11/28/2011
While mainstream media,
politicians, lawyers, text addicts, and the man-on-the-street get sucked
into a Gloria Arroyo-carping mindset, the situation on the ground just
keeps getting worse. A new think tank that’s making its presence felt
recently released some startling findings about the Philippines.
A
report by Stratbase entitled, “Study traces poverty incidence to vested
interests,” cited World Bank data showing the increase in the number of
poverty-stricken Filipinos by 3.4 million between the years 2008 and
2009. Even worse, its comparison of growth rates in Asia showed how much
of a basket case we are. It said that “while East Asian economies
posted average annual GDP growth rates from 3.6 to 6.0 percent between
1960 and 2008, the Philippines only managed an annual average increase
of 1.4 percent during the same period.”
But there’s more: While
the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was said to have found “that for every
one percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP), poverty incidence
has gone down by an average of 1.5 percent across the world and two
percent within Asia… poverty incidence in the Philippines had actually
risen since 2003, a time when the economy (was) thought to have grown
very well.”
Even with the modicum of growth the Philippines has
supposedly gained, not only is its poverty incidence not been reduced —
it is, in fact, growing. What this means is that we are doing even worse
than Africa.
As I have always said, the Philippines is on course
toward “Africanization,” i.e. becoming as poor as the poorest in Africa.
But, it seems, we are now getting there even faster.
So who
exactly are these “vested interests?” They are the “rent seekers” whom
Stratbase says “attempt to derive ‘economic rent’ by manipulating the
social or political environment in which economic activities occur,
rather than by adding value.” Even though it failed to provide
specifics, it’s quite easy to glean that these rent seekers comprise the
oligarchs who use their money powers to obtain concessions from
government and/or take over state contracts and assets; politicians who
use their positions to enrich themselves; media prostitutes who peddle
information and opinion for a fee; as well as lawyers who answer to the
highest bidder; and so on.
Notably, only a few choose not to be
part of this rent seeking class. A fine example is eminent lawyer and
constitutionalist Alan Paguia, who, despite being among the first to
criticize the Department of Justice’s hold departure order, declined the
offer to join the legal team of Gloria Arroyo, leaving his other
compañeros to stumble over one another in hopping aboard the
hospitalized lawmaker’s defense bandwagon.
Still, there is a very
deep irony in Stratbase itself. While it indicts the vested interests
or rent seekers, its officers and academic resources also have strong
ties to these oligarchs or their intellectual hires.
Its chairman
Jose Ibazeta, for example, was an Anscor (A. Soriano Corp.) president,
as well as a director and treasurer of a known port management giant,
and a chairman of state holding firm, Psalm (Power Sector Assets and
Liabilities Management Corp.), which privatizes our country’s power
assets to the oligarchs.
Meanwhile, Antonio “Tony Boy” Cojuangco is a
member of the board, along with Amboy Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert
del Rosario. Among its academic advisers are Calixto Chikiamco of the
pro-privatization Foundation for Economic Freedom; Ayala adviser Randy
David; and pro-USAid RH (Reproductive Health) bill law professor Raul
Pangalangan.
In its prospectus, Stratbase says, “Our knowledge of
the government and the ability to establish strategic communications
network with policy and decision makers ensures that our client’s voices
are heard.” Sounds like lobbying or rent seeking to me.
The
Philippine ruling class that runs our society and political-economy
today, of which Stratbase appears to be an epitome, is (in a real sense)
fraudulent, self-seeking, parasitic, intellectually dishonest,
hypocritical, and incompetent — as can be witnessed in all the raging
debates about Mrs. Arroyo. Even as worse transgressions by the oligarchs
and their foreign masters against our nation continue to escalate, all
these are merely glossed over by such lofty campaigns against the
“evils” of the past.
Good thing we still have a number of
outstanding individuals who represent the interests of the vast silent
majority. Paguia, for one, continues to shine a light in the legal
arena; while others such as Mang Naro Lualhati, Jojo Borja, Butch Junia,
Bono Adaza together with Sulo ng Pilipino, Bagong Katipuneros
(Magdalos), PLM and others, continue to fight for several nationalistic
causes. They certainly prove that, unlike the ruling class, not
everybody is simply out for a buck.
But, while the people have yet
to seize victory, things can only get worse. No, we’re not just
speaking of political-economic decay but one that eats away at the
spirit of man, too. With all the demoralization, im-moralization,
doublespeak, obfuscation, scapegoatism, hypocrisy and idiocy around,
under a supposed democracy where the economic life of the nation
deteriorates while only a few monopolize it in greater and greater
proportions, just how can one’s humanity be left untarnished?
As
Mahatma Gandhi correctly pointed out, “Corruption and hypocrisy ought
not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are.”
True,
some may continue to point the accusing finger — like the pot to the
kettle — to hide their own corruption; but as long as there are
Filipinos who won’t tolerate such hypocrisy, there’s hope that they can
be brought together in a political movement that will oust the corrupt
in our society in due time.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo
OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL,
Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable
Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles
plus TV and radio archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman "Ka Mentong" Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20111128com5.html
