#TheCabinetIWant

Since Presidential candidates are beginning to reveal their preferences for some Cabinet members, citizens might as well reveal their own wish lists. Here is my list (in no particular order):

ES/PMS/OCS: Gov. Joey Salceda [why]

DILG: Former Sen. Richard "Dick" Gordon [why]

DND: Clarita Carlos [why]

DBM: Former Rep. Edcel Lagman [why]

DoF: BSP Gov. Amado Tetangco [why]

DFA: Former DND Sec. Gilbert Teodoro [why]

DSWD: Rep. Leni Robredo [why]

DPWH: Sec. Rogelio Singson [why]

NEDA: Manuel F. Montes [why]

DTI: Manuel V. Pangilinan [why]

DOLE: Former Rep. Walden Bello [why]
DOT (Transportation): USec. Teodoro Encarnacion [why]
DICT: Diosdado Banatao [why]

DoE: Rowaldo Del Mundo [why]

DA: Former Sec. Cielito Habito [why]
DAR: Rep. Neri Colmenares [why]

DENR: Antonio Oposa, Jr. [why]
DOH: Former USec. Madeleine Valera [why]

PCOO: Glenda Gloria [why]

PCDSPO: USec. Manuel "Manolo" Quezon III [why]

Deputy Presidential Spokesperson: Karen Jimeno [why]

DoJ: Solicitor-General Florin Hilbay [why]

DOST: Alfredo Mahar Lagmay [why]

DepEd: Randy David [why]

CHED: Former UPSE Dean Emmanuel De Dios [why]

DoT (Tourism): Yolanda Ong [why]

I have also in mind other individuals for major government posts which are not necessarily Cabinet rank, but deeply impacts the delivery of government services.

HUDCC: Felino A. Palafox, Jr. [why]

BSP: BSP Dep. Gov. Diwa Guinigundo [why]

NAPC: Former NAPC VC Ana Maria Nemenzo [why]
PhilHealth: UPSE Dean Orville Solon [why]

MMDA: Benjamin Dela Peña [why]

SSS: HDMF President and CEO Darlene Berberabe [why]

Note that I have not consulted these people when I made this list, though I sure hope they would agree to accept the Cabinet post if they are offered. I also have many people in mind as Undersecretaries or Deputy Director Generals or Vice Presidents, etc. of these institutions. Unfortunately, one blog post won't be enough.

Profiles:

Joey Salceda
Executive Secretary
Presidential Management Staff
Office of the Cabinet Secretary



Duterte offered Joey Salceda the post of NEDA Chief should he win, but it would be a disservice to the Filipino people if the vast array of competencies the Governor has - from economic, technical, political, local, etc. - will only be deployed in one specific aspect of government. Gov. Salceda can deliver more for the people as concurrent Executive Secretary, Chief of the Presidential Management Staff (the clearing house for all policy decisions of the President), and the Cabinet Secretary. These three positions are better lodged under one office, the OES, with undersecretaries manning the two major functions (PMS, OCS) and assistant secretaries manning the sub-functions.

Prior to his stint as Government of Albay, he was a three-term Representative, serving as Chair of the Committee on Trade and Industry and Vice Chair of the Committees on Ways and Means and Economic Affairs. In 2007, he became President Arroyo' Presidential Chief of Staff, and was often name-dropped as a member of President Arroyo's unofficial braintrust. Before he became a politician, the management engineering graduate from Ateneo was Research Director of UBS Warburg - a division of Swiss Bank Corporation, and was voted as one of the top five analysts in a 1996 survey of Philippine fund managers. [go back to top]

Aquino’s Legacy: Exclusive Growth, Ineffectual Bureaucracy

An Assessment of the Aquino III government (2010-2016)

James Matthew Miraflor

Vice President, Freedom from Debt Coalition

The verdict is in.

If there is one catch-phrase that can summarize the legacy of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in his half-a-decade rule, it is this: “exclusive growth via an ineffectual bureaucracy”. A growth dictated by the moods of global market amid worsening poverty and stagnating inequality levels, and the failure of the bureaucracy to even spend the money it was able to collect to arrest poverty – these cap the legacy of who was once touted as a savior of Philippine democracy and commonweal from the dark years of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Did Aquino III measure up?

