The Inquirer editorial yesterday (Queendom for a horse) took a critical look at AFP chief’s term extended.The editorial says the possibility that Esperon will serve longer than an additional three months should be considered. The editorial cites the following laws and decrees: Presidential Decree 1638 as amended by Presidential Decree 1650, and Republic Act 8186 as amended by Republic Act 9188, as well as the provisions of the Constitution (since Esperon term extension possible only in case of war – Palace). It also makes reference to GMA’s speech during the AFP Change of Command Ceremony, November 28, 2002.
Today, the news is Esperon: 4 months ahead may be bloody: General expects stiff NPA resistance. Whether this is posturing or Esperon’s real intention, remains to be seen. But if he really does believe the AFP is capable of liquidating the NPA in the hills, what would be his basis for this?
Randy David gives us a clue. In The tragedy of the rural poor, says something unprecedented is going on. We’re used to the sight of people moving to the city from the province, attracted by the glitter and opportunity of life in the big city. David says what’s going on today, though, is that people are moving to the city not because they are attracted by opportunity, but because they are fleeing the collapse of rural life in the provinces. There is a difference, he says, and it is troubling -an unintended consequence, he says, of defective land reform. This reminds me of an assertion by the economist Mike Alba who pointed out no one is quite sure, because the government mechanisms for monitoring it have broken down, of how much formerly productive agricultural land has been converted to real estate and other purposes. He also points out, and if he knows it the military knows it, too, that efforts to organize the peasantry are at their lowest ebb since the 40’s and 50’s.
On a related note, see Solita Monsod’s Two challenges, where she says the ranks of the truly poor have shrunk while most Filipinos have become slightly poorer across all classes.
Politically, the weekend had news that Arroyo douses plot vs Speaker via phone call — Ermita and that as Congress resumes session, GMA tells Rainbow Coalition to stand by JdV. The scuttlebutt, however, is that the changes in the executive and legislative departments are scheduled for later this year. Among the targets are Lakas stalwarts. Supposedly Executive Secretary Ermita will finally be eased out around May, to be replaced by the current DILG Secretary, Puno. Speaker de Venecia, on the other hand, will be removed from the speakership near the end of the year. Meanwhile, attempts to amend the Constitution will gather pace in the middle of the year.
Now this is what interests me about the other big weekend news, Melo named Comelec chair. His appointment, to my mind, can’t be evaluated properly until the other presidential appointments to the Comelec are announced. And even then, it all depends on whether the administration will then send signals it wants stability until 2010 or will pursue constitutional amendments aggressively. If it pursues amendments then the first task of the new Comelec Chairman and the new commissioners will be to preside over a plebiscite that will be manned by the same mid and lower level Comelec people tasked with the 2004 and 2007 elections. Which means individuals like Christian Monsod, groups like the PPCRV, and even the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila (who strongly backs the candidacy of Howie Calleja, for example, for a Comelec commissioner slot) might find themselves quite disappointed with their nominees, after Appointment of Melo as COMELEC head welcomed. But if constitutional amendments don’t take off, there is room for moderate optimism for 2010.
My column for today is Individualistic yet part of the whole. One of the books I mentioned, Profiles Encourage, is reviewed by Rodel Rodis. See also two commentaries in the papers: Filipino Diaspora as a Form of Revolt and Going beyond ‘Same same’. You may also want to participate in Janette Toral’s Important Issues on Philippines 2010 Election.
Speaking of elections, overseas, Obama’s big win keeps his hopes alive. Interesting reading in Slate’s The Super Tuesday Strategy Guide.
Concerning the prospects of an American recession affecting our part of the world, see Asia Won’t Get Away Clean in The Asia Sentinel, as well as Live it Up, Asia! (which doesn’t apply to us).
And for future discussion: Parag Khanna’s Waving Goodbye to Hegemony:
At best, America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing – and losing – in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules – their own rules – without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.
The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an “East-West” struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe. What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle.
