Iniratsada na ng Konggreso ang Con Ass sa pamamagitan ng HB 1109!
Walang pangimi sa planong pambababoy sa ating Konstitusyon ang rehimeng US – Arroyo.Sadyang nagkukumahog ang seksyon ng naghaharing uri na maipwesto ang ekstensiyon ng kanilang mga termino.Subalit maliban dito, ang higit na masakit sa matagal nang planong CHACHA ay ang pagsagasa sa ating soberanya at patrimonya.Ibig sabihin, iaalay ng elitistang gobyerno ang anumang natitira pa nating yaman at pag-aari.Ibubukas ito sa kontrol ng dayuhang kapital!
Habang patuloy na bibilugin ang ating mga ulo sa mga seremonyas at pagdiriwang ng araw ng kalayaan! At hayaang patuloy na magkunwari na “malaya na tayo.”
Ano ang dapat gunitain sa Hunyo 12?
Sa ilalim ng gubyernong Arroyo, walang dahilang ipagdiwang ang Hunyo 12! Sa halip, ipinupwersa sa atin ng mga huling kaganapan na maalab na gunitain ang mga ipinaglaban at kagitingan ng ating mga ninuno na humantong sa Hunyo 12.
Kawalan ng lupa ng mga magbubukid, kagutuman ng mamamayan, kontrol at panunupil ng dayuhan, pagsasamantala at pang-aapi ng mananakop at mga kakutsabang ilustrado, pagsasamantala sa kababaihan, at laganap na kamangmangan.Ito ang mga dahilan nag pag-aalsa ng ating mga ninuno.Ito ang nagtulak sa kanila upang puspusin ang pakikibaka at kamtin ang kalayaan.Ito ang dapat nating gunitain sa Hunyo 12!
Paano tayong magdiriwang kung hanggang sa kasalukuyan ay ito pa rin ang nagdudumilat na katotohanan?
Sa gitna ng pandaigdigang krisis – pinansiyal ng sistemang kapitalismo, agaw – buhay naman ang masang anakpawis!
Hindi na totoo ang “isang kahig, isang tuka.”Sa buhay ng masang anakpawis, “walang tigil na kahig, wala pa ring matuka!” O kaya nama’y “gustong-gustong kumahig para may matuka” pero walang oportunidad para makakahig!
Sa Cordillera, 1,900 manggagawa kaagad ang nawalan ng trabaho sa unang bulto ng tanggalan noong Enero 2009. Sa darating na Hulyo, magtatanggal ng 300 manggagawa ang Moog.Idagdag ito sa 500 manggagawa ng TI na natanggal na nuong Pebrero.Sa buong bansa, mahigit 100,000 na ang natanggal o mga manggagawang nabawasan ang oras ng paggawa.
Simula pa 2002 – 2003 ang tuloy-tuloy na economic displacement sa mga magbubukid ng Cordillera lalo na ng Benguet dahil sa pagdagsa ng imported na gulay.Sing-aga ng 2002, ang produksiyong agrikultural ng Cordillera ay bumaba na ng 48.8%! Ang kalakhan ay napupwersang magpatuloy sa pagtatanim kahit paulit-ulit na lumulubog sa utang.Dumarami naman ang bilang ng magbubukid na nagiging malamanggagawa o kaya nama’y sumasama sa walang katiyakang buhay ng mga OFWs.
Wala pa man ang CHACHA, buong puso nang ibinigay sa kontrol ng Hapon ang malaki-laking bilang ng agrikultural na lupain at marine resources sa pamamagitan ng JPEPA (Japan Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement).
Ayon sa pinakahuling sarbey ng NCSB (National Statistics Coordination Board) apat sa anim na probinsiya ng Cordillera ay kasama sa pinakamahihirap na probinsiya sa bansa: ika-apat ang Apayao, ika-siyam ang Abra, ika-labing isa ang Kalinga at ika-16 naman ang Ifugao.
Ang Apayao ang may pinakamataas na poverty incidence sa Cordillera (57.5%).Sinusundan ito ng Abra (50.1%) at ng Ifugao (30.9%).Ang bayan ng Kibungan sa Benguet at ang Asipulo, Mayoyao na mga bayan ng Ifugao ay kasama sa pinakamahihirap na munisipalidad ng bansa.