We argue that this is not just an accident of history that Aquino III failed to fulfill his mantra of “kung walang korap, walang mahirap”. Granting that we have made strides in the fight against corruption – a statement that is made with some reservation given the proliferation of patrimonialism in Congress and the national government agencies – it would have been simply illogical to assume that those strides alone will translate to better welfare for the rest of the Filipino people. Rather, we insist that the failures of Aquino III are deeply rooted to its philosophy of government – the vision it constructed when it translated its “social contract” into the 2010-2016 Philippine Development Plan (PDP).

Progressive groups such as the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) already criticized the 2010-2016 PDP from its inception, saying that it is weak on asset reform and fails to construct the economic underpinnings of a true “straight path” and “inclusive growth”. NEDA, under the neoliberal Director-General Cayetano Paderanga, basically ripped-off the agenda of Arangkada Philippines, a document prepared by the Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines (see letter from JFC to Paderanga here). This meant that the resulting PDP basically champions the interest of big capital over the interest of the Filipino masses. That the Aquino administration would end its term with increasing number of poor citizens in a growing economy demonstrates the bias it has set for itself when it began.

Nash, Lichauco, and Steering a Post-EDSA Economy

by James Matthew Miraflor

Deaths of great intellectuals diminish us all, but more so the scholars who are the main conduits of their work. In a span of a few days, students of the Philippine economy are shocked by the demise of two important paragons of the field – first, nationalist economist Alejandro Lichauco, and then game theory pioneer John Nash. The loss is simply incalculable.

Separated by miles and interests, the two celebrated economists used their Ivy League training to interpret and shape a world in conflict. Both are products of the Cold War, yet their ideas have persisted in a modern age of computer-driven, high-volume stock trading and post-WTO regional trade partnerships. While Nash is known mostly in microeconomics textbooks and Lichauco via word-of-mouth stories of Marcos dictatorship survivors, both have made their in impact in the minds of the Filipinos who keenly follow the country’s economic development.

Anyone interested in Philippine’s escape from the so-called “Middle Income trap” cannot afford to ignore the lives and contributions of these two illustrious economists. It is now more than ever – in a world of uncertainty, hegemonic overtures, and political machinations – that we should review the lessons of Nash and Lichauco. Game theory and nationalist economics are indispensable items in our toolbox as we chart the Philippine’s economic future amid multidimensional issues of China’s territorial expansionism, the Mindanao conflict amid ASEAN geopolitics (read this, and this), and America’s seductive offer for trans-Pacific trade.

Bangsamoro, the Devolution Failure, and India-style Federalism: A Case for Asymmetric Autonomy and Strategic Reapportionment

by James Matthew Miraflor*

The process is moving. Before 2012 ended, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III signed Executive Order No. 120 creating a Transition Commission (TC). The TC will supposedly draft the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law stipulated in the Framework Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

This is indeed a breath of fresh air to a land scented by the smell of blood and war. GPH Negotiator and now Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen, a former Dean of the UP College of Law, was able to garb the whole process with political legitimacy and language of legality. If we are to accept a legal realist position, it is expected that the Supreme Court will decide in favor of ending the conflict and allow the evolution of a legal narrative for self-determination. Insisting on a constitutional change as a requisite to actualizing the agreement may end up compromising the gains for peace.

The Proposed Bangsamoro Core Territory based on the GHP-MILF Framework of Agreement.
Mindanews Graphics by Keith Bacongco. From here. 

But no doubt, the implementation of the Framework Agreement will raise questions on constitutionality and the framework's compatibility with our existing unitary system. No doubt, proposals for converting our current form of governance from unitary to federal will once again fill the pages of our dailies. It is inevitable then that we ask: would a shift to a federal system really be better for the Philippines? And if we do decide to shift, what model of federalism should we adopt?

