01/16/2012
A Nov. 10 to 23, 2011 survey
by Pulse Asia reported last week by Jocelyn Montemayor found that 97
percent of Filipinos say “their lives were affected by worsening
economic conditions.” The same survey reported that the number of people
who “felt,” which I take to mean palpably sensed, the economic
deterioration jumped from 16 percent in Oct. 2010 to 38 percent a year
later, in what can be described as a dramatic doubling.
This makes
me wonder how the same survey outfit can still find that BS Aquino
III’s approval ratings are staying at a high 70-percent rate. This also
makes me wonder if the people surveyed are disjointed in their brains of
if the controlled mass media have really done a terrific job of
obfuscating issues so as to stunt the public’s capacity for perception.
What
is clear is that Filipinos are facing a deepening crisis and, contrary
to many columnists’ sanguine projections, 2012 holds even grimmer
prospects.
Last Wednesday, Jan. 11, InterAksyon.com reported that
the Department of Energy (DoE) is “gear(ing) up for fuel rationing,
transport subsidies” in case “tensions in the Middle East trigger a fuel
shortage.” As we have been tracking the events there, we have
consistently asked what the leadership of this country is doing in case a
war affecting the Strait of Hormuz and, consequently, global oil supply
triggers a worldwide shortage and price spike from $150 to $200/bbl.
The
current Philippine oil stockpile ranges only from 30 to 60 days, and
more frequently it is at the minimum. These are indeed ridiculous
levels, considering that it takes about that long for shipments to
arrive from the sources.
Curiously, an August 2011 newspaper
report discussed the call (such as from our many columns) for government
to stockpile oil requirements for as much as six months to one year.
But, in that same report, a certain Jorge Montepeque, global director
for pricing at Platts (a US oil trading company), was also interviewed.
He said that such a proposal would only do harm as stockpiling would
cause oil prices to rise.
Of course, that pronouncement from the said
executive, no matter how inane it was, must have been taken as a diktat
to government and political authorities to shut up on the matter as the
economic managers who earlier raised the idea never did so again.
That
advice was inane for the simple reason that the Philippines’ whole year
demand won’t even cause a blip in the oil markets, where prices are
manipulated by speculators on a daily basis — prices which we, in turn,
are compelled to always accept at their highest levels since we buy only
what can be delivered because of the short lead time, and never at a
cheaper price than the last offer. So, in order to get us out of this
quagmire, the next logical question is where to get the money for a
stockpile that will last us a good six months to one year.
Ah, but
only a few like us would say that money is the least of our problems
since we already have that P1.7-trillion Special Deposit Account (SDA)
kept in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that yields four percent
in interest earnings for banks when it can be used to earn multiples of
that in our stockpiling of oil.
Then, we also have the surplus in
our gross international reserves (GIR), which, in our discussion on how
to properly release without appreciating the peso and harming the
exchange rate that overseas Filipino workers (OFW) families rely on,
finance forensics expert Hiro Vaswani of the Kilusan para sa Makabansang
Ekonomiya (KME) suggested for the BSP to stop lending $25 billion to
the US in buying its Treasury Bills, and instead to use that for our
domestic needs — one of which is the country’s stockpiling of oil.
As
our annual oil imports amount to around $14 billion, we have more than
enough money to afford such a stockpile. Yet, while any sane person
would never doubt the economic security and benefit we would get out of
it, our economic managers remain inutile, all because they are useless
slaves of Western financial interests.
Oil prices jumped to
$101/bbl when Iran warned off a US aircraft carrier during a naval
exercise of the Iranian Navy two weeks ago. For sure, we can expect more
of such tensions in the Strait of Hormuz — through which 80 percent of
oil for our country passes and a major part of which is legally
considered under Iran’s jurisdiction.
The Iranian parliament is
now considering legislation either to limit passage through that strait
or to charge fees for it and to ban warships from passing, which are a
response to US saber-rattling.
But even without these tensions,
the global trend of oil prices is on the upswing due to the higher cost
of extraction. As such, oil stockpiling is always a safe bet even on a
purely commercial basis. Still, we need to underscore the economic
stability that can be derived from having a large oil stockpile,
especially since an oil shock that will lead to a complete economic
standstill for an unprepared nation like the Philippines would be
devastating.
Thus, one must realize how irresponsible and
brainless this BS Aquino III government is today, creating imagined
terror threats and picking fights left and right to create an atmosphere
ripe for authoritarianism while real economic terror stalks the land.
The
crisis the nation will face in 2012 will require all the people and
political sectors to rally around the flag in order to survive. And as
the growing internecine fighting is only going to doom the nation, a New
Third Force that is neither Aquino nor Arroyo; neither Yellow nor Red;
and neither Right nor Left must arise to offer the leadership that the
present government cannot give as it winds down its self-destructive
path.
(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, with
this week’s topic, “QC Real Estate Tax Scam in 2012;” visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120116com5.html