In Europe’s capital, Brussels, technocrats, strategists and legislators increasingly see their role as being the global balancer between America and China. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, calls it “European patriotism.” The Europeans play both sides, and if they do it well, they profit handsomely. It’s a trend that will outlast both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the self-described “friend of America,” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, regardless of her visiting the Crawford ranch. It may comfort American conservatives to point out that Europe still lacks a common army; the only problem is that it doesn’t really need one. Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and begging to join?
With the new Big Three, the author then says the task is to identify the “Second World”:
To really understand how quickly American power is in decline around the world, I’ve spent the past two years traveling in some 40 countries in the five most strategic regions of the planet – the countries of the second world. They are not in the first-world core of the global economy, nor in its third-world periphery. Lying alongside and between the Big Three, second-world countries are the swing states that will determine which of the superpowers has the upper hand for the next generation of geopolitics. From Venezuela to Vietnam and Morocco to Malaysia, the new reality of global affairs is that there is not one way to win allies and influence countries but three: America’s coalition (as in “coalition of the willing”), Europe’s consensus and China’s consultative styles. The geopolitical marketplace will decide which will lead the 21st century…
Second-world countries are distinguished from the third world by their potential: the likelihood that they will capitalize on a valuable commodity, a charismatic leader or a generous patron. Each and every second-world country matters in its own right, for its economic, strategic or diplomatic weight, and its decision to tilt toward the United States, the E.U. or China has a strong influence on what others in its region decide to do. Will an American nuclear deal with India push Pakistan even deeper into military dependence on China? Will the next set of Arab monarchs lean East or West? The second world will shape the world’s balance of power as much as the superpowers themselves will.
As for our part of the world,
America may seek Muslim allies for its image and the “war on terror,” but these same countries seem also to be part of what Samuel Huntington called the “Confucian-Islamic connection.” What is more, China is pulling off the most difficult of superpower feats: simultaneously maintaining positive ties with the world’s crucial pairs of regional rivals: Venezuela and Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. At this stage, Western diplomats have only mustered the wherewithal to quietly denounce Chinese aid policies and value-neutral alliances, but they are far from being able to do much of anything about them.
This applies most profoundly in China’s own backyard, Southeast Asia. Some of the most dynamic countries in the region Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are playing the superpower suitor game with admirable savvy. Chinese migrants have long pulled the strings in the region’s economies even while governments sealed defense agreements with the U.S. Today, Malaysia and Thailand still perform joint military exercises with America but also buy weapons from, and have defense treaties with, China, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation by which Asian nations have pledged nonaggression against one another. (Indonesia, a crucial American ally during the cold war, has also been forming defense ties with China.) As one senior Malaysian diplomat put it to me, without a hint of jest, “Creating a community is easy among the yellow and the brown but not the white.” Tellingly, it is Vietnam, because of its violent histories with the U.S. and China, which is most eager to accept American defense contracts (and a new Intel microchip plant) to maintain its strategic balance. Vietnam, like most of the second world, doesn’t want to fall into any one superpower’s sphere of influence.
It’s a lengthy article but well worth a read.
Technorati Tags: CBCP, Charter Change, constitution, economy, elections, House of Representatives, ideas, law, media, military, philippines, politics, society
if Filipinos will stop watching American movies or tv series then their desire to go to the US might be reduce considerably. There should be a warning label to those movies and tv series.
Warnings for Filipino males going to the USA:
1) You have to stop when you encounter a STOP sign on the road.
2) You can’t hand over your drivers license to a cop with a $10 bill.
3) You can’t usually drink alcohol in strip clubs.
4) You can’t touch the girls in strip clubs.
5) No means No.
Filipino diaspora as a form of revolt? Very interesting read from a perceptive lawyer!