These questions are asked in a context of a widely perceived failure in devolution and trends of increasing recentralization in health, social welfare, and local governance after the landmark Local Government Code of 1991. This essay argues that while federalism can be a plausible model for the country, it should be asymmetrically implemented (giving some territories more liberties than others) - following India's model. A strategic mix of recentralization and devolution, following some principles from the concept of Optimal Currency Areas (OCA) and urban agglomeration, is thus proposed as a way forward in implementing a reapportionment of political boundaries under asymmetric federalism.

The World according to Friedman: 2012 Geopolitical Analysis on US, China, Germany, and Japan

Clearly, for geopolitics, 2012 did not signal the world's end, but only its tumultuous continuity. Major economies of the world had seen their governments either replaced or reestablished - Barack Obama in the United States, Xi Jinping in People's Republic of China, and Shinzō Abe in Japan. Newsweek issued its last print issue, with the iconic hashtag sounding the death knell to non-online publishing. European Union remains to be stuck in a debilitating debt crisis. The UN General Assembly approves a motion granting Palestine non-member observer state status.

From here.

As we close this year, it is but fitting to listen to one of the world's best geopolitical minds  as he speaks on the state of the world, as well as the history and future of US, China, Germany and Japan. Let us all take a peek at the important insights George Friedman of Stratfor shared to us in 2012: 

The State of the World: A Framework 
By George Friedman | February 21, 2012

Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a new series on the national strategies of today's global power and other regional powers. This installment establishes a framework for understating the current state of the world. 

The evolution of geopolitics is cyclical. Powers rise, fall and shift. Changes occur in every generation in an unending ballet. However, the period between 1989 and 1991 was unique in that a long cycle of human history spanning hundreds of years ended, and with it a shorter cycle also came to a close. The world is still reverberating from the events of that period.

On Dec. 25, 1991, an epoch ended. On that day the Soviet Union collapsed, and for the first time in almost 500 years no European power was a global power, meaning no European state integrated economic, military and political power on a global scale. What began in 1492 with Europe smashing its way into the world and creating a global imperial system had ended. For five centuries, one European power or another had dominated the world, whether Portugal, Spain, France, England or the Soviet Union. Even the lesser European powers at the time had some degree of global influence.

Responding to a Planetary Emergency: Global Partnerships and Global Struggles

It is not just because it is 2012. The threat of radical climactic change is now not just a mere scientific proposition. The world's worst polluter, the United States, was the last victim of a severe weather disturbance - hurricane Sandy a.ka. the "Frankenstorm" - which battered New Jersey and several other states in the East Coast. Ironically, it came just weeks after defeated Republic presidential candidate Mitt Romney mocked President-elect Barack Obama for promising "to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet".

The UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) 18 in Doha, Qatar on the last week of November to the first week of December this year is seen by some as our final hope to save world - our final hope to deeply cut global greenhouse gas emissions to prevent catastrophic global warming. As such, movements around the world prepared as coordinated "Global Week of Action" this week to reiterate its message to the governments of the world - in particular, to the recalcitrant governments of the North.

It is thus fortunate that I was invited to speak on "MDG 8- Global Partnership" for the “MDG Youth Training Program” being organized by MDG Achievement Fund in partnership with UP-NCPAG Student Government. The training seeks to educate university students on the MDGs and provide them an opportunity to draft an action plan for the MDGs. This is a good opportunity to encourage our students to join the Global Week of Action and champion an effective global partnership to stop climate change.

Here is my presentation:

Responding to Planetary Emergencies through Global Partnership, Global Struggles: Climate Justice and MDG 8 on Prezi

You may also click here to download. The presentation is derived from the materials of Jubilee South - Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development.

Why Higher Wages Make Economic Sense

Last May 1, the usual arguments of the business sector were unleashed with its central theme: No, business cannot afford wage hike. Beset with high cost and poor business climate, business simply cannot survive added cost of labor. How do we attract investments if we increase wages? Look at China and Vietnam. Didn’t they have a cheap labor policy? Aren’t they getting much more investments than us due to lower minimum wages?