Ayon sa 2008 data ng CHEd, mula sa 100 Grade One pupils, 66 lamang ang nakakatapos ng Grade Six, 58 sa 66 ang nakakapasok ng first-year hayskul at 43 lamang ang nakakatapos ng hayskul. Sa 43, 23 ang nakakapasok sa kolehiyo at 14 lamang nito ang nakakagradweyt.At masuwerte na kung makapagtrabaho agad ang 14.Kung makapasok man, tiyak na kontraktwal ang bagsak nila!
Samantala, walang pagsidlan ng yaman ang naghaharing uri!
Patuloy na masarap ang buhay ng mga nilalang na siyang may likha ng matinding krisis!Sa mga plano ng bailout o pagsagip sa mga nababangkaroteng institusyon, ang mga kriminal ang isinasalba ng sistemang ito habang patuloy na ginigipit ang bumubuhay sa bansa.Ginigisa tayo sa sarili nating mantika!Patuloy nating pinagugulong ang ekonomya at kapitalismo habang ang ating likhang yaman ay pinagpapasasaan ng mga may-ari ng kapital!
Tunghayan ang pinakamayayaman sa bansa.Henry Sy, may-ari ng SM Prime Holdings, may net worth na 3.1 bilyong dolyar.Lucion Tan, may-ari ng PNB, Fortune Tobacco, Asia Brewery, PAL, UE, Allied Bank at Tanduay Holdings, may net worth na 1.5 bilyong dolyar! Jaime Zobel de Ayala, may-ari ng Ayala Corporation, may net worth na 1.2 bilyong dolyar! Andrew Tan, may-ari ng Emperador Distillers Incorporation, Megaworld Corporation, may net worth na 700 milyong dolyar! Tony Tan Caktiong, may-ari ng Jollibee, may net worth na 690 milyong dolyar!
John Gokongwei Jr., may-ari ng Cebu Pacific, Robinsons, may networth na 680 milyong dolyar! Eduardo Cojuangco Jr, may-ari ng San Miguel Corporation, may net worth na 610 milyong dolyar! Manny Villar, kasalukuyang Senate President, may-ari ng Palmera and Camella Homes, may net worth na 425 milyong dolyar!
Para kanino ang CHACHA?
Agaw-buhay ang masang anakpawis.Abala naman ang gubyernong Arroyo, hindi upang sagipin sila.Natataranta ang rehimen kung paano palalawigin ang kanyang termino, patuloy na pagsilbihan ang ang naghaharing uri, at ang interes ng US at dayuhang kapital.
Titiyakin ng charter change na alisin ang anumang natitirang probisyon nito na nakikitang sagka sa kalakalan at dayuhang pamumuhunan.Ito ang tunay na agenda ng conass at chacha! Ito ang tunay na adyenda ng US at dayuhang kapital!
Sino ang magsasalba sa atin?
Matagal nang itinuro sa atin ng kalakaran ng pulitika ng bansa na hindi pwestado ang adyenda ng mamamayan sa elitistang pulitika.Itinuro na rin sa atin ng kasaysayan na ang interes ng masang anakpawis at ng buong mamamayan ay dapat ipaglaban mismo ng kanyang hanay at hindi ninuman.Hindi ito kusang ibibigay.
Matapos nating mapanood ang balasubas na “Larong ConAss” ng Konggreso,huwag na nating hayaang paulit-ulit at paulit-ulit tayong insultuhin at balasubasin! Mahigpit nating hawakan ang mga aral ng ating kasaysayan.Buhayin at pag-alabin ang diwa ng Hunyo 12 at ang mapanlabang tradisyon ng mamamayang Pilipino!
Isulong ang interes ng sambayanan! Tutulan ang ConAss!Tutulan ang charter change!Wakasan ang elitistang paghahari! Kapangyarihan sa mamamayan!
KPD Baguio - Benguet invites you to join the People's Protest Center Against Charter Change / Con Ass on June 10 (Wednesday) at the People's Park, Malcom Square, Baguio City. This is a whole day activity which will start at 8:00am up to 7:00 pm.
Let us unite in informing the people about the evils of charter change and the dirty scheme of the Arroyo government to stay in power. Aside from the intentions of GMA and the section of the ruling elite to stay in power, CHACHA will also surrender our sovereignty and patrimony to our neocolonial masters and to globalization!
Let us condemn in the strongest sense HB 1109 or Con Ass Bill! Join the People's Protest Center on June 10!
