The Inquirer editorial yesterday (Queendom for a horse) took a critical look at AFP chief’s term extended.The editorial says the possibility that Esperon will serve longer than an additional three months should be considered. The editorial cites the following laws and decrees: Presidential Decree 1638 as amended by Presidential Decree 1650, and Republic Act 8186 as amended by Republic Act 9188, as well as the provisions of the Constitution (since Esperon term extension possible only in case of war – Palace). It also makes reference to GMA’s speech during the AFP Change of Command Ceremony, November 28, 2002.
Today, the news is Esperon: 4 months ahead may be bloody: General expects stiff NPA resistance. Whether this is posturing or Esperon’s real intention, remains to be seen. But if he really does believe the AFP is capable of liquidating the NPA in the hills, what would be his basis for this?
Randy David gives us a clue. In The tragedy of the rural poor, says something unprecedented is going on. We’re used to the sight of people moving to the city from the province, attracted by the glitter and opportunity of life in the big city. David says what’s going on today, though, is that people are moving to the city not because they are attracted by opportunity, but because they are fleeing the collapse of rural life in the provinces. There is a difference, he says, and it is troubling -an unintended consequence, he says, of defective land reform. This reminds me of an assertion by the economist Mike Alba who pointed out no one is quite sure, because the government mechanisms for monitoring it have broken down, of how much formerly productive agricultural land has been converted to real estate and other purposes. He also points out, and if he knows it the military knows it, too, that efforts to organize the peasantry are at their lowest ebb since the 40’s and 50’s.
On a related note, see Solita Monsod’s Two challenges, where she says the ranks of the truly poor have shrunk while most Filipinos have become slightly poorer across all classes.
Politically, the weekend had news that Arroyo douses plot vs Speaker via phone call — Ermita and that as Congress resumes session, GMA tells Rainbow Coalition to stand by JdV. The scuttlebutt, however, is that the changes in the executive and legislative departments are scheduled for later this year. Among the targets are Lakas stalwarts. Supposedly Executive Secretary Ermita will finally be eased out around May, to be replaced by the current DILG Secretary, Puno. Speaker de Venecia, on the other hand, will be removed from the speakership near the end of the year. Meanwhile, attempts to amend the Constitution will gather pace in the middle of the year.
Now this is what interests me about the other big weekend news, Melo named Comelec chair. His appointment, to my mind, can’t be evaluated properly until the other presidential appointments to the Comelec are announced. And even then, it all depends on whether the administration will then send signals it wants stability until 2010 or will pursue constitutional amendments aggressively. If it pursues amendments then the first task of the new Comelec Chairman and the new commissioners will be to preside over a plebiscite that will be manned by the same mid and lower level Comelec people tasked with the 2004 and 2007 elections. Which means individuals like Christian Monsod, groups like the PPCRV, and even the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila (who strongly backs the candidacy of Howie Calleja, for example, for a Comelec commissioner slot) might find themselves quite disappointed with their nominees, after Appointment of Melo as COMELEC head welcomed. But if constitutional amendments don’t take off, there is room for moderate optimism for 2010.
My column for today is Individualistic yet part of the whole. One of the books I mentioned, Profiles Encourage, is reviewed by Rodel Rodis. See also two commentaries in the papers: Filipino Diaspora as a Form of Revolt and Going beyond ‘Same same’. You may also want to participate in Janette Toral’s Important Issues on Philippines 2010 Election.
Speaking of elections, overseas, Obama’s big win keeps his hopes alive. Interesting reading in Slate’s The Super Tuesday Strategy Guide.
Concerning the prospects of an American recession affecting our part of the world, see Asia Won’t Get Away Clean in The Asia Sentinel, as well as Live it Up, Asia! (which doesn’t apply to us).
And for future discussion: Parag Khanna’s Waving Goodbye to Hegemony:
At best, America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing – and losing – in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules – their own rules – without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.
The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an “East-West” struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe. What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle.
