to country. Ice, ice, baby.
trecherous = treacherous
Devils, i think your definition is more accurate but i’ve seen more generous classification schemes which i subscribe to for understandable reasons. One thing i wouldn’t do is to resort to metaphor like Benign0 since that would be a dead giveaway.
“I take it you’re over forty”
Maybe I am and maybe I am not. But I do get flattered whenever your energies get directed towards speculating about my personal circumstances.
“Tough luck Benigno, that part of hell is reserved for those who are trecherous to kin and trecherous to country.”
Is it now.
I’ll take my chances, dude.
Meanwhile, I will wait for a better argument befitting the abundant but questionable claims that Filipinos do indeed use their head for things other than superstitious nonsense.
Benny: But I do get flattered whenever your energies get directed towards speculating about my personal circumstances.
Allow me to flatter you some more. I have youthful energy to spare. Here goes: I think youre single and you dont have a girlfriend.
When we use the term, “Left” – who are we referring to?I’m just curious because in Philippine history studies in high school, we would refer to communists as leftists and vice versa. Is this still true? Or perhaps my understanding of the term is wrong or maybe “the Left” is now comprised of other socio-civic groups in RP. Please enlighten
Allow me to flatter you some more…
Sorry about that, benny ole pal. That lacked class. But you have to admit, you walked right into that one.
Cheers, mate.
Lester, as far as i know, it is common to equate ‘left’ with ‘communists’ although such sweeping and coarse-grained characterization was never true even in the 80′s. I’d like to invite you to take this test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/index
You’ll get an indication of your position in the political spectrum.
MLQ3,
I don’t think it is a high order mystery why the Public has been largely unsympathetic on the extrajudicial killings issue. Everybody knows there is an armed insurgency (with crypto partisans supporting them). And since neither side has declared victory nor admitted defeat, people have to assume that there is still a “protracted revolutionary war” going on and that people are getting killed on both sides.
Forty years ago the CPP NPA declared war on the Philippine Republic and have tried to overthrow every single government since then using violent, immoral, cunning and terrible means. Their invariant goal is to establish a totalitarian state in place of democracy on the pretext of curing “root causes.”
Today there are said to be about six thousand armed extortionist thugs (“NPA regulars”) blowing up cell phone towers for a living and being revolutionary tax collectors mouthing Maoist slogans. These soldati, (mostly university dropouts and their sweethearts) need 5 to 10 times as many others to support them in one way or another with guns, food, cash, cellphone load and the other accoutrements of their petit bourgeois origins. That seems to be a rule of thumb in guerilla warfare.
But over time, as “Revolution” becomes more like having a job with the Mafia, it often happens that some of the comrades “wake up” and decide to go straight. Maybe they get pangs of conscience, or can’t stand the mosquitoes and bad grub. Maybe they miss Jollibees and aircon buses and see how fat Joma’s gotten , and want out, Comrade!
Unfortunately that cannot be easily done without compromising others “still asleep”. Often enough, it has been claimed by credible law enforcers, what happens is such “counter revolutionaries” have to be silenced if they can’t be re-educated or persuaded to stay put. If they should foolishly disobey and later happen to be meted out revolutionary justice, why, who will local NPA Commander or Party branch blame it on through their channels and outlets in the Mass Media but the Cops?? Since the govt can hardly be expected to know who is NPA and who is NGO only, the Public naturally gives the Cops the benefit of the doubt.
This scenario may only apply to a fraction of those killed, but it seems it is a significant fraction.
Now for some reason, that never seems to happen with the Cops. There are no killing fields full of cops suspected in fits of paranoia of going over to the NPA.
But for good and bad reasons, “cops and robbers”, they kill each other. The toll taken by communist and Moro insurgents is not much mentioned but the numbers are roughly comparable I would say. Now as far as most Filipinos are concerned the protests of the Left over “extrajudicial killings” of Leftists are really like the criminal mafia gangs protesting the growing jail population. It’s a Cops and Robbers situation and everyone knows that both Cops and Robbers are getting killed.
You can’t expect the Pubic to grieve for or sympathize with the “Robbers.” And in forty years the Public has never given the communist movement any reason to suspect that they could ever rule over Filipinos and sleep peacefully at night dreaming of Lenin doing Stalin.
So I think there ought to be a “Statute of Limitations” on the right to revolution. If you can’t rouse the masses to your cause and withdraw their consent to be governed, in say a quarter of a century of ardent trying, you really need to give up and go into peaceful retirement in Utrecht.
Lester:
When we say “Left†nowadays, we mean it’s not the “Right†which is composed of the conservatives, the elite, the religious, or generally speaking people who prefer the status quo. Hence, running the thread that composes the Left you will find a common denominator: opposition to the current order. Communism neatly falls under the Left because of its intrinsic opposition to the heirarchical structure composed of the elite at the top. Groups devoted to the cause of marginalized sectors also challenge the current order by bringing the concerns of these marginalized groups to public attention and hopefully government action. Examples of groups and their advocacy representing the marginalized include Gabriela for women, AnakPawis for the urban poor, Piston for jeepney drivers, Akbayan for human rights victims, gays and lesbians (among others). Note also the spirit of militancy common in all these groups.