May we invite you to join "SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT INDEPENDENCE DAY." You may submit anything - poems, essay, song, painting or other visual presentation, video/multimedia presentation, photo with caption, photo slideshow, etc. Outputs could be in Tagalog/Filipino, English or Ilocano.
Deadline for submission will be on June 11 midnight. You can submit via text @ 09182086666 or 09065361466, email at kpdnorth@gmail.com or via our "contact us" webpage.
Best entries will be posted on the kpd webpage for the world to see.
Goodluck and please encourage your network to also join.
With the Congress passage of HB 1109 that seek amendment of the Philippine Constitution by themselves via Constitutional assembly, with a clear motiveexpress by the majority of congressmen which is to provide foreigners the right to exploit Philippine natural resources and privately own land in the Philippines and amass profit out of it. These are restricted under the 1987 Philippine Constitution provision which, because of the particular circumstances under which it was drafted, upheld national patrimony or the Filipino people’s sovereign right to control the nation’s natural resources.Though the 1987 Constitution is still in place, millions of Filipinos are increasingly losing whatever piece of the Philippines they have been clinging to. Filipino peasants are losing the land they till, as foreigners - American, Japanese, Chinese and Malaysians among others - take renewed interest in utilizing our land for their jatropha, sugarcane, coconut production for biofuels and other industrial uses; for expanded banana, pineapple and other fruit production for their canneries and markets. Communities are being demolished to give way to five-star hotels, luxurious condominiums and subdivisions, golf courses, and other resorts – haven and playground for the rich and powerful. Others are being relocated as they become endangered by operation of foreign mining corporations. All these at the instance of the government, in its collusion with foreign interests in circumventing the Constitution, in utter disregard for the people’s well-being.
ISSUES: Human rights defenders; torture victims; torture; right to liberty and security; arbitrary arrest and detention --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear friends,
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you of the arrest of three human rights defenders. At the time of the arrests no warrants were produced. They were arrested on 27th May 2009 in Samal, Bataan. The three, who have been campaigning against the possible renewed operation of a nuclear power plant, have been tortured and remain in detention.
From the Los Angeles Times U.S.-Philippines partnership may be model for fighting terrorism elsewhere
The U.S. has kept a low profile in the fight against militant group Abu Sayyaf, easing public acceptance of the campaign. Pentagon chief Gates backs the strategy in the first trip to the Philippines by a Defense secretary in a decade.
By Julian E. Barnes June 2, 2009 Reporting from Manila — The small U.S. military mission in the Philippines attracts little attention, but Defense Department officials say it has been surprisingly effective at reducing the havens once used by militants here -- and that could make the effort a model for other U.S. partnerships with other nations, including Pakistan. Pakistan has been reluctant to allow more than 70 American trainers into the country, worried about public reaction to a substantive U.S. troop presence. But the low profile and public acceptance of the U.S. military program in the Philippines suggest there could be lessons for American officers eager to step up their efforts with the Pakistan military. In the first trip to the Philippines by a Pentagon chief in a decade, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met today with Gilberto Teodora Jr., the Philippine secretary of national defense. "Over the last decade, the Philippines has faced a number of security challenges and met them squarely," Gates said. "We will continue to support their efforts to defeat terrorists and extremists threatening their country and region. Gates visited the Manila American Military Cemetery, where 17,202 U.S. service members killed during World War II are buried and another 36,285 missing troops are memorialized. There are about 600 U.S. service members in Manila advising Philippine commanders and staff officers -- a small force that has been able to reduce the influence of the main Muslim militant group, Abu Sayyaf. America's former role as a colonial ruler of the Philippines has left many Filipinos wary of a large U.S. military presence. Army Col. William Coultrup, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, said the Americans provide the Philippine military with their experience, resources and intelligence information. But, he said, it is the Filipinos who take the lead. "One of the key lessons to take away with is working by, with and through our allies," Coultrup said. "They assume ownership of the problems down there." The Philippines, like Pakistan, has been reluctant to allow large numbers of U.S. troops to operate on its soil. The American forces on the ground are focused on training, not direct military action. Special operations soldiers generally stay off the front lines, and instead advise and train Philippine commanders and their staffs. U.S. officers who have served in the Philippines argue that direct comparisons with Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan are difficult, but they concede there are lessons to be shared. Asked where the Philippines could provide a guide to expanding U.S. involvement in Pakistan, Gates said the United States must be sensitive to the domestic politics of any country with which it forms a partnership. "We will move with these various countries at a pace that is comfortable with them," Gates said. "The stronger the foundation we can build under these relationships, the longer they are likely to last and the more effective they are likely to be." When the mission in the Philippines began in 2002, the United States viewed the southern portion of the country, including parts of Mindanao and the Sulu islands, as ungoverned spaces. Abu Sayyaf had ties with Al Qaeda and was using the area to train for attacks against Western targets. The Philippine armed forces, according to a U.S. military official, were in a "shambles" and unable to counter Abu Sayyaf's advances. Over seven years of training, the Philippine military has grown in capacity. "They were not looking too good," said a military official. "Now they are carrying on many operations without us." The small number of American troops ensures that the Philippine public remains generally accepting of the mission. And the effort has been successful enough that U.S. officials no longer consider the south ungoverned. "The threats from international terror groups has gone down," a senior defense official said. "There are fewer hostage-takings, terrorists and terrorist attacks."