In Europe’s capital, Brussels, technocrats, strategists and legislators increasingly see their role as being the global balancer between America and China. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, calls it “European patriotism.” The Europeans play both sides, and if they do it well, they profit handsomely. It’s a trend that will outlast both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the self-described “friend of America,” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, regardless of her visiting the Crawford ranch. It may comfort American conservatives to point out that Europe still lacks a common army; the only problem is that it doesn’t really need one. Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and begging to join?
With the new Big Three, the author then says the task is to identify the “Second World”:
To really understand how quickly American power is in decline around the world, I’ve spent the past two years traveling in some 40 countries in the five most strategic regions of the planet – the countries of the second world. They are not in the first-world core of the global economy, nor in its third-world periphery. Lying alongside and between the Big Three, second-world countries are the swing states that will determine which of the superpowers has the upper hand for the next generation of geopolitics. From Venezuela to Vietnam and Morocco to Malaysia, the new reality of global affairs is that there is not one way to win allies and influence countries but three: America’s coalition (as in “coalition of the willing”), Europe’s consensus and China’s consultative styles. The geopolitical marketplace will decide which will lead the 21st century…
Second-world countries are distinguished from the third world by their potential: the likelihood that they will capitalize on a valuable commodity, a charismatic leader or a generous patron. Each and every second-world country matters in its own right, for its economic, strategic or diplomatic weight, and its decision to tilt toward the United States, the E.U. or China has a strong influence on what others in its region decide to do. Will an American nuclear deal with India push Pakistan even deeper into military dependence on China? Will the next set of Arab monarchs lean East or West? The second world will shape the world’s balance of power as much as the superpowers themselves will.
As for our part of the world,
America may seek Muslim allies for its image and the “war on terror,” but these same countries seem also to be part of what Samuel Huntington called the “Confucian-Islamic connection.” What is more, China is pulling off the most difficult of superpower feats: simultaneously maintaining positive ties with the world’s crucial pairs of regional rivals: Venezuela and Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. At this stage, Western diplomats have only mustered the wherewithal to quietly denounce Chinese aid policies and value-neutral alliances, but they are far from being able to do much of anything about them.
This applies most profoundly in China’s own backyard, Southeast Asia. Some of the most dynamic countries in the region Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are playing the superpower suitor game with admirable savvy. Chinese migrants have long pulled the strings in the region’s economies even while governments sealed defense agreements with the U.S. Today, Malaysia and Thailand still perform joint military exercises with America but also buy weapons from, and have defense treaties with, China, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation by which Asian nations have pledged nonaggression against one another. (Indonesia, a crucial American ally during the cold war, has also been forming defense ties with China.) As one senior Malaysian diplomat put it to me, without a hint of jest, “Creating a community is easy among the yellow and the brown but not the white.” Tellingly, it is Vietnam, because of its violent histories with the U.S. and China, which is most eager to accept American defense contracts (and a new Intel microchip plant) to maintain its strategic balance. Vietnam, like most of the second world, doesn’t want to fall into any one superpower’s sphere of influence.
It’s a lengthy article but well worth a read.
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hawaiianguy : Are you really in Hawaii? I know that there is an “Independence for Texas” movement: a number of the leaders and “cells” are, in fact, on the FBI tracking sheets. Is there an “Independence for Hawaii” movement?
hawaiianguy : Forget my question. Wikipedia points to “Nation of Hawaii”, “Ka Lahui” and others. Some seek total independence; others seek “nation-within-a-nation” (similar to the status of Native American tribes but based purely on ancestry).
federation with indonesia is a longstanding dream. mlq proposed it during the war, and the proposal was revived in the maphilindo years.
Minor side-note: There are Alaskan separatists, too.
UPnS, re “independence for Hawaii”
Sort of, but they call it “Hawaiian sovereignty movement.” Kind of “nation with a nation” concept, not really an independent or separate state. Secession is futile now, residents would not go to war or launch an offensive to make this happen.
