| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
03/02/2012
I do not know why the usual government
financial managers and “experts” went out on a limb to attempt the
latest PR stunt for the Philippines’ financial status, but it is so lame
that they are certain to get rotten eggs and tomatoes on their faces.
Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) deputy chief Diwa Guinigundo said the
country’s contribution of $500 million to the New Arrangement to Borrow
(NAB) program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) signals its
“creditor” status in the world. Cory Aquino Finance Chief Jess
Estanislao, meanwhile, chimed in with his paeans, leading a yellow daily
to blare, “From butt of jokes in 1986, Philippines has risen to
creditor nation, says ex-finance chief.” All these, when the truth is,
the national government (NG) will only be borrowing by way of issuing
bonds to raise the dollars to “contribute” its regular quota to the IMF —
as it had done in the past.
With help from financial forensics
expert Hiro Vaswani, we have gathered several instances where the BSP
and the NG went about raising the country’s contributions to the IMF.
From January 2006 (“NG to issue bonds to BSP for advances of IMF dues”),
there was this idea of issuing the same type of zero-coupon bonds as
the infamous CodeNGO PeaceBonds which will no longer pass through the
national budget and go straight to government’s debt to form part of our
“automatic debt service.” In 2009, with the budget deficit incurred at
that time but which the NG repaid in subsequent years to the BSP,
another development (“BSP advances P9B IMF quota payments”) highlighted
the country’s regular ritual of raising contributions for the IMF.
There is thus no reason to expect that there will be any difference in
the process this year.
The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), in
its reaction to the BSP and NG’s trumpeting of another $251-million RP
contribution to the IMF’s Financial Transaction Plan (FTP), said in its
press release, “The news suggesting that ‘the Philippines has now become
a creditor nation’ may sound good, but (FDC) smells something fishy
about this ‘hype’… Ricardo Reyes, FDC president, said that while such
move ‘seems to suggest that the Philippines has gotten out of its debt
problem, which of course is not true,’ considering the outstanding
national government debt of P4.93 trillion ($120 billion) at present,
the catch lies in the next part of the BSP announcement… (where the)
‘BSP lends a part of our dollar reserves to IMF’s FTP’ so the
Philippines can borrow again and borrow more from the IMF!” This
contribution to the FTP is again no different from our contribution to
the NAB of $500 million.
So let’s throw rotten tomatoes and eggs,
and add the rotten balut for PeNoy’s head, for this shamefully lame
attempt to glorify the Philippines’ borrowed financial tribute to the
IMF. This is nothing but a desperate effort to put an artificial sheen
to the 26 years of Edsa I’s financial “reforms,” consisting of
liberalization of currency and capital flows, deregulation and
privatization of the financial system and economy, among others, which
have caused the Philippines to become a shameful laggard in the region.
Believe
me: The Philippines has now been overtaken by Vietnam, which 26 years
ago had just begun to rebuild form the ravages of 50 years of war with
France and then the US. Tonette Chan of the Inquirer, who wrote that
report on Estanislao, even dared to ask, “Who is having the last laugh
now?” It’s certainly not us Filipinos.
But their hubris doesn’t
come in short supply. Estanislao was, in fact, quoted to have said
before the Institute for Solidarity in Asia that “The Philippines is
going to be a model of good governance in the world,” arguing that
“public officials and citizens (who) address local issues like
instituting political reforms and changing the political culture… would
help the Philippines overtake Thailand and Indonesia in terms of
economic growth.”
Given the dismal 26 years of Edsa I financial
and economic reforms that Jess Estanislao started and bequeathed to a
long list of Finance heirs, from “Boy Blue” del Rosario, Jose Cuisia,
Bobby de Ocampo, Lito Camacho, to the latest, Cesar Purisima, how the
hell can our country even dream of “overtaking” Thailand and Indonesia,
when these countries were well behind the Philippines 26 years ago?
Ah,
but the financial milieu imposed by Edsa I was all but a banker’s
heaven, erected on Cory Aquino’s pledge to “honor all debts,” which
turned our people over to the money masters and the “debt trap,” and
dismantled our financial and economic floodgates to effect the massive
transfer of public assets to foreign and local corporatists, all
financed by “sovereign guarantees,” leading to the emaciation of our
nation-state to the shadow of a captive creature that it is today.
As
a recent commentary from the Economist’s View (“The Nation-State
Reborn” by Dani Rodrik) tells us, the restoration of any nation to
greatness would require its people to “turn for solutions to their
national governments, which remain the best hope for collective action”
because even as the “nation-state may be a relic… (of) the French
Revolution… it is all that we have.” For us, that only means a truly
sovereign nation-state borne of a new Philippine Revolution; not one
that’s captive to corporate powers.
(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo
ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny
Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m.,
with replay at 11:15 p.m., on “Alan Paguia’s crusades;” visit
http://newkatipunero.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/20120302com6.html