House Bill 4631 (HB 4631) sponsored by Pangasinan Congressman Mark Cojuangcofailed to pass the House Committee on Appropriations, instead of $1B to re-commission the three-decade old nuclear power plant the Committee ruled to allot Php 100 Million for a ‘ feasibility study’ (this despite past voluminous studies on the plant).
Immediately, the bill was modified by members of the Committee on Energy and Appropriations (most of them are signatories to Cojuangco’s HB 4631) and was re-submitted to the Committee on Rules in substitution to four earlier bill pertaining to the BNPP (HB 1039, HB 4631, HR 250, HR 257).This came to be known as HB 6300 (An Act Mandating the Immediate Rehabilitation, Commissioning and Commercial Operation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant or Bataan Nuclear Power Plant of 2009).
The long road to perdition starts with a Gloria-forever legislation.
GMA’s men may be giving each other pats on the back for a job well done- a buzzer-beating passage of House Speaker Prospero Nograles’ House Resolution No. 1109, calling for Congress to be convened as a Constituent Assembly in order to amend the 1986 Constitution, a feat that was attempted but proved unsuccessful as far back as the Ramos regime.
In interviews with media, majority Congressmen unabashedly said that the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ on a ban on term extensions for all elected officials included in HR 1109, is no guarantee that term limits will not be tampered with, once the Charter is opened up to amendments.
We know too well that more than the greed of the powerful elite, the move to change the charter is to do away with the nationalist provisions that are perceived as ‘barriers to trade and investment’ (read: total sell-out of the Filipino people and its economy).
The elite and landlord-dominated Congress has made a fool of the Filipino people, having ‘swined’ (‘binaboy’) national sovereignty and patrimony anew with this questionable piece of legislation.
We are not surprised Nograles and co. are challenging those who criticize the legality of a Senate-less vote with a day in court when the courts impartiality is encumbered by too many justices loyal to the administration.
No self-respecting Filipino citizen with love for country and consideration for the welfare of future generations should let this power-hungry Constituent Assembly of trapos have their way without a fight.
We enjoin the Filipino people to resist and raise their voices against this unacceptable state of affairs. If we do not, all we have to look forward to is a future full of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s rotten, corrupt and repressive regime. #####
A 50-year-old agreement with the IAEA has effectively gagged the WHO from telling the truth about the health risks of radiation
Fifty years ago, on 28 May 1959, the World Health Organisation's assembly voted into force an obscure but important agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations "Atoms for Peace" organisation, founded just two years before in 1957. The effect of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power – and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health.
The WHO's objective is to promote "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health", while the IAEA's mission is to "accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world". Although best known for its work to restrict nuclear proliferation, the IAEA's main role has been to promote the interests of the nuclear power industry worldwide, and it has used the agreement to suppress the growing body of scientific information on the real health risks of nuclear radiation.
Under the agreement, whenever either organisation wants to do anything in which the other may have an interest, it "shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement". The two agencies must "keep each other fully informed concerning all projected activities and all programs of work which may be of interest to both parties". And in the realm of statistics – a key area in the epidemiology of nuclear risk – the two undertake "to consult with each other on the most efficient use of information, resources, and technical personnel in the field of statistics and in regard to all statistical projects dealing with matters of common interest".
The language appears to be evenhanded, but the effect has been one-sided. For example, investigations into the health impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 have been effectively taken over by IAEA and dissenting information has been suppressed. The health effects of the accident were the subject of two major conferences, in Geneva in 1995, and in Kiev in 2001. But the full proceedings of those conferences remain unpublished – despite claims to the contrary by a senior WHO spokesman reported in Le Monde Diplomatique.