As if the anti-wage-hike position isn’t entrenched enough, an army of economists follows with a recital of the dogma of “labor flexibility”. They say, wage level should be equal to the so-called “marginal productivity of labor” – which is economese for whatever the employer wants to pay them. Labor is supposedly not exempt from the law of supply and demand. Raising minimum wage will only increase unemployment, as it supposedly disallows all voluntary labor wage contracts that pay below the minimum wage. It will also introduce inefficiency in the labor markets, now faced with a "deadweight loss" due to the intervention of the government who will always fail to set prices right.

But why, if they are right, aren’t we attracting investments still? What explains Philippine firms’ low level of competitiveness? Why does unemployment remain high? The response has always been, never mind the workers, that it is not enough. Lower wages a bit more, then we’ll get the investments that would have gone to China. Lax regulations a bit more, and we’ll have more productive factories and viable businesses. Dismantle a little bit more unions, and businesses will be more efficient and will eventually increase their wages in the long-run.

This essay says enough.  It is high time that the government replace the failed “cheap labor policy” with a policy that increases wage income. In a time when self-rated poverty is worsening, prices of petroleum products remain high if not rising, and wages are not enough to even sustain a decent life for a family of five, no other proposal would be more just and fair than a proposal that increases the share labor gets from the economic pie.

The roadmap towards prosperity through increasing labor income is simple: Increasing wages will induce demand and increase labor productivity. Ensuring that workers are paid well, free to spend on non-basic commodities, and save for their future will facilitate the creation of a strong domestic market and large savings base which domestic banks can capitalize. Higher wages will increase capital-intensiveness of firms, increasing their productivity in the process. Rising corporate income will mean larger revenues for the government, which will pummel it back as welfare and unemployment support.

Let us elaborate.

No to World Bank in Green Climate Fund!

October 7, 2011

Blog Action Day for Climate Justice

No to World Bank in Green Climate Fund!

The World Bank is recognized as one of the main drivers of the current unsustainable economic and development model that have brought the planet at the edge of collapse. Its internal governance is undemocratic and not representing the voices of the poor countries, which suffer most of the impacts of climate change. Its policies and programs are part of the problem and cannot become today the needed solution. We must make our voices heard and get the WORLD BANK OUT OF CLIMATE FINANCE!

You too can register your opposition against World Bank's intervention on climate change financing. Just follow the four simple steps below:

1. Click here.
2. Look for the 'Sign the Email'-box.
3. Put your name, email, and organization (or country, if signing as individual)
4. Click send.

You may wish to visit the World Bank Out of Climate Finance! website here for campaign details and updates. Please see below a statement of some groups on the matter:

Climate Change, Reverse Dutch Disease, and Third World Industrialization

Climate change is one of the "great pessimisms" of the 21st century, to quote Matt Ridley - author of the "The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010). Indeed, it is the primary threat to humanity's vision of a bright future of technological prosperity. And for very good reasons. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a global average temperature increase of 1–4°C (relative to 1990–2000) may result to partial de-glaciation of the Greenland ice sheet. Add to this the possible contribution of partial de-glaciation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, sea level may  rise by 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 ft) or more, with disastrous consequences to small island states and coastal settlements.

A farmer takes water form a dried-up pond to water his vegetable field on the outskirts of Yingtan, Jiangxi province. Photograph: Stringer Shanghai/Reuters. From here.

Moreover, weather patterns across the globe will be disturbed, radically changing livelihoods and economic activities. A particular climate-induced economic change we ought to be watching is the transition of some developed countries from having a humid continental or tundra climate to tropical or rain-forest, simultaneous with desertification in agriculturally-rich developing countries. This is already happening now, as climate change render previously agriculturally-viable lands to lands not fit for horticulture.

This gave me an insight. While it is true that this will have debilitating effects on the economies of the South, I can also see an economic opportunity which we developing countries can maximize - at least in the medium-run.

Two Pre-SONA Talks on the Philippine Economy (@ UP Diliman)

Economics students and would-be policy makers cannot afford to miss these two events - two talks (in the University of the Philippines Diliman) on Philippine development prospects and outlook days before President Benigno Aquino III's second State of the Nation Address (SONA). From two contending ideological camps, the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) which espouses a developmentalist state and the UP School of Economics (UPSE) which retains its neoclassical foundations, we stand to learn more about the dynamics of the Philippine economy, the interaction of government, firms, and the consumers.







