Hoorah to the Filipino medalists at the SEA Games.
Today’s Inquirer editorial ask why the the Palace gates were closed to the Sumilao farmers. As for the farmers themselves, Patricia Evangelista eloquently tackles their plight, while Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ says that the original government order reclassifying the land the farmers claim, from agricultural to industrial, was based on conditions that have been unfulfilled, and left unfulfilled by the new owner of the land, San Miguel Corporation:
What were the terms of the development which were approved for the 144 hectares? I repeat what I enumerated last Monday:
24 hectares would contain a Development Academy of Mindanao consisting of an Institute for Higher Education, Institute for Livelihood Science, Institute for Agri-Business Research, Museum, Library, Cultural Center and Mindanao Sports Development Complex.
67 hectares would contain a Bukidnon Agro-Industrial Park consisting of a processing plant for corn oil, corn starch and various corn products; cassava processing for starch, alcohol and food delicacies; processing plants for fruits and fruit products such as juices; processing plants for vegetables; cold storage and ice plant; cannery system; commercial stores; public market and abattoir.33 hectares for Forest Development including open spaces and parks for recreation, horseback riding and mini animal zoo.
20 hectares for Support Facilities including a 360-room hotel, restaurants, dormitories and housing project.
Instead, says Bernas,
The landowner failed in its commitment to make the development. Instead, the landowner sold the land to San Miguel Foods Inc. (SMFI).
Under the rules, the successor in interest to the property is bound by the terms of the approved conversion. SMFI plans to put up a piggery with 162 buildings to house 4,400 female pigs and 44,000 piglets and also to put up a slaughterhouse. Compare this SMFI project with the originally approved conversion plan. The former was people’s welfare-oriented; now it is pig-oriented! Did the DAR secretary approve the change in orientation?
What is most painful for the farmers is that they had already won Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) which were registered in the Register of Deeds, only to be revoked to give way to the bogus promise of development.
On the other hand, San Miguel Corporation says it has investments in the land that dwarfs the actual value of the land. See this letter to the editor by Ramon Ang:
We convened a consultation with the farmers themselves, along with the residents and local officials of San Vicente, Sumilao. In fact, several of the farmers who have joined the protest march were in that consultation and assented to these plans. Mapalad leaders Paterno L. Tuminhay and Renato C. Penas were among the barangay kagawad who approved the barangay resolution endorsing the project.
Having secured their approval, we immediately set out to construct the facilities. To date, we have constructed 21 of 40 buildings that will make up the agro-industrial estate.
All told, our total investment in Sumilao will amount to an estimated P2.4 billion, far, far greater than any projected future value for the land itself. It’s an investment that will have near-term benefits for the farmers themselves.
Our plan will provide the residents of Sumilao a sustainable source of employment and income and we’re confident that all our initiatives will have an even greater catalyzing effect on the lives of people in this area.
If you go over the economics paper of Dr. Michael Alba, which I posted in Inquirer Current, he touches on issues raised by Bernas and which can only lead to more Sumilao-type controversies to come. He points out that the conversion of land from agricultural to industrial and other purposes is going on at such a fast clip, that no one can say, with precision, how much land remains classified as agricultural land. At best, he says, what we can have are guesstimates, because the old. more thorough system for making inventories of land, have been dropped.
My column for today is Sobre la Indolencia de Los Españoles, where a Spaniard’s observations on why his government was so fulsome in its praise of the President, leads me to reflecting that there’s not enough “complete staff work” going on in the Spanish side. And that the Spanish have the option of basing their relationship with Filipinos on hazy colonial nostalgia or on a far stronger, because relevant, commitment to the shared values of modernity, democracy, and secularism that have taken root in Spain today for the first time in its history.
I quoted him at length in my column, but a fuller extract is called for, considering how difficult it is to find his book. In his essay, “Inheritance from Spain” in the collection “We Filipinos,” this is what Leon Ma. Guerrero had to say (in the Manila Chronicle in 1953):
[F]or all the superficial disappearance of Spanish culture, the Filipino nation is still Spanish and mind and heart. The great wave of Americanization erased only the Spanish footprint on the surface of the sands, and left untouched a buried treasure… She made our soul after her own image; and the Spaniard can still understand, much more perhaps than the American, the nature of the Filipino, can discern the true character of the race beneath what Benavente called the words with which we lie and thoughts with which we fool ourselves.
The Spanish civil law permits the institution of what is called a universal heir, who must assume not only the credits but also the liabilities of his predecessor in interest. We were the universal heirs of Spain in the Philippines, forced heirs to both the virtues and the vices of the sovereign testatrix.
Thus, while Spain gave us the Catholic religion, setting us apart forever from the rest of Asia with the chrism of salvation, she also bequeathed to us an anticlerical tradition, the unhealed wound of the political conflict with the friars…
Spain, finally, laid down the basis of our democracy with the Christian teaching of the dignity of man, and our equality under God. But she shares with us the habits of hypocrisy, subservience, and civic irresponsibility that are engendered by absolute power.