Bayan Muna and groups sympathetic of the communist cause, though not necessarily their armed components, dispute that Akbayan belongs to the Left because of Akbayan’s very vocal criticism of the NPA’s record in human rights. Accounts of the NPA torturing, intimidating and murdering their comrades suspected of collusion with the military used to be muted until recently when accounts of former comrades that survived the purging began to emerge.
Btw, Lester are you still teaching? Or have you gone abroad? Or both?
dear manolo,
the left, indeed, has a big constituency. it can even elect a senator — or senators already — in 2010.
also, please include my weblog, http://www.dantonremoto2010.blogspot.com in your links.
super thanks for your intelligent site. it is so refreshing.
“When we say “Left†nowadays, we mean it’s not the “Right†which is composed of the conservatives, the elite, the religious, or generally speaking people who prefer the status quo.”
Afraid that’s not how clear cut it is in Europe.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Ségolène Royal and her ex concubine, François Holland, Angela Merkel are all from the left and identify themselves with the LEFT but they too, if you examine their stance deeply, are ‘conservatives’ and definitely prefer the status quo.
What sets them apart from the Philippine definition of the left is that they don’t have Gloria Arroyo to battle with.
In modern times and in my perspective, the line between the Left and the Right in Terms of Politics is not that Wide..the Right is more of Conservatives, espouses Less Taxes, Less Government (not so true in most cases)do not like welfare very much, (but our conservative govt. here just give another $1200 per child anually)and like to go to war…
Left, like to pander to the Poor, best example was Douglas; more social programs, love the environment so much, that willing to bike to work or parliament to prove their point (NNP leader and wife did it before they became MPs) and always the Opposition, because the Public is still not convince of their overall programs in the Federal Politics, but very successful in Provincials Government of Two Provinces…The Liberals playing it safe call themselves the Centrist. I have no Idea what that means…anyone??
‘Stocks mark 7th day bloodbath’
Keep on counting. This bloodbath may continue for the rest of the week. DOW just nose dive another 400 points even with the FED funds rate cut of .75%. GMA’s enchanted kingdom might be under siege for the next few days.
I do understand why the Philippines has a clear cut political notion of LEFT, that’s because you still have the running NPA insurgency/rebellion whose ultimate aim is to bring down the Republic by violence and not just the government that governs the country.
That said, I don’t think that those who oppose Gloria, no matter how virulently, deserve to be systematically tagged LEFTists based on the Philippine meaning/interpration/definition. Just won’t wash.
Supremo, the TSX lost $90B for yesterday’s alone, that’s 4.75% of its value..including last week around 7%..and that’s mostly mutual funds and pensions but the Finance Minister assures the public that the economy is sound and most believe him.
Manila Bay Watch:
By “status quoâ€Â, I meant the contemporary order of things that has resulted from or characterized by a society’s culture and history. By Philippine experience, this order is characterized by a cacique type of democracy in our political life, the pervasiveness of the Catholic belief in our morals, the role of men in our family and expectations of women, gender expectations, our concept of liberty and nationhood, among others. This is as opposed to a concept of the status quo which refer to something temporal like the current government administration.
hey 90 (NINETY) people left with arroyo to switzerland today.
this includes luli arroyo. what is her official function and will she be signing bilateral treaties for us in davos?
and why does gma need a platoon of security, she’s going to to frigging switzerland, not rwanda!
leche, there goes my tax (to some congressman’s frequent flier miles). what is the point of having THREE ambassadors to Switzerland if we have to send tongressman from third class municipality to make usisero?
In that case, I take it that those who oppose Gloria and her government but who adhere to the “status quo” as per your definition don’t necessarily belong to LEFT given that most Filipino believe in the contemporary order of things that you outlined…and if at all, given those characterizations, most Filipinos should belong to the RIGHT of the political spectrum.
That should basically narrow down membership, i.e., hardline communists and their armed wingers, the NPAs, and the MILF/MNLF/Abu Sayyaffs and their ilks (they being non-Catholics).
dear god, you mean to say Tony Blair considers himself a leftist? whatever happened to clear cut identification of right-wing warmongerers such as him?
Devils,
Blair? But of course he has too — that’s what the Labour Party is all about!
But between you and me, he rightly belongs to the right of Genghis Khan — more hypocritical left than Tony? Impossible!
With the elitist mindset of Europe’s modern hardline LEFT, i.e., Royal and her ex-concubine, Tony Blair and his nice, close to Pope Benedict, supremely Catholic wife Cherrie, Gordon Brown and other Scottish left wingers, Angela Merkel and her husband, we are finding it hard to understand why they all want to remain and be branded LEFT.
(OK, Tony Blair’s case is simple: he had to frig around with union bosses who were decidedly left as in the Philippine definition of LEFT to be PM…)
That’s why poor David Cameron is having a problem!
para sa simpleng tao, depinisyon ng mga makakaliwa: basta nagra-rally, kaliwa yan. tapos.
taking that definition further, the govt says that not only are all rallyists leftists, all leftists are NPAs.
but basing from the political compass, im a left-leaning liberal. but the simplistic definition of rallyist=left is wrong in my case, and so is the govt’s left=NPA.
not only am i not an NPA, i am agst everything the NPA stands for. yet i consider myself part of the left more than the center or the right.
i identify more with Akbayan. the party-list i voted for last election. the fact that some of the LEFT don’t consider Akbayan to be part of the LEFT only means that the LEFT in the Phils. as a political group has splintered. we have the hardline leftists (BayanMuna, Anakpawis) and the moderates (Akbayan, Gabriela)
Re: “whatever happened to clear cut identification of right-wing warmongerers such as him?”