See details below.

People Power and Prosperity

, I recently gave a presentation at the Forum on People Power and Poverty Reduction (Celebrating the Silver Anniversary of EDSA 1) organized last February 23, 2011 at the Institute of Social Order (ISO), Ateneo de Manila University. This was organized by several NGOs in coordination with the Cabinet Cluster on Poverty Reduction (which is composed of secretaries of DSWD, NAPC, among departments). I gave a presentation on economic alternatives (after the one by Freedom from Debt Coalition President Ric Reyes on a critique of the "EDSA Economy" - check it out here).

I began by saying that maybe, all government interventions should go beyond the meager dream of poverty reduction and the proverbial "providing food for the table". Our generation (EDSA Babies - Generation Y) ought to have dreams more ambitious than that. I then proposed that the theme of an economic alternative should be, instead of poverty reduction, prosperity - the creation of spiraling wealth that will increase incomes, employment and productivity. We should go beyond palliative economics and instead address the roots of poverty.

It is with this thought in mind that I delivered my presentation:

Towards a Modern and Prosperous Philippines on Prezi

(If it doesn't appear in your browser, try clicking the Read More link below)

The presentation was also to promote FDC's HANEP 2020 - an alternative national economic development program that focuses on creating an equitable and just Philippine society by promoting asset reform, ecologically-sound industrialization, and technological leapfrogging. The document is in its very early stages, and is currently being refined through FDC's internal processes and consultation with sectors. You can view the draft at the end of this blog entry (a Scribd document).

Progress of Civilization: from BBC's Hans Rosling

Happy 2011 everyone!

As we celebrate the coming year with hope and optimism for change and progress, let us look at the video clip below to remind us, despite the apparent global convulsion due to the  flawed economic paradigm of neoliberalism, how much the world has progressed across centuries. The presentation by Hans Rosling, a Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and public speaker, can serve as inspiration of how much innovation and technological change can push nations from the brink of poverty towards modernity.

The trajectory of growth (and how they sort of "converge") reminds me of the Solow–Swan model (also known as the exogenous growth model and the neoclassical growth model) - a model of a long-run economic growth. The model was developed independently by Robert Solow and T. Swan from the earlier  Harrod-Domar model used to explain an economy's growth rate in terms of the level of saving and productivity of capital.

Why Indonesia outperforms RP - Prof. Ed Tadem

Inquirer Opinion / Talk Of The Town
Why Indonesia outperforms RP
By Eduardo Climaco Tadem
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: October 30, 2010

NOT TOO LONG ago, Indonesia was Southeast Asia’s basket case. Within the region, it was the hardest hit by the 1997-1998 financial crisis and subsequently plunged into a cycle of political and social unrest and economic decline. Today, however, under its current political and economic setup, Indonesia has attained levels of stability and prosperity few would have imagined possible just a decade ago.

This was the conclusion reached by scholars of Indonesian studies at a recent First Indonesia Forum held at the Kyoto University Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Political recovery

Historian Takashi Shiraishi, Japan’s most distinguished Indonesianist, attributes the country’s remarkable recovery to three factors: (1) a successful decentralization program (2) the containment of religious and ethnic conflicts at the local level and (3) a strong nationalist imprint traceable throughout the country’s history.

Economist Kosuke Mizuno, on the other hand, notes the ability of the Indonesian economy to weather the worst effects of the 2008-2009 global economic meltdown by keeping a balanced financial and current accounts while increasing employment.

The devolution of political power saw the channeling of 60 percent of public works funds to local governments. This has resulted in the proliferation of local governments through the creation of new districts and an increase in the number of local political parties.

Conversations on the Economy

Through Facebook, three of my good friends, Bonn Juego, Marvin Beduya (please visit http://synthesistblog.com), and Michael Ocampo, and I have been discussing interesting issues on the economic profession, the economic schools of thought, the status of mainstream economics, and other thoughts on heterodox evolutionary economics (Nelson and Winter had been mentioned several times in the course of the discussions). Looking at heterodox economics is important specially in the light of its failure to aid development of Southern countries and explain the current economic ailments of the Northern developed countries.