The Duke of Maura, analyzing the political landscape of Spain in his Grandeza y Decadencia de Espana, points out that Spain’s greatest weakness, which we seem to have inherited, is the atrophy of the civic spirit, the lack of civic responsibility, the habit of submission to absolute and irresponsible power. As a result, the word politics has come to mean, for some the most pleasant and least demanding of professions; for others the most thrilling and expensive of sports; and for very few the art of knowing, evaluating and serving the national interest.
Political power in turn, he says, is interpreted in terms of satisfying vanity and ambition, of indulging covetousness, of being prodigal with the money of others, of expediting vengeance, of amassing a fortune, of rising in society, in short, of glutting every ignoble appetite…
It is not strange, says the Duke, that where the cacique is absolute, and the citizen servile, favoritism and parasitism should reign instead of justice and the right. nor is it strange that in this upside-down selection of our rulers, the worst should always be preferred to the good, with the horrible result that a government of incompetents is placed at the head of a flock of slaves.
Which is Spain, he asks -and we might ask the same question of ourselves- misgoverned or ungovernable? Who is to blame for the national misfortunes: the ruler without a sense of right, or the ruled without a sense of duty? Patience and resignation, he declares, are the virtues of the martyr, and the vices of the citizen. So also did Rizal proclaim that there are no tyrants where there are no slaves…
Our nation learned many things from Spain: a primitive instinct of piety that sustains us in misfortune; a sense of personal dignity, of amor propio that drives us to do things which are sometimes comic and sometimes tragic; an avid and restless amorousness which contrives to combine the idolatry of woman with a selfish and boastful carnality; an understanding of death, death as the final sanction of life, the ultimate test to be met with the reckless elegance of the torero standing on tiptoe above the horns of the bull.
Indeed, we shall not find Spain’s legacy to the Filipinos in masonry or literature or in the ceremonial compliments of chiefs of state and their ambassadors. We must look for it in the heart, the secret heart, of the nation: in the servant’s sense of honor, in the dancehall girl going on her knees in the crowded aisle to kiss the feet of the Nazarene and pray for better trade, in the venal politician dreaming of a seat in the Senate as Sancho Panza dreamed of the governorship of Barataria, and in the honest public servant who like Don Quixote, sees a princess in every maid.
See also Manila Bay Watch on this score. In his blog, Mon Casiple looks at talk that one reason the President had a large entourage during her Spanish visit, was that she used the time to plot strategy. Three options could have been debated during that time, he says:
There were speculations that plans had been hatched for a possible charter change initiative next year or, at the least, for a decisive oust-Speaker de Venecia strategy. An interesting speculative counterpoint was for the mapping out of a GMA political retreat.
Casiple has been harping on his view that the President’s problem is that her wiggle room is narrowing; he says she now has only a few months, at most, to fully explore, and pursue, some of her options, particularly if the include staying on in office past the expiration of her current term. He believes that one option that’s firmly closed off, is a Constitutional Convention, so this leaves a people’s initiative redux or a constituent assembly, but both options spectacularly failed in the past. The clincher, Casiple thinks, is emergency rule, but the armed forces remains a big question mark in this regard.
So Casiple concludes,
The options for the president is narrowing. Compromise with the broad political opposition is almost gone and her maintaining the option for term extension is riling all presidentiables–whether from the opposition or from her own coalition.
In a situation where the transition to a lameduck presidency has already begun, there is growing pressure for her to resign in order to normalize the political situation–in time for the 2010 presidential elections. Resignation, in this case, is the price she may have to pay to ensure her survival in the post-2010 period. If she choose to stick it out, the only option left for her is to throw caution to the wind and go all out for term extension. Otherwise, she may be helplessly caught in a maelstrom of conspiracies as all the other political forces fight for the high ground towards succession.
(update: any doubt constitutional amendments are back in play? See Charter change revived in House; deliberations set)
It’s significant that late last month, a new voice added to the existing calls for resignation. See Scriptorium, which reproduces Ang Kapatiran’s statement. But the last word will go to the irrepressible Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr.:
Locsin, a member of the majority coalition, said Arroyo is a lot clever than her political rivals as she has survived every single attempt to oust her.
“She is a good economist and sly politician, 10 times smarter than all her enemies combined which isn’t saying much because they are retarded,” he said.
In light of the above, there’s this piece by Vicente Romano III, a co-convenor of the Black & White Movement:
A People on Standby
As soon as the Manila Pen siege was over, there was a flurry of pronouncements from just about every political group as well as personalities from both sides of the political divide. Invariably, the statements depicted Trillanes and Lim as misguided, military adventurists, rebels, criminals, or arrogant fools for repeating the same mistakes in Oakwood and in 2006. At best, some would say they sympathized with Trillanes’ and Lim’s cause, but did not agree with their methods.
But why did they have to wait until the standoff was over before they spoke their minds? Simple. They weren’t really sure about how the incident would turn out and they didn’t want to be caught with their feet in their mouths just in case Trillanes et al prevailed.
This is the same reason why no politician of significant stature came out during the siege. Most of them were probably somewhere in Makati, on standby, monitoring how things would develop. And if it looked like regime change was imminent, they were ready to make a grand appearance, abandoning all current loyalties, reminiscent of EDSA 2.