And devils, just look around, Tony Blair, founder of UK’s new Labour (kuno) is so admired by our very own DJB that he had wished Blair could run for president in the US. Would that make our own neo-con, a LEFTIST?
Goes to show, unless you fall in the Philippine commie or NPA category, difficult to say unequivocally that so and so belongs to the left. The right won most of them over when they tore down the Berlin Wall…
mbw,
perfectly understandable then why guys like Blair like to be identified with the LEFT. bec UK voters are predominantly pro-LEFT.
Hahahahahahahah! “para sa simpleng tao, depinisyon ng mga makakaliwa: basta nagra-rally, kaliwa yan. tapos.”
Shit! If we go by that Philippine definition, all those rallyists here in Europe (even those who are rallying against the rallyists) are LEFTISTS! Hahah! Jean Marie Le Pen would have a heart attack coz his group was one of those who rallied against the transport rallyists. Heheheh!
Here in the Philippines, tagging someone as ‘Leftist’ is an effective way to marginalize a person or organization. Back in the 80′s, i was a fan of Tony Abaya because just like him, i was a rabid anti-communist. I remembered him mentioning that Randy David was a leftist which resulted in me not watching the latter’s show (Truth Forum and then Public Forum). Looking back i recognized that it was a wrong move on my part because i missed out on a lot of David’s insights as a Sociologist.
cvj,
Personally, have always been suspicious of people who once were rabid leftists then turned around to become extreme right wing.
oo nga, bakit kaya in the usa and philippines ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ take on a different meaning. add to that the word ‘socialist’, although one is hard pressed to name a country in the eu that is not intrinsically socialist.
but i remember my catholic nursery teacher who said we shouldn’t learn to write left handed because right=god, left=evil.
Anna, what i find hard to understand is that Abaya and company seem to be stuck in the late 80′s, as if the Berlin Wall never fell.
Vic,
Re: Centrist “I have no Idea what that means…anyone??
In my view, centrists are those who have problems with leaders who belong to either the left and the right; they are so muddled up that they are finding it hard to articulate their political position. And because of that they almost always never can produce a prime minister — difficult when your party’s leader can’t make a determined stand.)
(Winston Churchill had to disavow his allegiance to the Liberal Party which in my view represented then what is known today as Centrist and went back to the Tories, otherwise he wouldn’t have made it as PM …)
Chuck,
Re: “Anna, what i find hard to understand is that Abaya and company seem to be stuck in the late 80’s, as if the Berlin Wall never fell.”
Maybe they were asleep when it happened… seriously, you know some people find comfort and security or feel less threatened in an unchanged environment; maybe Abaya is one of these people.
vic,
The US market is really terrible. My wife, who is fil-canadian, wants to go back to Canada because it’s stable. I just don’t like seeing snow measured in feet rather than inches.
Abaya judges tourism growth moderate with “Tourist arrivals topped three million in 2007,”
Holy frigging cow… he calls that moderate, I call that EXCECRABLE compared to Thailand and fun-less Malaysia!
Moderate would have been at least half the tourism intake that are tsunami threatened Thailand’s and definitely fun-less (by Western standards) Malaysia’s or a minimum of 6 million tourists — that is what he should term MODERATE. Less than that? Excecrable would be the more appropriate term.
Continuing this writer’s logic, one can effectively argue that politics and governance are irrelevant in determining the economic outcome as long as the OFW windfall is there. Hardly the case, right?
Economic results are driven by a complex system composed of drivers, among them is the economic agenda and policies which are set through the exercise of politics. This exercise of power influence not only the results of the system but other drivers as well. Abaya’s conclusion is so simplistic that I’m surprised no one has yet pounced on it.
‘I call that EXCECRABLE compared to Thailand and fun-less Malaysia!’
I agree.
Filipinos do not really know how to attract tourist. Tourism sites are not interconnected. Don’t expect a tourist to stay in Subic and then spend several hours on the road to go to Baguio. Tourism related infrastructure is also lacking in several places. Why fly to Manila or Cebu when your destination is Boracay or Palawan. Why not have an international airport in Panay and Palawan. Manila is also a mess. Did you know that it is virtually impossible to walk from Manila Hotel to Intramuros?
@ Rom
“Because GK provides the rush of instant gratification. You sweat it out for an hour, you already get bragging rights. You build a house, you see it right there in front of you. It’s gratifying. You’re ego swells up because you were able to make a tangible good appear right before your very eyes. But the work of building and defending democracy – like kicking out a hated president – that doesn’t offer instant gratification. But it requires more conviction than picking up a hammer and pounding in a few nails. And it is not necessarily a mark of maturity that kids go to GK. For many, It’s just a new way of being cool. And if you think that that is proof that you’re not apathetic … well, then you’re just pathetic.”
-Um… I agree with you that going to GK isn’t a mark of maturity, but… It really not a new way of being cool. Its a way of tackling the problem of poverty, corruption and all the other stuff from the grassroots. I used to be a volunteer, starting it in my own campus, believing that doing something, is better than doing nothing at all and taking an apathetic stance.