What is considered mainstream economics? What schools of thoughts constitute the mainstream? It is instructive that mainstream economics is sometimes called as the neoclassical synthesis (the term was supposedly developed by John Hicks and popularized by Paul Samuelson), being largely Keynesian on macroeconomics and neoclassical on microeconomics. But the mainstream is still evolving, incorporating elements of Milton Friedman's Monetarism (as practiced by Paul Volcker),  new classical economics by Robert Lucas (Chicago), Thomas Sargent (Stanford), and Robert Barro (Harvard), and supply side economics promoted by the likes of Arthur Laffer and manifesting in Reaganomics and Thatcherism of the 80s.

I hope this conversation will contribute in promoting interest on the history of economic thought and starting  debates and discourses amongst Filipino economists, political-economists, and students of development on the current status of mainstream economics and alternative schools. It is now more than ever that we should discuss what constitutes an effective economic development strategy for the Philippines, and this begins with the discussion on the warring schools of economic thought.

An alternative platform by Ted Alwin Ong

Young activist James Matthew Miraflor of the Freedom from Debt Coalition painstakingly prepared a discussion paper together with his team which serves as guide for an alternative economic platform for the country.

In the social movement, this paper is now known as the National Economic Platform or “HaNEP 2020.” The document is a by-product of different analyses covering various issues which significantly affect our people and nation. By collecting and consolidating the different analyses from the country’s social and political activists, James was able to formulate a fitting alternative platform from what we have today.

The “HaNEP 2020” was submitted to President Benigno S. Aquino III by FDC as an Agenda outlining demands for changes in the debt and public finance policy, the power industry, the water sector, and government’s stance on climate negotiations and responses to climate crisis.

Read more. http://www.thenewstoday.info/2010/09/16/an.alternative.platform.html

New Economics for a new administration

by Walden Bello*

THE dominant feature of the Arroyo administration was pervasive corruption, but its most destructive legacy in the long term will probably be its policy failures.  The ascent to power of a new president, backed by a new Congress, provides the opportunity for a fundamental shift in policy in order to end poverty and relaunch the Philippines on the road to development.

The policy paradigm of the administration was one it inherited from previous administrations. This was a promarket, neoliberal approach the key prongs of which were accelerated trade and financial liberalization, deregulation and privatization.  In addition, Arroyo continued her predecessors’ policy of fully servicing the foreign debt, dealt with the ever-widening budget deficit by imposing a 12-percent value-added tax that hit mainly the middle class and the poor, and left it to the market to address poverty and income inequality.

With its promarket orientation, the Arroyo presidency followed the lead of previous administrations in refusing to pursue an industrial policy, reducing budget support for agriculture to a minimum, and radically bringing down tariffs on both agricultural and manufacturing imports. Abandoned to global market forces as the administration embraced the ideology of globalization, the economy was channeled to the massive export of labor, export-oriented, low-value-added manufacturing, particularly of electronic components, and providing personnel for the outsourced operations of transnational corporations like call centers.

Appeared in:

Perspective, Business Mirror : July 30, 2010

Viewpoints/Columns, Inquirer.net (Afterthoughts) : July 29, 2010

Freedom from Debt Coalition

FDC on SONA: Keeping an eye on Aquino’s commitment to change

PRESS STATEMENT
Freedom from Debt Coalition
11 Matimpiin St., Pinyahan, Quezon City 1100, Philippines
Phone: +63.2.921.1985 | Telefax: +63.2.924.6399 | Website: www.fdc.ph

Keeping an eye on Aquino’s commitment to change

The new administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III begins with an extremely high trust rating of 88 percent – higher than any of the post-dictatorship presidents. This is a measure of people’s belief in the commitment of the Aquino administration to reverse the anti-poor policies implemented during the regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. 