Even more worrisome, at least to the administration, was the non-appearance of military top brass during the critical, early hours of the standoff. The most natural thing for the administration to do in order to show that it was still in control of the chain of command was to arrange for some star-studded generals to declare their unequivocal loyalty. Esperon was in Mindanao. But where were the service commanders? They, too, were on standby, caught by surprise, unsure if Lim and Trillanes had the numbers. They did not declare loyalty for either side, not wanting to be caught on the wrong side when the dust settled.
There was one text message I received from an unknown number that I found rather amusing, “Panawagan ni Trillanes na mag-aklas, dinedma! Sawa na sa gulo ang ating bayan, tama na! Magkaisa na lang sa pagsulong ng bayan.”
I think that declaration was way off the mark. How do you explain the spontaneous show of support from office workers cheering and waving, motorists honking their horns in support as Trillanes and company were marching towards Manila Pen? How do you explain the surveys showing the people outraged at the impunity and brazenness of corruption by this regime?
I get these opinions all the time — text messages, email, or even chance encounters in public places from people I don’t know, “You’re doing the right thing. Don’t give up. Keep the faith!” At times, I’m tempted to ask them, “What about you? What do you plan to do about it?” I don’t bother, because I have an inkling of what they will say, “I’m sorry, but I’m busy… busy trying to earn a living, or trying to make ends meet.”
Was Trillanes misguided? Maybe. But not in the usual sense.
I think he read the people’s mood correctly. They are outraged. They want regime change. But they’re not willing to take an active role in effecting change. They just want to be saved from this wretched regime!
I believe Trillanes was misguided, maybe even betrayed, by people who committed to give their support but did not deliver.
CHED Chairman Romulo Neri, could have been an interested party. It was rumored that he was supposed to join the group at Manila Pen to finally reveal what most people already know anyway — that after he told GMA about the bribe offer by Abalos, she asked him to ignore it and gave specific instructions for him to work on getting the ZTE project approved by the NEDA Board in time for her China trip, which was only 2 days away.
In past interviews, Neri has refused to reveal what he knows, fearing that his revelations might trigger an EDSA-like uprising. He reportedly finds the idea of regime change with the same old, recycled politicians taking over, revolting (pun intended). However, rumors abound that privately, he has intimated to being open to a post-GMA scenario that would include his reform agenda.
I do not know whether Neri has explicitly communicated these ideas to the Magdalo, but let us suppose that he did. These revelations and ideas by an official of this administration probably emboldened them to plot the Manila Pen siege. Now, the Magdalo had a just cause around which to rally the people.
Days after the standoff, there were news reports that there was possibly some unit commanders who were poised to leave their barracks to join Trillanes and Lim. They were perhaps waiting for Neri’s defection as their signal to move. Instead, they saw Argee Guevarra and JV Bautista beside Trillanes at the Pen. To the military, these are the poster boys of communism. Seeing them would have planted seeds of doubt in their rightist hearts. “Are we risking everything, just to turn it over to commies?” they probably asked. The man in the wig was the clincher, turning the whole exercise into a farce.
And so, they all decided to stand by. But they waited too long. Esperon would later report, “the other group was “pre-empted”, whatever that means. The rest of the story you already know.
Trillanes apologists will claim, “the end justifies the means” regarding his latest caper. I do not buy that. But I do believe that this administration has shut off every legitimate venue for redress.
What do you do when the major mode of making a President accountable — impeachment, is bastardized by a rubber-stamp Congress? Where do you go when an unimpeachable witness like Fr. Ed Panlilio testifies that bribery of the highest order may have occurred at the Palace involving scandalous amounts given to political allies? Certainly not to a Department of Justice headed by a GMA stooge.
When you have an administration that selectively applies the rule of law and methodically perverts it for self-preservation, you will, for the same reason always have people who will resort to extra-constitutional means to seek justice.
Personally, I think what Trillanes did at Manila Pen is not much different from what Ramos did at EDSA 1 or Angie Reyes did at EDSA 2. If EDSA 1 and 2 failed, Ramos and Reyes would have been labeled no differently from Trillanes and Lim — misguided, misadventurists, rebels, or even fools.
What a difference success makes! Even heels (remember Chavit Singson in EDSA 2?) can become heroes. Failure does the exact opposite: would-be heroes are called fools.
Digressing a bit, I heard that Manila Pen is planning to sue for damages the rebel group. Nevertheless, the hotel is willing to give a 20% discount considering the participation of senior citizens like Guingona, Dodong Nemenzo, and Bishop Labayen. It would be truly comical, were it not tragic and pathetic, to see octogenarians leading the fight against moral bankruptcy in government.
Where are the youth in all of this?
Most of them are on standby, waiting for their work visas from various embassies. This is proof of the depth of hopelessness when the aspirations of our youth are reduced to wanting to leave the country at the earliest opportunity.
Well… I think I will just join the rest of our people on standby and wait for this regime to crumble from its own weight of greed and corruption. Already, there are cracks in the alliance in Congress, they’re all fighting over the spoils. With Puno now ascendant at the Palace, the other officials will necessarily be diminished, if not completely defrocked. That spells trouble.