I resent the statement that the youth today are a bunch of Starbucks-sipping, Mobile Phone-totting, apathetic fashionistas. I mean, the youth of two generations tried to do something they thought as relevant and that could change the country, but the youth failed even with the passion to change the country. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Regretting the decision of placing Madam Vertically-Challenged in the highest position in the land, isn’t really the answer to all our woes. Lets not rely on the trapos to make our problems go away, this time. Its what got us in this mess in the first place.
Maybe working in your own little way to change the world is what “Voluntourism” is all about. You’d be surprised how amazed the Voluntourists are at the achievement of individualistic work.
[Note: No GK Bashing, unless you really, really, R-E-A-L-L-Y know the concepts behind the history and the work GK is centered and founded on. Its been working on its own, in a micro-scale. And I don't see why people make a mockery of gradual change]
@The blog entry
-I guess I don’t see the logic on how the OFW thing is an achievement? Yes, they send in the much needed dollars, but its still a slap to the government for not creating jobs. (Time for the individuals to act for themselves and get out of the burning abyss their own way.)
(If all rallyists are leftist, then all Pilipino Politicans are Trapos. And writing is only a tool for the Society’s power grab struggle.)
@CVJ
Exactly my feeling. Our communist have their heads too high up their asses to think with any originality. They’re the communist equivalent of Bible-toting fundamentalist Christians.
@nash
That’s why the conservatives and the trapos are winning. They’ve managed to relegate Left-wing politics to extremist groups. Why oh why do Filipinos have to give up all – traditional family, religion, democracy – just to fight back against the elite?
Palagay ko, mga komunista binayaran nang mga hacendero. Some people thing Al Qaeda is a CIA organization. I think Philippine commies (the leaders) are paid agents of the elite.
@nash
That’s why the conservatives and the trapos are winning. They’ve managed to relegate Left-wing politics to extremist groups. Why oh why do Filipinos have to give up all – traditional family, religion, democracy – just to fight back against the elite?
I think Philippine commies (the leaders) are paid agents of the elite.
huh
@Nash
I don’t know why I’m being moderated.
Conservatives are winning because Philippine communism has managed to keep itself pure. Filipinos probably feel that in order to fight back against the established order, they have to give up everything – religion, the traditional family and democracy. So sad that we still don’t know hotw to think for ourselves. If we’re not thinking like Americans, we’re thinking like Cubans.
And this may sound like more conspiracy theories but I believe some top-level communists are paid agents by the establishment, to polarize the masses and the middle class just as some people believe that the CIA formed Al Qaeda to bring US troops to more territories in the Arab region.
Abaya: “President Arroyo has also achieved moderate success in tourism, one of the three foci in her Midterm Development Plan. Tourist arrivals topped three million in 2007, for the first time ever.”
3 million tourists compared to Thailand and Malaysia,
moderate? Everybody knows that the govt also encourages locals to tour around, with such policies as making long weekends and re-calendared holidays. If that number includes them, then it means – what else, NADA!
More so when you consider the 89 million people who should benefit, at least by trickle down theory. (Hawaii comes to mind as example, with 1.2 million population and 7 million tourists coming yearly. Hawaii’s economy is, for the most part, chained to tourism.)
Re- his conclusion on the OFW remittances. I think Abaya delivers a subtle message not on its importance, but on the impotence and mindless leader who hangs on it, as if it works economic miracle. And why is the govt so focused on OFW, from Marcos to FVR, esp. Arroyo?
Consider these: Remittances are at least eight times the value of yearly foreign direct investments (FDI), more than twice the national yearly budget, and about equal to the combined value of top 5 exports. By and large, the allure of “progress” suggested by remittances is what truly drives this govt, hoodwinked by the tantalizing, globalizing world to deploy millions of Filipinos overseas.
No wonder RP is now the world’s biggest exporter of labor, outranked only by Mexico.
Meanwhile, the local health industry is suffering from slack, deterioration of facilities, closure of clinics, and diminishing numbers of qualified practitioners (therapists, doctors, caregivers, etc.). Math and science teachers are prodded to join their seaman (simian?) brothers, and yes, even priests and nuns are now into the stream of migrants. (Just an observation: in Hawaii and some parts of California, almost every parish has a Filipino priest ministering to the faithful.)
‘almost every parish has a Filipino priest ministering to the faithful.’
It just started in NJ. NY has a lot of Filipino priest. Even our only saint is going global. There will be a San Lorenzo Ruiz church in Little Italy.
Renittances might start to decline in 5 years. That’s when Filipino nurses start applying for US citizenship. They would probably petition their parents. No need then to send money to the Philippines.
The Bank of all Banks unleashed their mighty sword and the lesser Gods all bowed before them. Three quarters of a percentage point and the markets stopped to take notice.
The greatest deflationary force since the 1929 crisis has been somewhat stalled. Now the state will move to create a larger deficit to bury money for people to dig them up.
When the masters of universe fuck up guess who will be there to bail them out. The people who are not yet born.
In the Philippine scenario the rush to cash and guaranteed government paper is ongoing.
It is smarter to lend to Big Mike and GMA then to anyone else. The more they steal the higher the rates of interest the people pay in taxes anyway. God Bless them for that. Big Mike and GMA that is. Interest rates between emerging markets and the U.S. are widening. They are in trouble but they lower their rates when they fuck up. Here we will have to raise rates to keep peoples money in pesos.