Author Carlo Osi took for granted that his readers know the basic concept (diaspora). Having defined it broadly as the “voluntary and involuntary dispersion and immigration of Filipinos worldwide†it could leave people thinking in many different ways. Diaspora is not just dispersion or immigration. It is, in essence, a MASSIVE movement of people, usually by an external, more powerful force. The internal force (e.g., motivation) follows, often as a necessity rather than by choice or free will. The expulsion of the Jews from Babylon half a century before Christ was born, and their “return†after Israel rose as a state, comes to mind as the clearest example. The migration of Muslims from India to Pakistan after the partition is another. In the US, the lifting of immigration controls in 1965 opened a floodgate of immigrants from Asia, Filipinos topping the list. Ten years later, Marcos decreed what is now to become the OFW phenomenon.
But the internet and related media are also a driving force, in another stream of migration through the “mail-order-brides,†pen pals, cyberchats. During 1989-2004, some 264,000 Filipinos got “foreign†spouses and left, most of them never returned home except for a short visit. (That figure is about the size of Hawaii’s Filipinos, second biggest concentration of Filipinos outside the Philippines.)
The tripolar world of Europe/U.S./Japan is slowly making way for a resurging Greater China (Peoples Republic of China/Taiwan/Singapore/HK/ and large swaths of the ASEAN Economies).
Greater China will slowly replace Japan in the this tripolar world. Today the world is moving from a dollar dominated world to a bi-polar financial system of the Euro and the dollar. The ongoing merger of Europes capitalist systems with the American capitalist systems is proceeding.
The rest of the world are simply ancillary to these four economies.
ASEAN is simply a superficial abstract owned and operated by the the four major economies of the world. U.S., Europe, Japan and Greater China.
The future obviously for growth will be based on Greater China.
India, and the rest of South Asia are still steeped in backward cultural systems and will remian laggards.
The Middle East, Russia and other fossil fuel rich countries are simply the gas filing station of the four major economies.
hvrds: What does your ideas mean for the Philippines? Does the Philippines have enough of whatever so it can play one bloc against another, or is the Philippines just roadkill, ready to be assimilated? Or should the action-item be to let the Tsinoys replace the old oligarchs so that the Philippines becomes satellite of Greater China?
UPn, it probably means that somewhere down the line, we Pinoys would have put up with a Chinese version of you (and Bencard). American supremacists will be replaced with Chinese supremacists. 😛
I am a Filipino of Chinese descent but I will never ever advocate having the Philippines become a satellite country of China. Unfortunately, we shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing them to come and stay and do business, sometimes illegally. They’re now everywhere in the Philippines.
Bert
I totally agree with your statement. Children of rural folks are looked upon as the savior of the family. So the more there is, the more likely that they’ll have a chance at a better life.
The real question is, why is that also the case in the urban areas. They also have lots of children. Knowing how grinding poverty can be, you would think that they would not have as many children. Is it a matter of the rural mentality being brought to the urban areas? How does that account for people who are 2nd or 3rd generation and still bear a lot of children?
cvj: that’s hilarious. But do you have survey numbers related to your premise? But me— I am hedging my bets. I’m 4 months into Mandarin and 6 months into French language lessons, just in case. With Chirac and Villepin having left and an apparently “more reasonable” French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the helm, maybe France allows in more brown-skinned, not just as temporary workers but as citizens. Je me prépare également aux événements improbables.
Silent waters: …That many poor Filipino families still bear 5 or 6… a lot of children. “Poor” is the operative word. I thought I saw a survey which said that there is less coitus / less “fertilizing” in countries with more TV sets. 😉 –
And I know I saw an interview with a Quiapo-general-area husband/wife who lives in a kariton and the both of them want to have less children, except condoms cost money.
test only
that is true…maybe somehow, having TV at home does have it’s advantages…wink wink
Silent Waters, less coitus = less children. More TV time equals less coitus time. Quite logical really.
Also true is the ignorance of many about family planning (or birth control as a means to plan the family size). I too came from the boondocks where there’s no electricity (therefore no TV!) until the early 80s and family average size was 7. Having a big family was normal, having one or two children was abnormal. Things have changed, but in remote areas it’s still true.