Meanwhile, the 2005 report of the IAEA-dominated Chernobyl Forum, which estimates a total death toll from the accident of only several thousand, is widely regarded as a whitewash as it ignores a host of peer-reviewed epidemiological studies indicating far higher mortality and widespread genomic damage. Many of these studies were presented at the Geneva and Kiev conferences but they, and the ensuing learned discussions, have yet to see the light of day thanks to the non-publication of the proceedings.
The British radiation biologist Keith Baverstock is another casualty of the agreement, and of the mindset it has created in the WHO. He served as a radiation scientist and regional adviser at the WHO's European Office from 1991 to 2003, when he was sacked after expressing concern to his senior managers that new epidemiological evidence from nuclear test veterans and from soldiers exposed to depleted uranium indicated that current risk models for nuclear radiation were understating the real hazards.
Now a professor at the University of Kuopio, Finland, Baverstock finally published his paper in the peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in April 2005. He concluded by calling for "reform from within the profession" and stressing "the political imperative for freely independent scientific institutions" – a clear reference to the non-independence of his former employer, the WHO, which had so long ignored his concerns.
Since the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in April 2007, a daily "Hippocratic vigil" has taken place at the WHO's offices in Geneva, organised by Independent WHO to persuade the WHO to abandon its the WHO-IAEA Agreement. The protest has continued through the WHO's 62nd World Health Assembly, which ended yesterday, and will endure through the executive board meeting that begins today. The group has struggled to win support from WHO's member states. But the scientific case against the agreement is building up, most recently when the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) called for its abandonment at its conference earlier this month in Lesvos, Greece.
At the conference, research was presented indicating that as many as a million children across Europe and Asia may have died in the womb as a result of radiation from Chernobyl, as well as hundreds of thousands of others exposed to radiation fallout, backing up earlier findings published by the ECRR in Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident. Delegates heard that the standard risk models for radiation risk published by the International Committee on Radiological Protection (ICRP), and accepted by WHO, underestimate the health impacts of low levels of internal radiation by between 100 and 1,000 times – consistent with the ECRR's own 2003 model of radiological risk (The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses and Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes: Regulators' Edition). According to Chris Busby, the ECRR's scientific secretary and visiting professor at the University of Ulster's school of biomedical sciences:
"The subordination of the WHO to IAEA is a key part of the systematic falsification of nuclear risk which has been under way ever since Hiroshima, the agreement creates an unacceptable conflict of interest in which the UN organisation concerned with promoting our health has been made subservient to those whose main interest is the expansion of nuclear power. Dissolving the WHO-IAEA agreement is a necessary first step to restoring the WHO's independence to research the true health impacts of ionising radiation and publish its findings."Some birthdays deserve celebration – but not this one. After five decades, it is time the WHO regained the freedom to impart independent, objective advice on the health risks of radiation.
We may find ourselves shortsighted if we would not make even make a cursory review of the historical background of the present crisis of global capitalism.
Two decades ago, when the neo-liberal or free market craze was in the upswing, some worthy writers of the imperialist apologists type declared “socialism is dead” and unabashedly proclaimed “the superiority of capitalism” and “capitalism forever”.
However, history is always unforgiving to charlatans and social cranks. World capitalism again and again, as in over past 100 years, is wracked by its inherent crisis. Especially at its monopoly or imperialist or finance capitalist stage, capitalism has continuously made the world ever smaller for the expansion of capital and competition among individual corporations in both banks and industries. The “boom-bust” cycle became shorter in duration until monopoly capitalism is chronically beset by its inherent crisis of falling rate of profit or the condition of over-production and over-accumulation of surplus capital that cannot be reproduced or re-invested in physical or material production.
Capital must therefore always find and create new areas for investment or expansion to escape and counter the falling rate of profit. In this era of imperialism and because every new industry is fast saturated with capital, finance or bank capitalists have continuously developed financial manipulation and speculation or the means by which surplus capital could grow outside the sphere of physical or material production. Finance speculation has created the “metaphysical” or “bubble” economy. But because its object and subject is the physical economy, the “bubble” busts every now and then, ravaging the real or physical economy.