There is a short term silver lining to all this weak institutions and corruption. Interest rate arbitrage. It is forecast that by the end of the first quarter interest rates in the U.S. (Overnite) will be less than 3%.
Stay away from stocks and the dollar but the emerging market sovereign paper will be a good short term bet. The riskiest bet is Zimbabwe followed by North Korea.
Thank heavens for corrupt governments like Big Mike and GMA’s.
This year it will help pay for half a years tuition at a elite university here in the States.
@brianb,
I don’t know what you mean by ‘pure’ communism, i haven’t immersed myself on brother joma sison’s interpretation of tito karl marx’s ideology in the filipino context.
(kasi naman, why would you be drawn to a leader who does not lead by example? let’s do communism in the jungles while I live off Dutch welfare checks? )
I however support COMMUNALISM, which is probably why I’m Socialist and proud. (let’s just say that it helps to be indoctrinated by pretty swedes)
And incidentally, there is NO way that Norberto Gonzales and his PDSP party are socialists! If you put Royal, Zapatero, etc and Gonzales on a straight line, Gonzales will be far into the right.
manuelbuencamino, supremo,
OFWs will now get breathing space as the peso dips to P42:$1 level from several weeks of hovering in the mid-40s. The BSP will also celebrate, even if only for this development, as its futile attempt at slowing the Pesos’s rise by buying high in the end dumped an additional $10B to the reserves, flaunted by PHD-economist GMA as another proof of her achievements.
If one actually does the math, the “achievement” is virtually meaningless (or falsehood even) as Habito explains it, as we are accumulating an asset that is fast losing its value. (values: Reserves up to $43B from $33B; Exchange from P55 to $40 to the dollar).
Go figure.
“If one actually does the math, the “achievement†is virtually meaningless (or falsehood even) as Habito explains it, as we are accumulating an asset that is fast losing its value”
For that matter, this idea of OFW-ism as an “achievement” is utterly meaningless because the OFW, her place in Pinoy society, and her role in the economy are, together, what stand for EVERYTHING that is wrong with Philippine society.
Go figure (if we can).
The US market is really terrible. My wife, who is fil-canadian, wants to go back to Canada because it’s stable. I just don’t like seeing snow measured in feet rather than inches.
Supremo, True, the only Province with a red-hot economy is Alberta and the snow there is deeper than most provinces and colder than anywhere. But even internal migrants don’t mind, the youngs are moving west where the Black Gold is…OIL…
TonGuE-tWisTeD,
A deteriorating peso ALONE is a disaster in the making. The price of oil must go down also to give the proper breathing space for the OFWs and everyone in the Philippines.
supremo, are you based at NJ or NY?
On remittances, expect a continuing rise on the horizon. Considering that a typical Filipino family is large and extended, the flow of dollars to the homeland will continue. Others in the social network of those OFWs will follow later, and continue the sending of money home.
Inflation is already something to contend with. Unfortunately for Pinoys, forex is also now relevant even on the pristine slopes of the Payatas as the economy gets ever more dependent on OFW remittances.
Kawawang Pinoy. Dobol whammy palagi ang kapalaran..
Nash, nominally, Norberto Gonzalez and (Fr. Intengan) are Socialists of the ‘SocDem’ variety which would put them in the same location of the political spectrum as Akbayan. The difference is that the former is in power while the latter is not.
yes dear ,what trivial matter are we on today dear (snorts ,gulps gin ,rings bell for refill) oh socialism ,well if its anything like here dear ,where aunty Helen spends her days skulking around the back of the beehive and drinking sherry out of the bottle while texting her UN cohorts its all very cheap! how is Glor these days ,I did not get to meet her on her last visit here I was incapaz as in I had some dealings with some russian sailors involving vodka it was all very messy and sordid !
Dear Fanny, we missed your insights from the upper crust. Glor is in Davos right now checking her bank balance along with a phalanx of 90 hangers-on. That’s why if I were you, I’d stay clear of the pistes…
I saw your responses to my post about apathy and the youth. My response is: I rest my case.
Honestly, I don’t know why I bother. Di rin naman kayo nakikinig eh. And you wonder why the critical mass against Gloria is missing?
@rom
First, you don’t know me. I would love to make you eat crow about your statement of me being in a “self-indulgent, hedonistic, comfort zone.” Dude, if I had stayed inside that, I wouldn’t be bearing with my small salary trying to do my part in fixing the problems of this country.
Ok ka rin ah. Who died and gave you the monopoly on sacrifice and caring for the nation?
And you’re denying the role the young played during PP2? Matanong ko lang, asan ka ba nun? Ako, bago pa dumating sa EDSA andun na ko eh. When it wasn’t “cool” going up against Estrada right after Guingona’s “I accuse”, we were there already. I saw the development of the RIO from a couple of civil society groups calling for the removal of Erap to an action involving the general citizenry, and anyone who denies the important role the youth played in it either wasn’t there or doesn’t have their facts straight!
One week before the Craven 11 did their stupid little mistake, KOMPIL II met in Ateneo for the All-Leader’s Conference and all I was hearing there were defeat Scenarios. “Civil disobedience” was the word, in fact.
Yet not one week later, ano ba nangyari? Craven 11 votes down the move to open the Second Envelope. TAO dances on the hallowed halls of the Senate.
SINO BA UNANG LUMABAS, HA? Who had the anger and the indignation to go out and begin what would be People Power II? Sige nga, pakisagot.