Greed and addiction to power will propel them to overstay beyond 2010. Already, charter change is back at the top of the agenda in Congress. I think the administration is already crafting a martial law template that will be declared at the flimsiest excuse. The unconstitutional 5-hour curfew was merely a trial balloon.
And then it will happen. It will reach a breaking point that will lead to a popular uprising. Such has been the cycle we go through in our modern history.
A new order will be established. History will be rewritten, and it will give a kinder account of the Manila Pen siege. It is merely a pre-cursor of things to come. Trillanes and company are not fools after all.
For now, all we can do is pray that God hasten the cycle of change. God bless our country.
This is Enteng Romano on standby.
Overseas, Taking on Thailand’s myths makes for fascinating reading:
Andrew Walker, an anthropologist with The Australian National University, writes that “there is little the rural electorate can do to shake off this persistent [negative] image.” He argues, however, that rural Thais vote for leaders according to a set of localized values. Vote-buying, which certainly takes place, should be put into the “broader context of the array of material assistance that is expected of political representatives and other well-resourced people seeking to demonstrate their social standing,” he writes.
Far from being a uniform group of mindless drones, rural voters engage with various competing local figures in a range of political contests, and choose the leaders that most reflect their values. Among other things, Walker writes, these values include choosing leaders that are considered local; that bring home financial gains to local communities; and prove competent at running an administration.
Moreover, rural voters often think on a level that is different from the love-hate, all-or-nothing relationship Bangkok had with Thaksin, according to Somchai Phatharathananunth from Mahasarakham University in northeastern Thailand. He cites the reluctance of farmers to join anti-Thaksin movements led by NGOs even though they had worked together for years.
“From the NGO perspective, farmers refused to join the anti-Thaksin protest because they were unable to look beyond the short-term material benefits of the populist policies,” Somchai wrote, adding that the aid workers then tried to supply the farmers with “correct information” so they could understand “the long-term damage of Thaksin’s policies.”
“Such a view implied that there could only be one political line taken towards Thaksin, and to be politically correct farmers had to adopt that line,” Somchai writes. “Such a thing was not going to happen because it ran counter to many farmers’ way of thinking. Farmers do not adopt totalistic views towards things or persons; they deal with them in a pragmatic way. They judged Thaksin on an issue-by-issue basis. As a result, whether Thaksin was good or bad depended on the issue at hand.”
And indeed, though opposing Thaksin on certain issues, many rural voters still saw him deliver them real benefits, much more so than any Thai government had done in the past. Thaksin quickly turned his campaign promises into reality, cementing and expanding the political support he formed when he convinced regional “old-school” northeastern politicians to join his Thai Rak Thai party.
“While the policies were severely criticized as a new form of vote-buying by many NGO leaders and academics in Bangkok, farmers viewed the policies as the distribution of resources to the countryside that helped farmers to address their needs,” Somchai writes. “They insisted that the rural poor were as entitled to access the government budget as were the urban rich.”
Intel, Lies, and Videotape on the American blogosphere debating the CIA destroying evidence of high-profile interrogations.
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“What this country needs is the economic shock treatment of freeing the currency markets and making the peso freely convertible.”
Is this doable? Where do we start?
benign0:
ah well, i’ve really nothing to say there… but it almost seems like everyone over here should try living in another country for a few years, just to get out of their parochial mindset.
Benigno
To a certain extent, you are correct that balikbayans coming in and out have become a force of change. But I think it’s only to a limited extent. Not to make it sound bad, but I think it’s generally superficial.
The retirees who come back may be the force to reckon with as they now have a stake in the country’s further development. They can demand the substantial changes that made their lives comfortable when they were living abroad in the locales where they live. In fact, maybe for some of them, they have nothing to lose to demand these changes for the betterment of their communities. Of course, the ones who want to control and maintain the old status quo will resist these changes but I am sure that if it will benefit the community, chances are they will rally around them. (At least I hope so..:-)
Silent:
yup, dual citizens can own property as far as i know.
The economic shock treatment of freeing the currency markets will certainly cause a lot of dislocations amongst business and the OFWs.
hvrds, in theory, given the situation now….what do you think will happen? WIll the peso rise or depreciate?
As it is rigt now, with the peso appreciating the OFWs are feeling the pinch. This year alone, they took a pay cut of 20% in peso terms..
The last word on Trillanes. He should understand that the Philippine military establishment is under the command and control of the U.S. government.
No military mutiny in the Philippines can prosper without the U.S. ok. The top brass and the military commanders of the country are all graduates of the School of the Americas (now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)in Fort Benning Georgia.
Added to this is the following
The country’s reserves almost 90% of them are denominated in dollars and are not actually deposited in the vaults of the BSP. They are mainly ledger entires and are deposited with Amercian correspondent banks, namely Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. These are the money center bank members of the Federal Reserve of New York. Distinguish this from the physical cash that are in banks and the BSP. This physical cash is moved around in and out of the country to settle bills.
If any unfriendly group that the U.S. considers anti-U.S. interest the Philippines will find itself cut off from their own reserves and international trade with the world and the Philippines would move to barter system. The entire economy would seize up.