One of the undesirable effects of availability of information thru TV, Radio, Internet, etc on the other hand is the early education of our young to copulate. Do we have stats on how many children are born from 18 and below parents? It was an abnormality before, but not anymore, di ba? We used to play bahay-bahayan, now it’s bahay-bahayan with a real baby.
@john mariano
“…. the undesirable effects of availability of “information” thru TV, Radio,”
maybe the correct term is ‘misinformation’
there is nothing wrong with teenagers copulating as long as they do it responsibly, although being teenages, we know this is difficult.
the key is to give them the access to correct information, more importantly, they have the right to this information.
They have the right to copulate but how come there is such a thing as statutory rape? So only minors can have sex with each other? This law definitely is not the answer to over population 🙂
I agree that proper “understanding” of available information and availability of birth control “kits” can help solve this problem (over population).
Rape is different from consensual sex. And as we should always teach everyone: NO means NO.
Basically what I really want to say is that the MORE and COREECTLY informed teenagers are the LESS LIKELY are they to make BAD DECISIONS.
By depriving them of information, access to information, the right to make informed decisions, we are burying our head in the sand. Condom use is just one of many alternatives. You could of course choose to be celibate.
The ages of 14-20 are driven by something more powerful and physiological – HORMONES. Not even the Holy Spirit can stop the surge.
The incontrovertible proof of 86 M Filipinos cramped in such a tiny piece of real estate shows that whether there are condoms or not, we will still continue to shag each other. So it is better in the long run to make all information about all alternatives readily available.
ps. about statory rape, i am not familiar with our laws but isn’t this sexual relations between an adult and a minor (below 18)?????
ikaw naman, like in the film “American Beauty”, (when spacey realises he is devirginising a young girl….sabi niya sa isip nya, “Mali ito”. her first experience should be with someone her age.) let the kids enjoy themselves without the adults…
“Sex education” is supposed to be part of the high school curriculum, but The Philippine government was forced to abandon a controversial sex education program for high school students after the country’s powerful Roman Catholic Church expressed opposition to it. In 2006, Education Assistant Secretary Vilma Labrador said the Department of Education has ordered an immediate suspension of the distribution of the module, after the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) objected to its content.
The CBCP objects to the giving informatin about condoms and other contraceptives, which, to the bishops is the same 🙄 – as promoting sex :evilL -. This is an even more important issue in the slums of Africa and South America where condoms are needed to stop the spread of HIV/Aids .
Yes, the Roman Catholic Church, too, objects to education about HIV/AIDS if the lesson plans mention condoms. 👿 – The CBCP says “let the parents teach the children” and ignores the fact that the the parents themselves are badly informed about HIV/AIDS.
Kasi nga, the Roman Catholic Church has lots of educational institutions. By promoting large families, there will be more enrolees. But the Church is not entirely greedy, in my school, you get a discount if your sibling is also enrolled in the school. So Catholic Families want to avail themselves of this discount and hence create more babies. 😀
I remember our ultra-conservative school chaplain telling us that when we felt libog, we should pray the rosary. Then one of the boys realised that a rosary could be used as a studded cock ring to delay ejaculation (which is a problem for teenagers). Ayun, sales of rosaries went up and the Sisters were happy.
So you agree that the 100 pesos of smuggled rice will result in an overstatement of GDP.
However, you believe that such overstatement of GDP is more than offset by the net understatement that results when the 200 pesos worth of unsold rice stays off the books. Even granting the [arguable] proposition that local rice is twice as expensive as foreign rice, i don’t believe it will result in understatement of GDP.
The reason is that the extra 100 pesos would most likely have been spent on something else, e.g. cigarettes, ginebra or starbucks, so it would still be ultimately reflected in pce component of GDP. It would be less likely that the unspent 100 pesos would go into savings although i wouldn’t totally discount that possibility.
It would be worth looking at whether the savings rate per family increased during this period.