Monopoly capitalists would always find the intervention of the imperialist state necessary, even if capital remains mainly private and thus the capital earnings. But competition is another basic character of capitalism and the imperialist state would always favor the monopoly capitalists, especially the monopoly finance or bank capitalists, specifically the biggest among them and those who have the proper connections.
Imperialist state intervention has been seen in two World Wars, which were the culmination of capitalist depression and through the regular defense and arms build-up, the US wars of aggression and military intervention and its creation of imperialist institutions in all aspects—economic, financial, political and military. World War I (1914-1918) was the culmination of the Long Depression (1880s-1900) that ushered in the stage of monopoly capitalism. The USA emerged as the chief victor in WWI and had the strongest hand in the re-partition of the world. But it was not a “winner-take all” affair for the US and its allies, Britain , the erstwhile superpower and France . The working class was able to seize power in Russia in 1917 and soon in all the nations that were once under the Tsarist Empire. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or Soviet Union was established.
World War II (1939-1945) was the culmination of the Great Depression (1930s) that was signaled by the New York Stock Market crash of 1929. WWII catapulted the US into the position as the single imperialist superpower to have worldwide hegemony. But this position had reached its peak or its limits especially after Japan and Germany recovered and re-industrialized throughout the long years of the US Cold War with the USSR and the long US war in Vietnam . But China is now seen by the US as the greatest threat to its supremacy. On the other hand China , which arose at the time the US economy was already on the decline, is also seen now as the potential savior of the capitalist world.
The Features of the Present Crisis of World Capitalism
The present crisis is comparable to the Great Depression of 1930. It would suffice if our historical backdrop to the present crisis starts from the GD period or at least the post-WWII period. The limitations of the paper however would not permit it.
Whatever its complexities, let us just state the context and major features of the present crisis of world capitalism and its effects on third world economies like the Philippines.
The strategic decline of the US as an imperialist superpower is the broad context the present crisis of world capitalism.
The continuing crisis of over-production and over-accumulation of surplus capital, in other words, the under-consumption of both goods and capital, is the particular context of the present crisis.
The present crisis manifests or features itself as crisis in the financial and banking systems. Its particular feature is credit and debt crisis.
The gravest feature is the growing joblessness and wage cuts all across industries and services, especially banks and financial services, throughout the capitalist world.
The constricting labor-export market is limiting opportunities for third world countries like the Philippines.
The growing trend towards re-concentration of capitals back to their home or nation bases would deplete foreign investment and debt dependent economies like the Philippines.
The bail-out or “nationalization” of banks and other financial institutions shows the limits of the neo-liberal or free market paradigm but does not prove the resurgence of Keynesian economics.
Socialism is posing itself as the real alternative to capitalism.
We would proceed to describe the context and features of the global crisis.
1.The strategic decline of the US as superpower is principally determined by its internal weaknesses and contradictions in maintaining its economic and military might and of the US dollar and financial regime over global trading and financial system. On the other hand the US exercise of its world hegemony is challenged starting from the 1970s by its re-industrialized former enemies in WWII, Japan and Germany and lately by the fast rising economic and also military power, China which is in close alliance with Russia and India, which are both big economies and nuclear capable. But Germany before is not the Germany now at the lead of European Union (EU) whose Euro is the currency most strongly competing the US dollar. But other than the big capitalist powers that rival each other and the US, challenge is also posed by sovereign nation-states which are binding together to protect and defend their economies principally against the US. The UNASUR nations of South America led by Venezuela are the latest.
Briefly, the decline of the US begun after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and the US dollar while remaining the currency for global exchange was devalued and begun to be floated. Soon the currencies of Germany (DM) and Japan (Yen) were being accepted by some countries beside the dollar. After the oil producing countries formed the OPEC (1968) and asserted their sovereignty over their resources and used oil as weapon to counter US threat of trade embargo, the global oil cartel, not the OPEC, raised the price of oil by almost 400% in 1974.
The leap in profits from oil and the increased cost of fuel especially for industries exploded into a crisis called stagflation (recession with high inflation) in 1979-1981. This crisis manifested first in the US and spread to Europe and but limitedly affected Japan . Hundreds of thousands of workers were thrown out of jobs due to closure of many plants and the general reduction in production. Much of the industrial areas, especially in Michigan, were reduced to “rust belts”.
The stagflation ushered in the new capitalist paradigm—the neo-liberal or free market economics. Packaged as globalization, its main objective is the removal of all restrictions, tariff and non-tariff barriers, state intervention in the economy, workers’ right to unionize, labor standards, etc. for the free global movement of capital especially, finance capital.