The Akaka Bill that bolsters this movement began in 2000 (still in Congress now). It seeks recognition for the rights of Native Hawaiians, much like what the feds already granted to some American Indian nations.
While the Hawaiians were not bombed to submission like the American Indians, their last monarch (Queen Lili’uokalani) was deposed in 1893. Later she was forced to abdicate her Kingdom after spending time behind bars. Hawaii became a republic a year in 1894, affirming the “Bayonet Constitution†written earlier by the white men, and was eventually annexed by Uncle Sam in 1898.
Guess the strategic connection of Hawaii and the Philippines.
Hawaii became a republic in 1894, affirming the “Bayonet Constitution†written earlier by the white men but opposed by the Queen. The new Republic was eventually annexed by Uncle Sam in 1898, becoming a Territorial Possession like the Philippine Islands and others occupied by Spain in the Pacific.
ha?
the beauty of stratified random sampling is that you’d be able to compare and show the normals pattern between two time series. unless there was an effective population program to curtail or to encourgage human production, one can assume that the mean average family size of filipinos between 2003 and 2006 would not be statistically different. i reckon the mean size would be 5, standard deviation of 2. so why would i be bothered if there was an increase in the number of children of ONE family who is unlikely to be sampled again in the next survey?
“Bata pa kasi”
Argumentum ad Hominem.
hawaiianguy: thanks!
nash: am sure you’ve heard — Rudy Guiliani Florida-or-nothing bet imploded!!!! About 2 weeks ago, I heard a commentator remark — Rudy : people liked him, until they heard him talk. 🙄
IF you do not know how the GDP is derived, don’t start with me.
This is not one of your SWS survey where they test the perceptions.
DOn’t talk to me about stratified sampling and margin of error if you are not very well verse in this topic. I hate debating with people who insist what little they know and try to be an expert.
Nash
Am just to get at the point that CVJ has a very idealistic view of how things CAN work considering what he wants to impose on the world. That’s why I said “bata pa kasi” I do understand why it’s Argumentum ad hominem.
C aT
Galing mo sumagot!
C at
Dami kasi nagpapaka expert…pero ang pagka expert nila at the level of theory lang….di naman sila on the ground…alam mo naman sa school, maraming mga assumptions di ba? 😉
Silent Waters,
cvj is older than me.
well, I will admit, I am sure to be older than him…I am jaded na kasi as I’ve seen them all… 😉
thanks silent waters but honestly, I hate myself for writing that kind of remark,
it is just some people by now should know me better. i don’t join the discussion not unless i am well-versed with the topic. and there are just some commenters who do not realize that yet.
tama ka diyan, ca’t. karamihan, basta may masabi lang, kahit baluktot hindi na sana baleng mag-egotrip, basta may katuturan ang sinasabi. away-ideya and kailangan natin, hindi away-personalan.
Ca t & cvj: The metrics being tracked are NOT per-household. So a 30% increase in a household’s food expenditures (because of 2 add’l mouths to feed) does not translate into a 30% rise in food expenditures per-capita.
There is a NEDA report out in the web, and it states: the average nominal incomes of families in the bottom 30% grew faster at 17.5% compared to families in the upper 70% which grew by 15.9% from 2003 to 2006.
Regarding OFW remittances, the PCIJ blogsite has one reader stating “…, based on the NSO questionnaire, cash receipts, gifts, support, relief and other forms of assistance from abroad form part of family income. This category of income source is specifically classified into:
1. Cash received from family members who are contract workers
2. Cash received from family members who are working abroad
3. Pensions, retirement, workmen’s compensation and other benefits
4. Cash gifts, support, relief, etc. from abroad
5. Dividends from investment abroad
So the question becomes how to reconcile the following two sentences:
Monsod/Inquirer article says : “… from 2003 to 2006, what with average incomes of the bottom 30 percent decreasing”
NEDA, citing FIES, saying : “the average nominal incomes of families in the bottom 30% grew faster at 17.5%… from 2003 to 2006”
first rule in critical analysis: search for the original source and its rationale. it’s plain and simple academic rule.