Economists find it hard to reconcile the fact that the more developed a country (resources are aplenty), the less fertile are its women. It goes against nature — in times of abundance, flora and fauna go to orgy mode and multiply. Economists call this the demographic-economic dilemma.
The lesson is that you can’t have development without addressing population. Both go hand in hand. We recognize that our colonial institutions and politics are the problem. But when can we have the courage to admit that the Catholic Church is also one of our evils?
It makes me sad to renounce something which is so part of me as a Filipino. But come to think of it, it’s not as if our religiousity has taught us to be moral in the secular aspects of our lives.
‘Does the Philippines have enough of whatever so it can play one bloc against another, or is the Philippines just roadkill, ready to be assimilated?’
Maybe this time the US will admit the Philippines as the 51st state just to maintain a foothold in Asia.
‘Maybe this time the US will admit the Philippines as the 51st state just to maintain a foothold in Asia.”
My god, papasakop ka rin lang bakit sa USA pa?
Bakit hindi sa Canada (high quality of life, low murder rate), sa Netherlands (egalitarian, civil liberties), sa Sweden (rich, pragmatic) etc…etc…
There are other options you know…
cheers
😀
nash,
They will not do it. Canada, The Netherlands and Sweden have less population population than the Philippines combined.
What are the other options?
dumadami na kasi ang mga muslim, the church must increase its numbers to be relevant.
If you cannot understand economics, don’t try.
I said there is an understatement since instead of accounting for the locally produced goods which are available at higher prices, what the PCE reflected were the costs of the smuggled goods because that
s what were reported by consumers.
the consumption of rice will not double even if you floor the price.
don’t talk to me about starbucks, those are not staples. gawd. the poor going to starbucks? my foot.
Who buys the smuggled goods? Not the rich, not the middle-income. They shop in groceries.
In Divisoria and Baclaran.
@supremo
they will do it for our glorious beaches, happy people, eternal sunshine, and resilience in the face of adversity.
if are stuck in sweden during the winter, hay naku, you will know how they will pay anything to get sunshine. 😀
besides what’s in it for the usa to colonise us rin? (apart from hyperextending their borders and ensuring that their many enemies do not fight them on the mainland…). I’d rather accept that Zubiri is a rightfully elected senator than be occupied by someone with so many kaaway. 😀
maybe those 86 people who joined gloria in davos are back with more bright ideas? I’m still waiting for their trip report. They said they weren’t on a junket so I expect treaties to have been signed, investments pouring in to the provinces of those tongressmen who went…etc.
@ cat
the rich also buy smuggled goods. Kia Besta vans are not cheap. PX goods are not cheap.
and what about Willie Revillame and his ferrari and yacht? 😀
these items are high value items that only the wretch have money for…
Supremo : I think nash suggested that instead of Pinas becoming a US state, better to be “absorbed” into Canada or Sweden.
—————
Here is a factoid. At the end of the Spanish-American War and with the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded 4 territories to the US, namely Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. Of the 4, 50% are independent and the other 50% remains under US-of-A.
(a) Cuba – became independent 2 years after Treaty of Paris (there was a special law – Teller Amendment — that clearly obligated the US presidency to turn over Cuba to Cubans);
(b) Puerto Rico — 50 years after Treaty of Paris, all its citizens granted US citizenship;
(c) Guam — 50 years after Treaty of Paris, all its citizens granted US citizenship;
(d) Philippines — 50 years after Treaty of Paris, independence from USA.
——
To be expected, there exists “total independence” movements. There also is a Guam movement to be annexed to Hawaii; and a movement in Puerto Rico to become a full-fledged US State (versus a commonwealth).
Guam and Puerto Rico citizens can fly in/out — and reside — in US mainland. But neither Guam nor Puerto Rico can vote for US President nor Vice-President.
JS: Mindanao still remains an area for CARP. What I mean is to offer government land to farmers from Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bicol along with educational and social programs for all Mindanao… along with rule of law .