And what gives? What’s with all the hits against GK? Kakaiba rin kayo, ano? Go there for the babes? Sino namang poncio pilato yun and why the hell is that one person’s statement sound as if its indicative of the whole?
Good Lord. I just used it as an example as to how the young express their desire to do SOMETHING. I was hoping that the supposedly intelligent and liberal people commenting in this blog would GET what I meant with that example. Di rin pala. Na bira pa GK. My apologies to Tony Meloto and all of the people who, in their own small way, for whatever the hell their reason is in the first place, made a difference in someone’s life.
So what if it gives these young people instant gratification? Di ba minsan dun naman nagsisimula yun? Why would you people belittle that? If that moment of instant gratification is the cause of even one person’s lifelong commitment to making people’s lives better, di ba maganda yun?
O talaga bang sa isip niyo eh ang pagbabago at pagiging aktibo sa kapakanan ng Republika eh kinakailangan ng sigaw sa kalye at dugo sa kabukiran? Hindi lahat ng tao eh nadadala ng agit sa lansangan o kaya eh gustong mamundok para lang makakita ng pagbabago. Mas madalas pa nga, di ba, na ang tao eh gusto lamang mabuhay ng “tahimik”? Ano ba ang mithiin ng isang ordinaryong tao? Di ba ang magkaroon ng disenteng buhay, isang pamilya, at kahit konting katayuan sa kanyang komunidad?
When faced with that… do you shout at them with slogans? Do you thrust your placards in their faces? What do they care for slogans and banners? And when thousands of your youth dream only of getting into a call center that gives the best salary and perks, or whose parents moved heaven and earth just so that young person can get a nursing degree (no matter if the kid has the aptitude for medicine or the genuine desire to serve), what do you do then?
How do you reach out to them, then?
But then again, why do I even bother? Mali naman ako sa tingin nyo eh, since I don’t seem to subscribe to your worldviews.
Sakin lang, sana makinig muna. Nagtataka kayo, di ba, bakit sa kabila ng mga survey eh andayan pa si Pandak? Bakit kaya, di ba? rom, yun yung ibig kong sabihin sa “the questioner should ask him/herself”, in case di mo na-get the first time around. Konting self-reflection, kung baga. Baka kasi sa sobrang taas ng tore, di niyo naririnig ang boses ng ibang tao eh.
Rom, No one’s looking for an Atreides to lead them in a charge against a corrupt Emperor and his Sardaukar and a fat monstrosity of a Count. They don’t need it. People just need to be shown that there’s something to believe in and they’ll work for it, even defend it. Isn’t that what the first People Power was about? And, in case you’re working from second-hand information – since you deny the role the youth played in PP2 – no one led the people in expressing their indignation over the Second Envelope. Just indignation, and a basic sense of what was right and enough anger in the people to show their leaders what they think when what was right was transgressed.
You’re right, we’re not Fremen. They followed Paul because he was the Messiah to them, Muad’dib, the Kwisatz Haderach. I’d like to think people are more like the troops of House Atreides, loyal because their leaders treated them well, and because of the ideals the House stood for.
MLQ, my apologies if I offended anyone. I just had to say my piece, sobra na kasi. I did get your point in your reaction to me, and like our debate on Libel and Press Freedom, you make the point come across quite well. Thank you. That’s something to ponder on.
rob, no need to apologize. you’re giving as good as you’re getting. people change, things change. for those confused and yes, frustrated by the change, easy to shoot the messenger.
i’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand the points you raise and have been raised by many others. we have what we have. glass half empty or half full? half full, always, is what you’re saying and i tend to agree, and i tend to agree more when i go outside manila and talk to people elsewhere.
i think a good way forward is to ask you, what changes do you and your generation want to see, and what are the ways and means your generation prefers to achieve them?
hello, just a few points. i’ve been an avid reader and this post finally gave me the urge to fill in that comment box.
@vic
I heard the TSX was able to pull out of its nosedive. How are things back home?
@cvj
you are the proponent for radical sociopolitical change in this country. yet, i haven’t really seen how can people go about doing that here. there are far too few people who are Filipino in my reckoning, to take up arms and do a Cultural Revolution-style change in this country.
@rom
very good points. many people tend to lump the youth into some formless apathetic mass, preferring to set them aside, seeing them as useless, or finding ways to hook them on some new gimmick that will mobilize them towards some group’s narrow agenda. i’ve met many younger people who continually amaze me with their insight. (all the while leaning back in a chair at the local starbucks sipping a frapuccino, wearing clothing from Mango, a pair of Havaianas, an iPod hanging from their necks and an N-series phone in their hands, and a MacBook in their bag…)
i think the youth know where they are and what they need to do. i think the youth are smarter than their elders. and i think that when the time is right, the youth, the Filipino youth will reclaim their country.
