08/05/2011
Finger-pointing is again the
order of the day. Not long after Sen. Tito Sotto challenged his
colleagues, Kiko Pangilinan and Franklin Drilon, believed to be two of
the original collaborators of Gloria Arroyo in the cheating of 2004, to
finally come clean by dropping their pretensions, was his subsequent
collaboration with the alleged cheating mastermind to partake of the
corrupt system also laid bare. Similarly acting blameless while
lambasting the cheats today, many of those in media were themselves part
of the propaganda blitz that sustained the series of cheating and
cover-ups well into 2007 and 2010.
This pattern of holding
elections suffused with cheating, then eventually making an exposé out
of them, has become a deftly-staged zarzuela of focusing only on the
subsidiary corruption in politics to distract the people from a totally
debased political-economic order. As a result, the economic and
financial corruption, particularly of the parasitic elite, is missed by
many.
The past months, we built up a case against the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Department of Finance (DoF) for their
seriously corrupt financial policy of keeping the country in debt
despite the financial surplus afforded by our decades-long OFW
remittances. Such an anomaly was gleaned from the Special Deposit
Account (SDA) amounting to P1.5 to 1.7 trillion and the Gross
International Reserves (GIR) which total $70 billion today.
After
some controversy with BSP Deputy Gov. Diwa Guinigundo over the issue, an
unexpected affirmation of our position came from none other than
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima who publicly favored “the unwinding of
the SDA,” which entails the reduction of interest rates to facilitate
the fund’s release for domestic investments.
In fact, an Aug. 3,
2011 Manila Bulletin news story by Chino S. Leyco reported that
“Purisima, who is also a member of the central bank’s Monetary Board,
said… the Aquino government would be happy to accommodate (any unwinding
of the SDA). He explained that by unwinding the P1.44-trillion deposits
at the BSP’s special deposit accounts, it may cut the borrowing costs
of the government.” Furthermore, the report noted, “Deposits by banks to
the special deposit account facility of the BSP continued to increase
in the past few years, a scenario which critics said… could have been
more useful for the economy if it were invested in lending.”
Actually,
when we were having consultations with former National Treasurer Norma
Lasala way back in 2004-2005, she already insisted that the management
of our national reserves had gone awry and, thus, wasted billions. At
that time, Purisima was already Finance secretary and Amando Tetangco,
the BSP chief. Despite this, the continuity in the financial mafia
remains unbroken. Tetangco has gotten his second term for the same post
while Purisima got back the Finance portfolio after a hiatus courtesy of
“Hyatt 10.”
So the question is, why is Purisima only now
beginning to admit the wisdom of “unwinding” the gargantuan SDA (and, in
all probability, later proclaim that we can indeed mobilize a greater
part of our GIR)?
For sure, achieving this would be a first step
toward liberating ourselves from the chains that have shackled us for
the past five decades. But that’s just the beginning. The next stage is
to free ourselves from ALL debt and all private bankers’ traps.
Since
all credit and money is guaranteed by the taxpayer, there is absolutely
no reason the people, through the State, should borrow from any private
party. The nation should instead set up a “Peoples’ Bank” where
creation of credit and money will be subject to referendum.
Now,
we ask: Why was there no fanfare when Aquino III reappointed Tetangco to
his BSP post when this is one of the most important jobs in the whole
government?
Undoubtedly, the answer lies in the fact that the BSP,
as it is set up today, is actually “independent,” with the presidential
appointment merely ceremonial. And with a Board dominated by private
bankers, the bank decides on monetary policy, possessed of an
“independent” character institutionalized by Cory Aquino’s handpicked
Constitutional Commission — whose members claim is a relic of the 1973
Constitution even without basis.
Being a private bank, the BSP
actually follows the workings of the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of
International Settlements (BIS) where both have a public façade but with
private bankers at the core (see “The Tower of Basel: The World’s
Biggest Central Bank Has Private shareholders,” GlobalResearch, July 29,
2011).
Is there any wonder then why the People’s Republic of
China is today the leading nation and economy in the world in terms of
growth and stability? Its banking system is based on the concept of the
“People’s Bank,” with its credit policies designed for national
development and public welfare. Of course, this is not the case for the
US and its satellites — such as Europe’s PIGS (Portugal, Italy/Ireland,
Greece, Spain) — now reeling from the greed and machinations of
so-called “banksters.”
But sadly, our Senate, House, and financial
bureaucracy — from the Bureau of Internal Revenue to the Bureau of
Customs et al. — all follow the diktats of Wall Street, IMF-WB, ADB, and
Basel in keeping the Philippines perpetually in debt; in taxing us more
to pay it off; and in privatizing public services to create more debt
(like the call for P110 billion more borrowings after 10 years of
privatizing the state’s power assets).
Our past national errors,
such as the 10 years of fraud under Gloria Arroyo, should offer us
concrete lessons in our nation’s political-economic history; our
decision now should be to turn a completely new leaf — starting with a
deeper understanding of our financial system.
(Tune in to Radyo
OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, on
“Hello Garci: A Complete History,” with Atty. Alan Paguia, Saturday, 8
to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8;
visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and
http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110805com5.html