And the Muslims are 5% of the philippine population. I think many PMA graduates (and many Filipinos, too) believe that the ability of the “tail wagging the dog” has something to do with having guns and willing to use it.
…to offer Mindanao government land to farmers from Pampanga, Bicol…. along with rule of law over all of Mindanao.
Nash, now that you mentioned Willie Revillame, if ever there was one guy I ever want to sucker punch and won’t mind spending a few days in jail that would be that guy and here’s the story.. I once been so unfortunate to watch one of his show featuring newly circumcised boys having a dance contest (sort of acrobatic) for some prize, if you don’t call that some sort of cruelty, I don’t know what else?? And it may had been it that show when he asked the contestant what line of work his father has and the kid was hesitant to give an answer and he forced the issue on the boy until the boy was reduced to tears…well, firt, whatever his name should have realized that some kids have very bad experiences with their father, some didn’t even know their fathers and some may have been abandoned by their fathers…he should had done his homework before putting the kids in a situation that would avoid what may be a traumatic experience on top of what they already experienced….
Ca T, i understand the second part of your assertion that GDP is understated because of the 100 pesos (in your example) that was not spent on the more expensive locally produced rice.
What i’m saying is that such understatement will only be realized if that 100 pesos is not spent on other items. If that 100 pesos is spent, then it enters the GDP (as pce).
It may be true, as you say, that “the consumption of rice will not double even if you floor the price.” However, you have to remember that rice is not the only consumable. As you said above:
Based on your own comment, poor people spending what they saved on cheaper smuggled rice on other non-staples is not unheard of.
nash: but what does the Philippines get if it becomes part of sweden?
@vic
basta ako puzzled talaga ako. tito vic and joey have probably earned more individually than willie and yet i don’t see them driving ferraris.
or i might be uninformed and noontime hosting is indeed a high paying profession. sali na rin ako.
I guess it’s this very asian trait of “FACE”, we put a premium on appearances instead of what really matters. kaya ayan, bling bling.
and yet harap-harapan na itong smuggling of luxury goods, especially among congressmen, they should all be hanged for economic sabotage. A congressman driving a 4WD only asserts the fact that they are too corrupt to have well paved highways :D.
Hence, we have teenagers spending money on cigarettes for the ‘macho’ look.
On the population issue, blogger Urbano dela Cruz pointed out that rural to urban migration is good in terms of slowing down population growth because cities are known to act as “population sinks”.
http://www.hundredyearshence.blogspot.com/2005/07/cities-as-population-sinks.html
UP n student & nash,
It doesn’t really matter which country will ‘absorbed’ the Philippines. The sheer number of Filipinos will deter from doing it. The Philippines should just form a federation with Indoneasia.
Upn, for one thing, our national language will become Swedish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qff098NCNDE
watch out, guys, revillame could one day be elected senator, even president. see how he calls his “show” a “public service” while he and abs-cbn are laughing on their way to the bank?
@ UP n,
ewan, nasabi ko lang yung dahil better alternative naman ang Sweden sa USA na maraming kaaway.
If you want to stay with an English speaking country, ayan nga ang Canada, New Zealand.
@ supremo,
ayaw ko sa indonesia, dami censorship dun. bawal pa tanduay. ano nalang ininumin ng masa to forget their troubles.
@ bencard,
tama lang na manalo si revillame, lito lapid and bong revilla are turning out to be boring (nary a stupid comment from them…) imagine miriam, chiz, revillame, high theatre!
nash, ang alam kong kaaway ng u.s. ay ang al quaeda at taliban lang. seguro maraming galit (o sikeretong kaaway) dahil sa inggit. pero ganyan talaga ang buhay – tao man o bansa.
btw, palagay ko wala namang mag-iinteres sa pinas kahit ipag-ngudnguran pa – masyadong malaking problema at liabilidad.