fies=family income expediture SURVEY. one is bound by its parameters and limitations, and so was how monsod constrained her discussion.
so bencard, which part of my thread was i ego tripping? like did i post a resume of my academic background: consultant dito, consultant doon, or that ‘d announce to all and sundry that i won’t be able to join the forum for the weekend because i have work to do with this ibmnopqrst company? like as if this appeal to authority strengthens one’s argument?
i reacted only to the question i quoted, and contextualized it from where it is ORIGINALLY sourced. now refute me on this basis. but then again what do i know about multivariate statistics, right?
darn, i don’t know how to insert benigno’s wink-wink.
i-ni-emilie : if you remove % from the keystrokes %:wink: % (and don’t forget the space before 1st colon and the space after last colon), you get 😉
inodoro n.e., i was not referring to you, i’m sorry. yes, i can attest to the fact that you have never engaged in any sort of ego-tripping in this blog. we have differences of opinions but i always respect your point of view as, i’m sure, you do mine.
Ca t: No worries!! I think we’ve synched up. a 30% increase in a household’s food expenditures (because of 2 add’l mouths to feed) does not translate into a 30% rise in food expenditures per-capita
😉 thanks up n
got that test right, hehe.
bencard: copy that.
Regarding FIES for 2006 vs 2003. Conclusions have been made and articles published since October 2007. Back then, PDIC wrote:
“NATIONAL SCENE
Poorest Pinoys spending more, earning less. Higher prices have taken their toll on the poor. The poorest families are now spending more and earning less, according to the latest preliminary results of the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) Tuesday. The FIES showed that poor families, or those belonging to the bottom 30-percent income group, spent P153,000 last year but only earned P148,000. While these figures are higher than the P125,000-worth income and P128,000-worth expenditures in 2003, the difference is higher in 2006 at P5,000 a year than in 2003’s P3,000 a year. The NSO said for every P100 spent by these economic sectors in 2006, P59 went to food, compared with only P48 in 2003. Consequently, there was a decrease in the share of other expenditure items like rent, which dropped to 9 percent from 12.7 percent.”
inodoro: you just did wink. There are others, for example, Instead of wink, you can use:
grin to get 😀 smile to get 🙂
cry to get 😥 sad to get 🙁
oops to get 😳 and then there is cool 😎
up n: mind also sharing the the codes for these?
ah, ok, you just gave them. 😀
I just found the FIES numbers and, using my dictionary, Monsod had obfuscated. The FIES tables used 3 categories : income, expenditures and savings. Income will include wages, salaries, OFW remittances that a family may have received from relatives. Expenditures include food, cigarette, housing costs, education costs, etc. Savings = Income less expenditures.
The FIES table show that per-household-income between 2003 and 2006 INCREASED for every decile. For the lowest/poorest decile, the increase was 27.3%.
Even after adjusting for inflation (adjustment factor is 1.19612) income still increased. The 27.3% number gets lowered to still a positive 6.4% number.
As expected, EXPENDITURES also increased. The per-household expenditure for decile 1/poorest went from 48 to 61 (a 27.1% increase). This means income for decile-1 went up faster than their expenditures! {However, expenditures went up faster than income for deciles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.}
You can find the website by doing a google for “fies philippines 2006 FAMILY INCOME AND EXPENDITURE SURVEY”.
Monsod obfuscated by using a terminology “real income” which resembled a line-item in FIES. Monsod not only did not clarify that her “real income” does not conform to standard accounting terminology, she shifted the discussion to GDP after planting the “income had decreased” statement.
UPn, i think Monsod understands that GDP per capita income is a different measure from Average Family income as gathered from the FIES. She was not saying that both are identical. However, since both are measures of income (though using different approaches), she is questioning why one shows an increase and the other shows a decrease.
Regarding your stats (at 8:28 above), can you provide the link so i can verify?