Even the so called crazy guy in North Korea realized that when the U.S. was able to freeze their dollar reserves. he sued for peace and gave up his nukes for a stiff price.
W. recently wrote a personal letter to him and very soon the New York Philharmonic is visiting North Korea.
A perfect example of dollar imperialism under a benign imperialist. You do not need to invade today. You can simply stave a country by cutting off their supply of dollar currency.
Same here, I’ve worked in Singapore for the past 4 years. I’ve worked in India and Malaysia, travelled to Europe, US, Japan, Australia. Mas ok pa rin sa Manila. I think the real estate boom is being driven in part by those who share my sentiments.
cat, im jus’t repeating what a property developer told me, and what i’ve heard from some fil ams -also, information from an ayala land executive.
for fil am retirees, at least according to ayala land, condos are sounder investments to them, particularly in fort bonifacio, easier to secure and maintain, and also, the options are wider either to live in them or rent out.
like i said the other interesting observation is that filipinos abroad, particularly from the states, will not buy where they came from, but in manila, pasig, laguna, etc. because they don’t want their relatives taking over.
tonio, i used to place great hopes in those coming back. anecdotally, though, far more slide back to the old ways as soon as they return.
Short term short the dollar. Sell sell sell. Watch if the Fed will lower interest rates and the ECB (Euro will raise theirs or not.)
Watch the gap in the Fed rate and the Libor rate. Watch the gap in the ECB rate and the Fed rate. If this widens with the dollar rate goes down and Euro and Libor rate goes higher pray hard and buy gold. If it narrows going forward that will be the signal to hold on to dollars again.
If the overnite rate of Libor shows a wide gap with the overnite rate of the Fed that means that banks are reluctant to lend to other banks. Bad situation.
BSP should stop fooling around with the exchange rate and stop supporting the dollar. As soon as people are convinced that the BSP is out of the managed float game then and only then will the true rate be left to market forces.
First the reason why prices in the domestic economy are not going down is simple. We have few sellers. They have inventories with sunk costs, meaning their buying prices were based on the old exchange rates. They have to sell out and buy at lower prices. Hence you have a rise in smuggling by some enterprising groups who see the arbitrage opportunities. You buy goods based on 55 to 1 and now the same is at 41 to 1 your inventories are already overpriced. Ouch….
The same holds true of local buyers of ROP dollar bonds. You bought dollar bonds at the old exchange rate of Php 55 to $1. Now your principal in pesos is depreciated at Php 41. to $1. Banks that hold these instruments in their capital base have already lost money. The BSP is now bailing them out as the new accounting rules come into effect in the next few years.
Will the BSP move heaven and earth to support the dollar. the answer is yes yes yes. The entire framework of the export of human resource which is a strategic policy of the state will collapse. Consumption taxes and customs taxes are taking and will continue to take a hit. Stronger peso less taxes and weaker dollar less income for a sizable sector of the consuming public.
So much for the so called floating rate of the BSP.
That is the reason why the PSE will keep going like gangbusters. It becomes substitute forex market. If you bought PLDT at 2,500 at 50 to 1 and now it is 3,000 or even the same price at 41 to 1 you get more dollars with less pesos even if the stock prices remain the same over a given period. Thus it will encourage more funds going into limited number of shares available.
This sort of thing is happening in all the financial markets in the entire world outside the U.S.
The world is hoping that this bump in the financial markets of the U.S. will not turn into a rout of the dollar which could lead to more serious consequences.
Right now it is the simple faith in the political institutions of the U.S. that is holding up the dollar. That and the hope that housing prices will stop their dangerous free fall and take the entire economy of the U.S. and the world into a full blown depression.
The interest rates abroad serve as the brain of the worlds
financial community. Do not trust the BSP. Unfortunately unlike in the more advanced economies here they are not accountable to Congress or to Parliament.
Just to clarify, the objective of the above, is to eliminate this…
‘Laissez faire’ without addressing inequality does little to enable the great majority of Filipinos to become productive.
hvrds, sorry i don’t follow you…as of today, is the peso undervalued or overvalued compared to the dollar?
“Mas ok pa rin sa Manila. I think the real estate boom is being driven in part by those who share my sentiments.”
Manila is indeed the place for you if your cup of tea includes:
(1) Potholed streets with raw sewage stewing in them.
(2) Cops who’d stop you for changing lanes inappropriately while turning a blind eye on monstrous buses risking hundreds of lives and disrupting entire lanes of traffic for kilometres.
(3) Stormwater drains and canals used for dumping raw sewage,
(4) Badly needing a shower after spending only 15 minutes outdoors
(5) People being constantly reminded by makeshift signs that it is illegal to urinate in public.
(6) Multiple tiers of traffic rule strictness — e.g., there is simply “No Parking” and then there is “STRICTLY No Parking”
… just to name a few.
That people prefer these above the relative order of Tokyo or New York goes far in explaining why Manila remains the bung-hole of a city that it is today.
– 😀
You know I find the contrasting styles of hvrds and benign0 an interesting study. Both are expats critical of contemporary Pinoy society, pointing out the warts, but whereas most regulars in MLQ3’s blog take hvrds seriously, they tend to look at our pal benny as some sort of clown, or at least a very bad standup comic. It must be the delivery. You read a benny comment and expect a rim shot from a snare drum — bada-boom.