@benign0
i did all of my growing up in Canada (we moved there when i was 2). after university, a bunch of us went back to Philippines all high on idealism and doing something for the “old country”. i even became Filipino again, as did some of my buddies, just to show our commitment to this place.
i went to the rallies, joined some groups, wrote letters to the people in Congress, even tried my hand at municipal-level provincial politics. all i realized is that if you happened not to be friends with the people on top, you’re not going anywhere. and neither will your family support any moves that will give an edge to the “other guys” who will always want your place at the head. and that while you may not admit it, you have an uncle so-and-so with a few of his submachine gun wielding ex-military drinking buddies your grandfather can slip a note to in order “take care of things”.
so now, i’m stuck in a job that just gets me by, living out of a small flat and commuting every day. and my participation in the public life has gone all the way down to reading the discourses of you guys here on Manolo’s blog and voting when the elections come.
i’m tired. i’ve been here for a long while. and it took me this long to realize that this place may not be all it’s cracked up to be. it’s breaking my heart to admit this, but i don’t think i can do squat.
i’m fixing my papers in the morning and going home.
@mlq3
i think that last bit came out wrong. i didn’t mean it to sound like commenting on your blog is the lowest rung on the ladder of political participation.
but i’m glad you’re here to give people a forum for their views. it may only matter to a few people, but hey, we can’t save everybody, eh?
@rob
yes, you’re right. many times i’ve had this distinct “ivory tower” feeling about the discourses on Manolo’s blog, what with so many of the commenters not even being here, on the ground, in the muck.
afd, welcome, even if under rather depressing circumstances.
afd, just to clarify, i’m not advocating Cultural-revolution-style change (rom can attest to that in my discussions in her blog). If anything, cultural change is Benign0′s advocacy. I believe that radical change can come about naturally (and relatively peacefully) if we just have fair elecions (just as in Latin America for example).
afd:
good luck with that, sir. though i hear Canada’s has it’s own share of problems. don’t all places do?
AFD, Yup, TSX bounced back the Next Day and after losing 608 points Monday gained back 508 back…in the latest subject, Arroyo’s Ghost, I posted the message of our Premier there and he is rather optimistic that our economy will ride out the downturn..Overall, the Federal Government has a Trade Suplus and also a huge Budget Surplus thas was able to cut taxes substantially starting with 2 percentage points on Goods and Services Tax (1 % last year, one this year) from 7% to 5 %, and also cut Personal Tax, that alone will stimulate consumers spending…thanks…
And if you are coming back home, you are always WElCOME!!!
rob:get a grip. you think working for peanuts is a big deal? Welcome to the club. However, you do sound like you’d rather be elsewhere … you sure you’re staying with that small salary because you want to ‘fix the country’?
Who said anything about denying the role of the youth in E2? Of course there were youth there, but were they there as youth or as Filipinos disgusted with erap? Passion isn’t a monopoly of any age bracket. it is the immature posturing of youth that insists that it is. We were there as Filipinos, rob. Not as youth charging in to save the oldies from themselves.
Hits against GK? Maybe you mean hits against people who hold up participating in GK build as some sort of example of social awareness. Nothing wrong with GK, but not everyone goes into a build with such noble aspirations. I think the people who labored long and hard to make GK what it is now are entitled to say they’ve done something tangible for the country. I’m not quite ready to say the same for every single individual whose gone to a build. Some do so for the right reasons – heck, maybe even you – but there is simply no denying that not everyone who ever picked up a GK hammer did so for any noble cause.
Nothing wrong with instant gratification either, except when you stop there and imply that building a house for the poor is better than working to fix our broken democracy. More people work at a GK build because it is easier than following through on all the sloganeering against GMA. And, as MLQ3 said, it’s also safer. That was your question, wasn’t it? Why people go to GK and not oust Gloria? Well, there’s your answer.
Really lame, btw, to misrepresent my reply as an attack on GK.
And if no one is looking for an atreides, why are you asking for someone to convince you that you should care?
As for that extended treatment on fremen, maybe i should make clear to you what others seem to have understand: the youth should not be considered anyone’s (that hypothetical someone who will convince you that you should care) army. the lack of a rallying point (or person) is no excuse for doing nothing, just as the failure of E2 to produce the changes we all hoped for cannot be used as an excuse for the youth to sit back and do nothing (“Don’t blame us for not acting or believing. Don’t blame us for being quiet. Don’t blame us if we don’t do another EDSA. We gave you a chance that second time around”).
The youth should see themselves as what they are: filipinos. And as filipinos, we don’t really need any specific reason to care for our country, or to act for its welfare.
PDub:I’m afraid that not everyone approaches GK the same way you did. It shouldn’t be a surprise for you that for some, it is the new ‘cool.’ I’m not slamming GK. I’m criticizing those who parrot it’s principles without really meaning any of it.
AFD: i loved your king-under-the-hill conception of the youth. but, y’see, it implies that now is not the right time. and that i disagree with.
Amen, rom. I guess if we can get Nintendo and Nokia to sponsor a rally, it would beat the 3 EDSAs altogether in terms of attendance. Aray!
Benign0: “For that matter, this idea of OFW-ism as an “achievement†is utterly meaningless because the OFW, her place in Pinoy society, and her role in the economy are, together, what stand for EVERYTHING that is wrong with Philippine society.
Go figure (if we can).”
Can’t help it but I will have to agree with you, Benign0 (now, I hate myself). But don’t tie that noose around your neck just yet (I know you won’t, it ain’t class and it’s messy, but you can always prove me wrong) but OFW-ism is gonna be the last thing, perhaps the only thing that could end all these. 8 million Pinoys with the resources, experience and education and their dependents preparing for the same status make roughly half the country’s population. It’s a formidable force.