BTW, real income is a term used to contrast with nominal income. The latter normalizes for the effects of inflation between the periods being compared. That’s standard in economics.
Upn, the last paragraph in my above comment addresses your comment at 3:06AM above. It is disingenuous for NEDA to trumpet nominal income because a large part of the increase could be simply due to inflation.
cvj, here’s the original source. you can also peruse tables on the sidebar.
http://www.census.gov.ph/data/pressrelease/2007/ie06tx.html
I read Monsod’s article. There’s no mention of “GDP” there, only FIES.
UPnS, the “increases” in all deciles are illusory and deceptive, if you don’t factor in, say, the consumer price index, inflation, or the number of families that share the economic pie (to get per capita).
For example, CPI tells you how much you can buy with P100 in 2006 and 2003. Apparently, your P100 in 2003 can’t buy you the same goods and services 3 yrs later. That’s what “real” income translates into.
InE: Yes, you’re right. Better go to the “original” source, rather than rely on the analysis made by others (like S. Monsod, Carmelita Ericta, etc.).
cvj: The links (for the sources) are –
1) http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/2006/ie0604.htm
2) http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/2006/ie0602.htm
3) http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/2006/ie0605.htm
Thanks Hawaiianguy!
From the percentages you quoted above, i believe you are referring to Table 2a which is actually not the right table for our discussion. That table shows total income and not average income per family (Look at the table headings). The latter is what is relevant to our discussion. Average income per family, which is shown in Table 2b. If you apply the adjustment factor of 1.19612 on the per-household expenditure for decile 1/poorest…
Current Prices:
2006 – 32
2003 – 27
You will see that there is a decrease as per below:
Constant Prices:
2006 – 26.75 (32 divided by 1.19612)
2003 – 27
As Hawaiianguy pointed out above, adjusted for inflation, the poorest decile experienced a decrease of income per family.
(Hawaiianguy, just to clarify, my comment above is a response to UPn Student’s comment at 8:28am.)
hawaiianguy: (1) I factored in 2003-to-2006 inflation in my computations. For all deciles, even after adjusting for inflation (adjustment factor is 1.19612) income still increased. What Monsod said in her article is:
Which brings us to the bad news, which we all have already heard: average family incomes decreased in real terms (2) cvj/Ca t got caught into guess-timating about the “gdp anomaly” because of the Monsod article.
cvj: I’m disappointed that Monsod alluded to a nebulous “gdp per capita income” anomaly and did not provide the magnitude of the anomaly or even the base numbers.
We can actually go back to the official statistics and verify the anomaly for ourselves. From there, we could see that from 2003 to 2006, per capita GDP increasedL by 10.6 percent while average income per family decreased by 2.8 percent.
BTW, if we do the numbers, the same sort of divergence between FIES and per capita GDP can be seen on the 1997 to 200 and 2000 to 2003 periods. Only the 1994 to 1997 period shows a consistent increase between the two.
cvj / hawaiianguy: let me find my Excel worksheet. I may have done a “NEDA” and worked with Total-Income…
You may be looking at the wrong table (Table 2a). You need to apply your adjustment factor on Table 2b instead.
Got it! Per-household statistics becomes Bottom-decile1:income up 18.5%, decile10 up 14.9% (both below inflation 19.1%)
Expenditures: bottom decile1 up 20.7%, decile10 up 19.7%.
So everyone’s income got “clobbered” by inflation. But the top-decile “fared the worst” 🙄 (which supports GINI having improved)
(Ninth-decile of P290K per year income is $
Income-equality worse for Philippines than Thailand.
Pct-share of household income top 20% … RP 53%, Thai 49%
Pct-share of household income bottom 40% RP 13%, Thai 16%
UPn Student (at 1:50 pm), yes everyone’s incomes got “clobbered” by inflation. That’s the reason why Monsod is asking why does per capita GDP reflect the opposite. If everyone’s incomes (from poorest to richest) did not keep up with inflation, then why did per capita GDP increase over the same period? That just doesn’t add up.