I must admit No. 6 is funny. The rest are old.
“The rest are old”
Rizal’s *Noli me Tangere* is “old” too. But then its continued RELEVANCE speaks lots about how little Pinoys society had progressed since. 😉
Too bad though that all people can see in the truths I dish out is humour. Then again humour is about the only thing Pinoys can fall back on nowadays.
– 😀
Benign0, not to take anything away from Tokyo, Paris, Sydney, Singapore, Hongkong and the others, i really like those cities as well. I also agree that Manila needs a makeover. It’s just that i take a less utilitarian view when it comes to these things.
Too bad though that all people can see in the truths I dish out is humour.
Ummm… A slight correction, if I may: “Too bad though that all people can see in the truths I dish out is bad (or more accurately, hackneyed) humor.” Except for number 6. That one was truly funny.
But if it’s any consolation to you, good humor, especially the kind you dish, has a grounding in truth. So, rework your material so it’ll be truly be good humor, then maybe…
Also, don’t use smileys as if it were a laugh track. Anyone who ‘winks’ that much in real life tends to be seen as a dodgy character.
😀
The peso dollar rate is beyond the capacity of a small economy like the Philippines. If and when there will be a rush to dump the dollar the tidal wave will engulf the entire economy and sink us. Which is a good thing. This might force the country to revert back to reclaiming sovereignty over monetary policy to benefit the domestic economy. A mother of all monetary crisis is a world depression. The mother of all shock treatments.
No more Big Mike, GMA, Erap and the rest. No more PR gimmicks.
How to solve the problem of the dollar
By Fred Bergsten
Published: December 10 2007 19:24 | Last updated: December 10 2007 19:24
“The world economy faces an acute policy dilemma that, if mishandled, could bring on the mother of all monetary crises. Many dollar holders, including central banks and sovereign wealth funds as well as private investors, clearly want to diversify into other currencies. Since foreign dollar holdings total at least $20,000bn, even a modest realisation of these desires could produce a free fall of the US currency and huge disruptions to markets and the world economy. Fears of such an outcome have risen sharply in both official circles and the markets.”
“However, none of the countries into whose currencies the diversification would take place want to receive these inflows. The eurozone, the UK, Canada and Australia among others believe that their exchange rates are already substantially overvalued. But China and most of the other Asian countries continue to intervene heavily to keep their currencies from rising significantly. Hence, further large shifts out of the dollar could indeed push the floating currencies far above their equilibrium levels, generating new imbalances and a possibly severe slowdown in global growth.”
Bubbles will beget bubbles and more bubbles
and that will constrict investments in the productive sectors more.
In some sectors of the world there are huge glut of savings while in some these savings are causing massive liquidity that will require higher interest rates. So savings glut require lower interest rates while high liquidity require higher interest rates.
A global move to the gold exchange standard is one suggestion as proposed by Steve Forbes or as Bergsten suggests a move back to the SDR unit of currency under the IMF with a basket of the leading currencies as standard reserve currency for surplus savings to be stored.
The major countries of S. America are moving in that direction since there is still no consensus on a global scale.
What Bergsten is calling for is a new system to replace Bretton Woods.
The world is similarly in position to the conditions of the world right before the last depression.
hvrds, so i take it that you believe the dollar is still overvalued relative to the peso and that means that if the BSP allows the peso:dollar rate to ‘float’, the dollar will continue to depreciate relative to the peso i.e. a reverse of what happened during the Asian currency crisis in 1997?
in the eve of world war
“Also, don’t use smileys as if it were a laugh track. Anyone who ‘winks’ that much in real life tends to be seen as a dodgy character.”
Talaga naman oo.
Very well.
For you, Mr. cvj, I shall bend backwards and desist from using smileys.
Just for you, dude.
hvrds, from what i understand, we are no longer under Bretton Woods (since around 1970) which is why the world has been experiencing currency crises from time to time. i would’ve thought the solution would then be to go back to something like Bretton Woods. any clarification/correction would be welcome.
The dual citizenship has been implemented only about more than two years ago. This is only applicable for Filipino immigrants whose host countries allow dual citizenship.
And precisely, the reason why most of Filipino immigrants are reclaiming their Filipino citizenship back is because they like to buy properties in their own names and not in their dummy relatives’. Not all balikbayans apply for dual citizenship. Only those who wish to retire in the Philippines. So far, I believe that there is not a big number of people with dual citizenship.
The GCC countries currencies except for Kuwait are pegged to the dollar. China has a narrow peg so with HK. Japan makes sure its currency remains relatively weak vs. the dollar. The major economies of Euroland are also running trade surpluses with the U.S. If the dollar is weak why do the trade surplus in the U.S. persists. Simple, the U.S. dollar is the major international currency in the world and the U.S. does not have to buy foreign exchange to pay for their imports. Their economic debt is in their own currency. Hence you have a tremendous supply of dollars in the world economy from all those current account surplus and investments with and from the U.S. That is the privilege of empire.