Just like in the days of Rizal, the revolution was started by OFWs – in Barcelona and Madrid. Physical presence was not a requisite to begin change two centuries ago, definitely not in the global present.
“I believe that radical change can come about naturally (and relatively peacefully) if we just have fair elecions (just as in Latin America for example).” – cvj
To make out ‘fair elections’ as the Silver Bullet to the chronic dysfunction that is Pinoy society is not advocacy. It is plain idiocy. You know why? Because it can be argued that “fair” elections can get equally moronic politicians elected into office. Last I heard, fair elections got Erap elected president. Fair elections in 2004 would have gotten FPJ elected as president.
Whether elections are fair or rigged does not seem to matter in a society of foolish consituents.
“8 million Pinoys with the resources, experience and education and their dependents preparing for the same status make roughly half the country’s population. It’s a formidable force.” – TonGue-tWisTeD
They’re a force NOW but what makes you think that they will be a force in the future? An entire generation of half-parented Pinoys is growing up because of the “heroism” of these OFWs.
Go figure (if we can).
“Just like in the days of Rizal, the revolution was started by OFWs – in Barcelona and Madrid. Physical presence was not a requisite to begin change two centuries ago, definitely not in the global present.”
You forget though that unlike the time of Rizal, today’s OFW’s are composed mainly of semi-skilled and unskilled workers — valued more for their cheap muscle rather than for their moon-buggy designing brains and Miss L.A.-winning bodies.
So expecting some kind of collective epiphany out of these OFWs that might usher the Philippines into some kind of imagined new era of prosperity is quite a leap of imagination.
And besides, don’t you think we’ve already had one “revolution” too many?
That belief is at the core of the Elitist mindset which is shared by many in the Middle and Upper class and explains their nonchalance towards electoral fraud.
“That belief is at the core of the Elitist mindset which is shared by many in the Middle and Upper class and explains their nonchalance towards electoral fraud.”
You say it is a belief. But you seem to shy away from categorically asserting whether you think this belief to be true or false.
What say you?
It seems that the crux of your argument against (or is it FOR — even THAT is unclear) my assertion is that said belief is “shared by many in the Middle and Upper class” from which you derive the conclusion that this is the source of “nonchalance towards electoral fraud”. Pretty slick play with words. Fortunately for you not too many people can readily pick up the utter lack of substance of what you wrote there. You should be in politics.
I have written about the flaws in the elitist mindset in my blog:
http://www.cvjugo.blogspot.com/2007/05/philippine-society-and-elitist-mindset.html
@Rom
Thank you for clearing that up… I kinda went overboard with it, I guess, since I think I had the right reasons for joining it and making it grow in my seemingly apathetic campus.
Benign0: “You forget though that unlike the time of Rizal, today’s OFW’s are composed mainly of semi-skilled and unskilled workers  valued more for their cheap muscle rather than for their moon-buggy designing brains and Miss L.A.-winning bodies.”
Unskilled? Do you mean even nannying or “DH-ing” doesn’t require any skill? And I thought English was a skill, too. And cheap no more. If you want cheap, go Chinese or Indian. My point is, the Solidarity movement began with just a few intellectual OFWs even while they were abroad. That could be you. And that will be the day – when a DJB-clone starts calling himself Benign0ist.
Benign0: “They’re a force NOW but what makes you think that they will be a force in the future? An entire generation of half-parented Pinoys is growing up because of the “heroism†of these OFWs.”
Like all living organisms, the homo sapiens philippinensis WILL evolve and survive at the very least, even at THAT condition. Survival begins with recognizing the threats, then learning to deal with them, until the menace ceases to be.
Look, half- or unparented Pinoys in the future may just be what we need after all. In your advocacy for cultural change, you have also been blaming our past for our mendicant dependency on the generosity of others. Physical separation from the providers could stimulate independence. Philosophical, spiritual, political, even financial independence. These, combined with the resiliency of the Pinoy, given his natural survival instinct, WILL promote change.
That is out-of-the-box.(wink)
“…nominally, Norberto Gonzalez and (Fr. Intengan) are Socialists of the ‘SocDem’ variety…â€Â
The operative word is nominal, hehehe.
Karlo, the PDSP belongs to the Socialist International, an international umbrella organization of which Akbayan is a member as well. To deny that they are Socialist because of their actions is to fall under the No True Scotsman fallacy. BTW, back in 2006, i sent an email to the Socialist International asking the PDSP to be censured for its leaderships’ complicity in the killings and disappearances but i got no response.
Dear cvj, Carl, Manila Bay Watch, Vic, Deviladvc8 and BrianB,
Thanks for enlightening me with your insights on the definition of “the left” and “Leftists” in the Philippines. As usual, answers lead to more questions. Maybe we need to be careful with how we use the label “Leftist” especially because we have different views about what it means in the local and global context.
I took the Political Compass test as recommended by cvj and I found out that there are two kinds of leftists: left-authoritarian and left-libertarians. Left-authoritarians are those who align themselves with socialist and communist forms of government and left-libertarian are obviously less authoritative.
According to the test, I belong to the left-libertarian quadrant. So, I’m a leftist too, but the libertarian type. I was also very happy to know that left-libertarians are in good company; we have Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama in our group
Mabuhay ang mga kaliwete hehe!
Leave your response!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Archive
Books from my library
Most Commented
Recent Comments
Categories
MLQ3′s Social Network Profiles