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%.

Long lines, pre-shaded ballots hound 2010 polls, observers say

05/12/2010 | 05:02 PM
JACQUES I. JIMENO, GMANews.TV
http://bit.ly/9gNwOj 

Foreign observers in the May 10 elections flash their Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections vests at a QC news briefing last week. GMANews.TV

Foreign observers in the May 10 elections flash their Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections vests at a QC news briefing last week. GMANews.TV

Long queues, pre-shaded ballots, malfunctioning voting machines, and bypassed electoral procedures were some of the problems noted by international observers who observed the Philippines’ first nationwide automated polls.

"A few machines were not working," Tiina Hiltunen of Finland said in a Balitanghali interview on Wednesday.

Transform Pasig

Great dreams are built piece by piece. The great dream of changing the Philippines and the world is now being done barangay by barangay, city by city, region by region. It is with this dream that Ric Reyes, and his team in Pasig, aims to inspire and unite Pasigueños in a project to transform Pasig City.

A Change in Perspective

Your browser may not support display of this image.But the capacity to inspire is getting more and more difficult, for if there is something the people of Pasig actually learned in its decade of collective struggle against elitist, corrupt, and undemocratic rule of the Eusebios – it is that collective struggle fails. Many have lost faith in trying to change things, as the opposition, repressed by the maneuverings of the entrenched dynasty, was defeated and demoralized.

Now more than ever is the opportunity to make the people remember the feeling of believing in change, and doing it together. This is Ric’s mission in Pasig. This is Ric’s challenge to the Eusebios.

RicReyesEqualsChange

Arroyo's Gangster Regime (just so we won't forget) - Feb. '08

Greed is defined as an excessive or uncontrolled desire for or pursuit of money, wealth, food, or other possessions especially when this denies the same goods to others. It is reprehensible acquisitiveness, an insatiable longing for power, and supremacy in order to advance individual interests at the cost of other’s well being.

Arroyo’s Greed has a Name: ILLEGITIMATE DEBT

February 2008

But greed is not just about Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the First Gentleman and other greedy officials.

If the Filipino public ought to be learning something from the recent revelation of whistle-blower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada Jr. over the aborted $329-million ZTE National Broadband Network (NBN) project, it is that our flawed political and economic system perpetuates this greed and makes wealth accumulation and concentration at the expense of the people not only possible but a persistent and dominant feature of the political landscape.