In the 1980s, the US incurred growing annual trade deficit with Japan despite the US- enforced re-valuation of the Yen in 1985 (Plaza Accord). From a net creditor, the US fell to a net-debtor by 1985. Meanwhile the efforts towards the building of the German led European Union (EU), which begun from the European Common Market in the early 1960s, gained much headway. China embarked on its modernization program starting in 1981.
Despite the thawed Cold War, the US embarked on the costly National Defense Program cinematically dubbed as “Star-Wars Strategy” and the so called Reaganomics which was mainly an attack against workers’ wages and the right to strike.
In 1987, another New York Stock Market plunge dragged the whole financial world. A great factor was the 1986 debt-payment crisis. Many countries that availed of structural adjustment loans (SAL) extended by the IMF-WB defaulted in debt-payments. But the Philippines was an exception, the “people power” installed Cory Aquino regime made its infamous declaration, “we will honor our debts”. The US came to the rescue not of the deeply indebted countries but of the banks that have financed the IMF-WB SALs. The US scheme was the Brady Plan which was none other than the restructuring of debts.
The 1990s was ushered in by the Japan and Saudi- Arabia financed first US war against Iraq, the “desert storm” of 1991. The pretext was Saddam’s threat to invade Kuwait. It was in fact an assertion of Iraq ’s sovereignty over its oil which was being pumped-out across the border in Kuwait . On the other hand, the US objective was to secure the oil for its giant oil corporations. Under the Clinton government (1992-2000) the US tried to “retool” its industries that have lagged behind Japan ’s and Germany ’s. But the military and defense spending was always greater. It was the height of neo-liberal Globalization, industrial capital was always in search of low-wage areas. The banks preferred more the lucrative finance speculation business, especially on the newly created financial product called derivatives.
The other great part of finance capital went, as loans and investments, to the so called “new tiger economies” and “newly industrialized countries” in Asia. Finance capital did not find the economies of tumultuous Russia and other former USSR countries and of Eastern Europe as ready for the free movement of capital. But most of the capital that flowed in and out of the Asian “tigers” and NICs were in real estate speculation, land and asset securitization and as standby loans for the liberalization of the financial and banking systems of the countries concerned. The Philippines 2000 Plan or the NIChood ambition of the Ramos regime was nothing industrial but the total liberalization of the Philippine economy, starting and ending with the liberalization of the banking and financial systems and massive land-use conversions (LUC) in 1993-1994, as condition for new IMF-WB loans. With then Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as lead proponent, the Philippine senate ratified the GATT-WTO in December 1994. Thus the Philippines became member of the now derelict WTO.
Then the Asian Financial Crisis erupted in 1997-1998. The contagion spread to over half of the world including the US and of course, Japan. It was caused by glut in speculations. All Asian currencies were devalued several times thereby increasing the cost of countries’ debts and of course the private loans extended by banks to corporations and individuals. On the other hand, the banks were crippled by mass of non-performing assets (loan collaterals, mostly land) and non-performing loans. Again the US through the IMF-WB rushed a rescue or bail-out package valued at close to $200 billion extended as loans to countries to enable them to pay their debts to mostly private US investment banks. Japan was in deep financial doldrums and economic recession. The biggest Japanese banks were saddled with $800 billion of firstly, inter-bank and secondly, industrial corporate loans.
As consequence of the Asian Financial Crisis, losses in transactions in the US financial market from 1998-2000 were estimated at $7 trillion. Meanwhile American household and individual debts (mostly on home mortgages and car loans) were mounting.[1] Before the US recession that technically begun in March 2001, the average debt of American families and individuals was $8,000 totaling at close to $10T. This and the real threat of foreclosures and reality of increasing joblessness set the common American attitude to save and reduce consumption. The reduction on consumption was threatening the US financial and economic might because 2/3 of US GDP is generated by consumption of the American people.
The Bush government resorted to tax cuts that favored most the richest American families. However the tax cuts reduced the US government’s revenues and increased its budget deficit. This plus the increasing cost of the prolonging US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the annual trade deficits first with China and second with Japan are translating to $500B-700B annual deficit in US BoP. To finance this, the US Federal Reserve resorts to massive foreign and public borrowings, which are being shouldered by the American people. On the other hand the banks resorted to debt refinancing by artificially raising the values of mortgaged homes and lots. But this did not perk up the average consumption of Americans. Instead the banks made a killing in the business of securitization of mortgages or the now famous speculation on sub-prime loans represented by the very heavy but greatly unregulated inter-bank trading on collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). The unaccountable sub-prime bubble finally exploded in 2007 to what is now the deepened crisis of world finance capitalism.