We in the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) submitted to the President an Agenda outlining demands for changes in the debt and public finance policy, the power industry, the water sector, and government’s stance on climate negotiations and responses to climate crisis. This is in the context of a looming fiscal crisis due to the record-breaking deficit and empty public coffers left by the Arroyo administration, electricity prices soaring past major Asian cities save Tokyo, a water crisis that is pushing Filipinos to desperate extremes, and a looming La Niña that might bring us another devastating Ondoy.

The Structure of Crisis, the Crisis of Structure

Last year, I was invited as one of the speakers during the "Waging Peace in the Philippines Conference of 2009 - Advancing a Citizen’s Peace Agenda in 2010 and Beyond" held at the Social Development Complex Audio Visual Conference Center, Ateneo de Manila University on December 7-8, 2009. I specifically attended and participated on the plenary on Significant Issues for Peace in 2010, with Atty. Marvic Leonen, Dean of the UP College of Law, as my co-speaker.

The organization I was representing, Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), was supposed to present on Climate Change, Global and National Crisis. Using existing data we culled from several government sources and presentations, this is the presentation I used. It begins with the then hot issue of Maguindanao massacre and then proceeds to discuss the structural causes of the confluence of crises we are facing. Check this out as a break from the optimism of the incoming Noynoy era:

The Structure Of Crisis, The Crisis of Structure

View more presentations from jmmiraflor.

This is also to serve as a counterpoint on the 7.3% growth pronouncement earlier by the Palace, which has largely been criticized as merely base effect of the manufacturing drop at the peak of the global crisis. But just some facts and observations to add to the point:

• It is an election year, one of the most expensive in fact in the history of the Philippines. While consumption indeed has been high, the net transfer will largely been from politicians (which means from the government, for how they became ultra-rich is already, a little too obvious) to the TV networks, or more likely, to Chinese companies which produced all those ground-war stuff (campaign paraphernalia, posters, etc.). The amount of redistribution (via vote-buying, etc.) has largely been limited by the phenomenon of a mass media-driven campaign. So while GDP may indeed have been boosted by transfers of wealth, it is merely one class taking money away from one pocket and putting it to another.
• This is not a new pronouncement. Curiously, the 7.3-percent figure already came up two years ago. But if this quarters growth is largely base effect, the growth then was largely spending-led, with National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) stating that among the components of the GDP by expenditure share, it is Government Expenditure Consumption (GCE) which grew the highest, by 10.0% from 2006-2007 - reflective of substantial increase in the proposed national budget from P1.045 trillion in 2006 to P1.126 trillion in 2007, an increase of P81.31 billion or 7.8%.

Reinventing Cory and the Dream of Democratic Nationhood

by James Miraflor

When Corazon Cojuangco Aquino died on the first day of August 2009, she as the Philippine symbol of liberal democracy did not die. Rather, she was sealed forever; and as things sealed forever, she was sealed with utmost and absolute purity of image.

This, for things sealed forever are either sealed with utmost adulation or absolute hate. For Cory, it was the former: at the day she died, everything people hated about her died with her; everything they loved about her was forever imprinted in the mantle of national memory that clothes the next generation.

Comments on the G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy

I was interviewed by Judith Prescott of Radio France Internationale regarding the social movements' reaction on the G20 summit, particularly on the Philippines. It was on the context of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) mobilization on the US embassy (see details here, and RFI's article here) in response to the global call to action against the summit.

Here is the interview:

Comment: James Miraflor of Freedom from Debt coalition in Manila

15/11/2008 by Judith Prescott

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, right, chats with his Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown chats with aides prior to Saturday's start of the G-20 summit on the world economy in Washington. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)


Here is the article:

World financial crisis
Finance summit to discuss boosting world economy
http://www.radiofranceinternationale.fr/actuen/articles/107/article_2147.asp

Article published on the 2008-11-15
Latest update 2008-11-15 15:24 TU

Sarkozy (L) Bush (C) and Barroso at the White House
(Photo: Reuters)

Leaders of the G20 group of the world's dominant economies meet in Washington on Saturday to discuss how to tackle the world economic crisis. They are expected to commit themselves to stimulate their economies and tighten up financial regulation but discussions are expected to continue for several months.