The Philippine peso is not a player in the world economy. We are an ancillary economy to most of the Asian economies of Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea, Malaysia, PRC and of course the U.S. Most of our exports are actually theirs through our export platforms.
We are simply a proxy for the major economies in Asia and of course the U.S.
But wait we have the best caregivers and nurses in the world.
well, considering some of them are retiring and will be expecting to be waited upon hand and foot by maids and essentially live their lives in an envy-based caricature of the rich people they idolize… i wouldn’t be surprised.
but there are some good eggs out there sir. the returning diaspora may yet hold some surprises.
The original Keynesian idea of an international currency as a neutral unit such as gold or the Bancor which was the forerunner of the IMF SDR was repeatedly shot down by the privilege of empire.
But you will have to go through the U.S. treasury and take away the privilege of empire.
The countries that employ pegged rates and closed or managed capital accounts are using policies under the old Bretton Woods regime. Hence they have accumulated huge troves of dollars. Where will you store it apart from the U.S.? You will end it back to the U.S. hence you keep interest rates low for the U.S. economy.
But to keep the U.S. economy going and to keep paying for its deficits (budget and trade) you print money with nothing but the faith and credit of the U.S. government behind it. It helps if you are premiere economic power technologically speaking too with the state subsidizing your advances. Hence the best and the brightest will always move to the U.S. To space and beyond.
As I have said, buying condos is mostly for investment purposes only especially for those coming from the States.
These are not their first purchases especially if they are about to retire.
For one who has been accustomed to living in detached units in the US, living in high rise condo is a totally frightening experience.
The concept of condo in the Philippines is different from that of the US.
my experience sees it as a bit mixed. on the one hand i have my aunt and uncle waiting for their serendra unit… then you have that family down street in the old hometown and my mom with her ideas of a school in the province, so i don’t know… maybe some of them have this romanticized view of their twilight years being spent in the town of their birth… and the rest realize that they’re coming back to this country and will take a more practical approach. my elders in the diaspora seem to be evenly split, with part staying here (mainly in fort, would you believe?) and the rest going back to the province.
i guess this is dependent on what they remember of their old life here, before they left… and what the returnees feel they can still do in the country.
“maybe some of them have this romanticized view of their twilight years being spent in the town of their birth… and the rest realize that they’re coming back to this country and will take a more practical approach. my elders in the diaspora seem to be evenly split, with part staying here (mainly in fort, would you believe?) and the rest going back to the province.”
They’ll get a harsh reality check as soon as they open their tap and nothing but a loud burp comes out of it. Or when their sceptic tanks start overflowing. Or when the constant din of tricycles puttering up a hill starts to drive them up the wall.
Life in the Third World looks romantic when you are in the US. But take your first breath of the putrid humid air of Manila when you first step out of the airport and you will think again.
cat, i don’t get your comment that condo living in the states is different from here. i’ve lived in condos all my life both here and the states and there was absolutely no difference, except condos here are designed with maids in mind and in the states most aren’t.
something wrong with the website. look at my previous comment, only the quoted statement was published. argh..
anyway, these were the statements dropped from the comments.
my brother from australia stayed inside the hotel most of the time while in makati after their brief visit with relatives in bicol. the smog gave him headaches.
my retired friend who’s staying for good in the phils. preferred to stay in his mango orchard in cebu. the stink from manila bay clogs his sinus.
if i could, i wouldn’t live in metro manila, i’d live in baguio or davao, or wait until benedicto in negros occ. was developed (same climate as baguio, i hear).
mlq3,
the concept of co-ownerhip is the same. it is the structures that differ. condo buildings in the philippines are mostly high rise with more than ten stories. some are low-ceilinged that if you are claustrohpobic, you will suffer from your phobia.
in some states here in the us, especially those in the earthquake fault, condo buildings are only four stories with many buildings in one community.
Re condos
It seems that prices of condos in Manila or Makati and almost everywhere in Metro Manila depreciate. This is a concept I don’t really understand.
I’ve decided to divest and have asked my real estate broker friend to sell my real estate assets including my condo in Makati but she tells me that value of condo units in Makati and elsewhere around Makati depreciate or have depreciated and not to expect profit at all. She also tells me that rent income has also been decreasing over the years (because of stiff competition)! What happens, she tells me, is that new buildings like in Rockwell have a stable high rent yield for 3 to 5 years but when another condo sprouts, “older” buildings’ rent income takes a beating. Incredible!
(One thing I find is the extraordinary cost of building or association dues — disproportionately higher in my book compared to what you pay in Paris or in London.)
In the bigger capitals in W Europe, you are looking at 7 to 9% return on rent income alone plus the added real estate value when you sell, which, really, if you think about it, why invest in real estate in Metro Manila at all.
Price value of condo units in Paris or in any capital in Western Europe even in a brand new building tends to appreciate and will almost never ever depreciate. They will always be a good and worthy investment. So, why invest in Manila at all?
I also “invested” in a couple of companies (IT and engineering services) started by friends 10 years ago. Not only have my investment not yielded any “substantial” returns, they’ve alsmost become nil in value.
Investment in the Philippines is a very very risky affair — not worth it when you know that if you put your cash in a fixed time deposit alone in Europe, you will obtain up to 5% PA so why do it in RP?