Kaso ang problema, kahit hindi Al-qaeda o Taliban, napapagkamalan kaya madaming inosenteng nadamay.
better to have no enemies than one or two. sila rin naman nag-finance ng mga nascent grupo na iyan during the cold war.
o siya, manolo, wa ba bagong post para tuloy tuloy ang magagandand discussion?
(apologies for the poor tagalog, i is from the boondocks kasi.)
wow, nila-“lang” “lang” mo lang ang taliban at al qeda.
better to have no enemies than one or two. sila rin naman nag-finance ng mga nascent grupo na iyan during the cold war.
o siya, manolo, wa ba bagong post para tuloy tuloy ang magagandand discussion?
(apologies for the poor tagalog, i is from the boondocks kasi.)
I believe next to China, and maybe India, considering the number of their Population, the Philippines is the next largest source of new immigrants to Canada in the last few years as reported in the new census. Plus to the number the contract workers that are also qualified for immigrant status after Two Years of continuous employment. In a few year, we will become a VERY visible Minority in all of Canada..
on a serious note “Inggit” is not a term I would use for the animosity to US foreign policy (let us now be specific lest we be accused of slagging its citizens).
The USA (ie foreign policy) uses it economic and military might to arm twist smaller economies into signing one-sided agreements.
We also have embargoes, propping up dictatorships (Hussein, Suharto) until they become irrelevant (Musharaff)….
cvj, problema talaga. kaya maraming napatay sa world trade center, at tuwing magpapasabog and mga terorista at suicide bombers. walang matanda, bata, lalake, babae, bakla, sundalo, artista, pangit, maganda, mayaman, pobre o ano pa man.
Case study in the history of the influence of the Chinese merchant class domination of the Philippine economy.
When the Philippines defaulted on their foreign loans in 1983, Jobo was appointed to the old C.B. The IMF wanted him there. At the same time Roberto Ongpin on bhalfof the state took over the informal market in dollars by joining forces with the Ocier family then the unoffical head of the BINONDO CENTRAL BANK. Willy Ocier and Ongpin became the de-facto central bank of the country.
Please note that it is the Binondo Business Club that run the economy of the country and not the Spaniards of the Americans. This was since the Spanish times. It was the chinese who brought their artisan and merchant skills to the Philippines.
They were also the ones who benefitted immensly from the debt buy back of that period. John Gokongwei was the premier buyer of severely discounted sovereign debt paper that he leveraged later to get control of sugar mills and built his first malls. His adviser and inside man then was former CB Governor Singson. During that period the government was desperate for foreign exchange so they turned a blind eye to forex control violations of the Chinese merchants then who had their monies tied up in banks in HK, Taiwan and Singapore.
The IMF took care of the American and European companies here since they were involved mainly in the formal economy.
The Philippines actually operated in default using the Binondo Central Bank and through the issuance of Jobo bills which paid 40% yiled per anum to attract investments. We are still paying for that today.
Fast forward to the Asian crisis in 1997. The government had to turn to Lucio Tan to take over PNB and PAL. If PNB went belly up thestate would havehad to under take a massive nationalization process at a time when the state was still incapable of taking over. Look how the SSS and GSIS together with the Go family of Equitable took over troubled PCI Bank of Gokongwei and Lopez at full price of $300 M.
Gokongwei and lopez had picked up PCI Bank in 1983-4 for only $25M
The Philippine economy had been road kill for many generations.
Do not blame the Chinese merchants. The opportunities presented itself and they being more evolved recognized it. They actually integrated the Philippine economy. But the old lanlord elite still dominates politics and with the rise of the chopstick economies a small bunch of chinese merchants will naturally integrate themselves with the producer nations which is their original home countries.
Look at the present crop of Presidentiables. Roxas, Villar, Estrada, Legarda and even de castro. Are they any different from the past and they will do the same things over and over again.
There is no one still that is suggesting a break from the past.
vic: that is noteworthy …. a Filipino bank teller, caregiver, Visual Basic programmer, Cisco LAN expert or nurse is eligible for Canada immigrant status if he/she has worked for 2 continuous years.