2.The real measure of the crisis is in the increasing joblessness and home foreclosures in the centers of capitalism and throughout the world. What is further distressing is the trillions in dollars of bail-out packages being put up by the predator and parasitic states of US, EU and practically all countries, whose economies have been integrated under the global financial empire, to rescue precisely the rulers of this empire, the biggest banks. But where would these predators get the funds? The fact that what are being “nationalized” are the bad loans and debts of banks, it means the bail-out funds would be drawn out from the people.
3.Socialist revolutions are not near possibility but the present crisis of world capitalism which is further exploding into immeasurable proportions is a very favorable situation to counter-pose socialism against capitalism. The imperialist stage has exposed the moribund, decadent, parasitic and, let us add, predatory characters of capitalism.
4.For countries like the Philippines, the trajectory of peoples’ movements, in the short to medium range, is to de-link from the global financial empire. Debt repudiation is a very justified and reasonable call and demand now. The debt payments should be shifted to provide immediate relief for the people and job creation within the framework of genuine national industrialization. In a medium-term basis, non-performing or idle assets (especially lands) that were acquired by banks should be nationalized than put under private asset management companies. The banking and financial systems should be immediately streamlined. Regulations must be re-instituted. The financial market must be strictly regulated.
The KPD proposed agenda for people’s actions
The Filipino people are facing immediate, medium-term and long-term issues that are now further exacerbated due to the raging crisis of world capitalism. How fast can we organize ourselves to pursue the tasks of arousing, organizing and mobilizing the masses in these very favorable times to advance mass struggles and movement is the challenge now posed before us and all organized forces of the social movement.
Peoples’ omnibus demands (Immediate and medium-term):
1.Immediate debt-relief. Repudiation of onerous loans and moratorium on debt payment;
2.Realignment of 2009 national budgetto social services – health, education, food, housing subsidies;
3.Emergency fund/budget for the repatriation of unemployed and displaced OFWS;
4.Revamp the Department of Agriculture and remove all obstacles to rice and staples productivity program;
5.Immediate tax relief. Full implementation of tax exemption (removal of withholding tax) of minimum wage earners and tax holiday for those earning within living wage threshold (P800/day);
6.Remove tax holidays for foreign investors, give this privilege (5-year grace period) to local investors;
7.Strict regulations on portfolio or speculative investments, immediately suspend dealings on derivatives;
8.Legislate necessary policies/measures for government supervision and management of government corporations, especially Pagcor and NAPOCOR – government revenues/income and savings should be allocated for the emergency measures to be implemented;
9.Immediately put into effect a genuinely cheap medicine policy and reorient and develop the public health system towards preventive medicine;
10.Non-extension of SPAV and non-passage of Farm Land as Collateral bill;
11.Nullify the ratification of JPEPA.
12.Ensure a mechanism where people’s representatives can participate in decision-making and implementation of emergency measures to address the crisis (or the people would have to assert this);
(Medium term program from #13)
13.Re-structure the economy from export-oriented to principally local needs-oriented (inward looking), from non-productive to productive; from principally agricultural export crops to principally food crops; from principally agricultural and service oriented to principally industrial; from backward agriculture to industrialization of agriculture. Towards this reorientation, immediately check massive land-use conversions; stop the expansion of plantations for non-food crops; re-nationalize the National Steel Corp. and the UniChem and rehabilitate Philphos;
14.Develop an efficient, affordable mass transport system;
15.Re-orient education. Stop the unbridled privatization and commercialization of education;
16.Shelter – govt. housing program must be re-oriented from being commercialized to being service –oriented and providing accessible housing for the masses/poor;
17.Agrarian Reform – redistribution of lands to tillers in order to break private monopoly of lands byfew and a comprehensive program to support agricultural production;
18.On Taxes – Totally remove the regressive tax on consumption (EVAT). Implement a progressive taxation policy/system.
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[1]The system of buying and selling on credit of consumer durables (cars, home appliances and houses and lots) was introduced in the US in the 1920s. It was expanded after WWII until it covers all commodities especially when the credit card (plastic money) was introduced.
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