The Cat,
“my brother from australia stayed inside the hotel most of the time while in makati after their brief visit with relatives in bicol. the smog gave him headaches.”
I don’t blame him — I used to do the same when I worked in Manila (1 to 2 weeks a month). Tried to hold all meetings in hotel to avoid the smog. My sister who’s moved from LA to Canada (to escape the smoggy US metropolis) complains that she always leaves Manila terribly ill; last year she visited Manila and left very ill, had to be confined for a few days in hospital on her return home.
“Life in the Third World looks romantic when you are in the US. But take your first breath of the putrid humid air of Manila when you first step out of the airport and you will think again.” — Benigno
So true!
If I were to retire in a Third World country, I’d choose Sabah.
cat, i see. we were mainly on the east coast and the condos were manila-sized or bigger.
Wonder if RP gold medalists in the SEA are all military…
That is a very keen observation. Agree and agree.
perhaps, if sufficient number of sojourners came back for good after spending years and years living in better-run societies and with no-nonsense citizenry, it could rub-off their positive experiences and attitudes with the locals who have resisted self-reform and development. i sense that a lot of these returnees, who are mentally and physically able to do so, would want to spend their “twilight years” doing something worthwhile to help the motherland they have temporarily left behind. because they would, for the most part, be financially set-up, they could concentrate on civic endeavors without the distractions of trying to keep their own body and soul together. perhaps, some would pursue voluntarism and pro bono work using skills and insights they have acquired in foreign lands. but most of all, they can serve as models for good citizenship, asking “what they can do for their country”, rather than “what the country can do for them. maybe, the words “patriotism” and “love of country” will cease to be just empty platitudes by then.
We could just end up neighbors, Manolo, but I have to confirm no aeta lives were lost because of this new development in Negros OC.
is the clean air act really in place then?
“I don’t blame him  I used to do the same when I worked in Manila (1 to 2 weeks a month). Tried to hold all meetings in hotel to avoid the smog. My sister who’s moved from LA to Canada (to escape the smoggy US metropolis) complains that she always leaves Manila terribly ill; last year she visited Manila and left very ill, had to be confined for a few days in hospital on her return home.”
Think of all that LEAD in the air. It’s probably hard to quantify, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we find that every new generation of Pinoy growing up in Manila has a measurably lower IQ than the previous generation. Factor in the increasingly vacuous content pumped into their heads by the Philippine Media, and the increasing availability of technological time-wasters like MySpace and Friendster and Voila — we get the pre-eminent intellectual vacuum of the Far East.
And don’t get anyone started on Manila’s dubious water supply.
But then having said all of the above and considering the recent raft of comments on Manila’s plight, let’s step back one moment and re-visit what someone said previously:
“Same here, I’ve worked in Singapore for the past 4 years. I’ve worked in India and Malaysia, travelled to Europe, US, Japan, Australia. Mas ok pa rin sa Manila. ”
– 😀
ehem, Mr. cvj, pls pardon the smiley as I couldn’t help but smile in this instance…
not only did the conjuangcos circumvent agrarian reform, they reneged on an agreement upon buying the property from tabacalera that said the property would eventually be distributed to small farmers…
“i sense that a lot of these returnees, who are mentally and physically able to do so, would want to spend their “twilight years†doing something worthwhile to help the motherland they have temporarily left behind. because they would, for the most part, be financially set-up, they could concentrate on civic endeavors without the distractions of trying to keep their own body and soul together. perhaps, some would pursue voluntarism and pro bono work using skills and insights they have acquired in foreign lands. but most of all, they can serve as models for good citizenship, asking “what they can do for their countryâ€Â, rather than “what the country can do for them. maybe, the words “patriotism†and “love of country†will cease to be just empty platitudes by then.”
Here’s another scenario:
By the time they’d come back to the Philippines returnees would by then have expended their most productive years — the period when their minds and bodies were at their sharpest — delivering their talent to fuelling the mighty industrial and commercial engines of their host societies. The elite of these group (those engaged in professions involving design, innovation, and development) would have contributed significantly to the continued expansion of the capital bases of these societies.
What the Philippines will be gaining as these “heroes” come home will be their pension funds. Beyond that, however, these people collectively are no more than liabilities to their former host societies who are only too glad to return the used discharged shells — so to speak — back into the recycle bin (aging populations are, in fact, a liability and an increasing economic risk to the developed world). So the cash will come in but we all know how pathetic Filipinos’ track records are with converting cash to permanent assets.
It’s win-lose in favour of the developed world. They get to harvest Pinoy warm bodies during their most productive years, and then come back — welcomed back with open arms — in the islands as used shells.
It’s pathetic how, having squandered the heroism of past “heroes”, we now look to a bunch of returning old farts as the next Messiah. If we fail to capitalise on today’s “heroes” what makes us think the next wave will be much appreciated?
“It’s pathetic how, having squandered the heroism of past “heroesâ€Â, we now look to a bunch of returning old farts as the next Messiah. If we fail to capitalise on today’s “heroes†what makes us think the next wave will be much appreciated?” — benign0
Hahahah!