instead of chacha, revoke automatic appropriation for debt service!

my first reaction upon hearing of senate president enrile’s and house speaker belmonte’s joint call for charter change soon after the impeachment and ouster of the chief justice, of which they were prime movers, was to wonder, ano ito, quid-pro-quo?  the president owes them for corona and this is what they want, okay, hope for, in exchange?  it’s a relief, of course, that the prez was quick to reply that chacha is not a priority of his administration, kahit na i don’t agree with the it-aint-broke-so-why-fix-it rhetoric.

this time the arguments for deleting, changing, whatever, the nationalist, protective economic provisions are old and new.  old is the one about attracting foreign investments that our economy direly needs daw.  new is the one about giving the military a bigger budget than education, the better to build an armed force capable of driving away the chinese from west philippine sea territory.

re foreign investments, as usual some agree, some disagree: economist calixto chikiamco and senator joker arroyo agree; economist solita “winnie” monsod and columnist conrado de quiros disagree.  re an improved military budget, however, i have yet to hear anyone agreeing.  the palace via lacierda says there are already efforts to upgrade the capability of the military for a minimum defense position.  senator trillanes prefers the more prudent alternative of a peacefully resolving our differences with china and reviving our relationship as economic partners.  and senator miriam thinks charter change to boost military strength is “just wrong”:

“We just don’t have enough resources to be a world or even a regional military force… What we need is a more effective Coast Guard, not the Navy itself,” she said.

She added that she finds nothing wrong in the Constitutional provision requiring the government to allocate most of its annual budget to education.

“The hierarchy of priorities should begin with the mind. If we are clever, we can outclass the Chinese,” she said.

philstar columnist ana marie pamintuan also objects to a bigger budget for defense than for education.

The Constitution stipulates that the state “shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education…” Enrile thinks this should be subject to change depending on the nation’s needs.

Debt payments in fact have always eaten up the largest chunk of the annual national appropriation. Maybe Budget Secretary Butch Abad can devise a similar creative way of going around the constitutional provision to finance the achievement of the administration’s goal of minimum defense capability.

… As it is, education (and health, for that matter) are still pitifully lacking in funding. So if defense spending will be increased, it will have to be taken from other budgetary items.

indeed.  it’s not as if education’s budget is anywhere close to enough.  the dismal lack of classrooms and textbooks and toilets and running water for our public schools is public knowledge.  so is the low low pay of our teachers — no wonder they opt to work as domestic help abroad as a matter of survival.  so is the poor quality of public education hereabouts — k-12 won’t make a significant difference, promise!  not without money for teacher and curriculum upgrades.

so really, it’s a major major puzzlement how the senate president can even think of making bawas from that pitifully inadequate budget just to make dagdag to the defense budget.  yes, china is a problem.  yes, we need billions, even just for minimum defense, much more for the wishlist of jetfighters, mini-submarines, well-armed frigates, corvette-size combat vessels and minesweepers.  but changing the charter to take money away from education to fund any of that is simply daft, when we could, should, as pamintuan suggests, be looking instead at annual debt payments that eat up the biggest chunk of the budget.

pamintuan, however, is mistaken in thinking that the automatic appropriation for debt service is provided for in the constitution.  read the freedom from debt coalition (FDC)”s Briefer on the Automatic Debt Servicing Provision

It was during the Martial Law in the Philippines that automatic appropriation for debt service was first codified, in Section 31(B) of Presidential Decree 1177 (Budget Reform Decree of 1977). In consonance with her “honor-all-debts” policy, Aquino signed into law the Administrative code of 1987, copying en toto Section 31(B) of PD1177 into Section 26(B) of the code. Section 31(B) of PD1177 also serves as its legal basis.

read this explanatory note to House Bill 1962 authored by kabataan partylist rep mong palatino proposing the repeal of the automatic appropriation for debt service:

Because the government willingly binds itself to a law enacted not through the legislature, but by the decree of a dictator during the dark days of Martial Law to automatically spend more than a third of its annual budget on debt service, its spending on social services, from education to health care has always been grossly insufficient …

so there.  THAT deserves to be repealed, amended, undone.  THAT should be the priority of congress, not charter change.  i’m not saying let’s not pay our debts, i’m saying let’s pay in amounts we can afford.  what the senate and the house of reps should be wanting to change is not the constitution but this odious marcos decree that cory copied in full, unconditionally, without reservation, and which the fernan supreme court upheld :(

here’s senator angara, who also wants the policy changed:

Angara, vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that debt servicing eats up a significant portion of the national budget, depriving the poor of their right to social services. He said that at least 40 percent of the country’s budget goes to servicing of interest payments and principal amortization of debts.

During the interpellation for Senate Bill No. 2857, “An Act Institutionalizing the Participation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOS) in the Preparation and Authorization Process of the Annual National Budget, Providing Effective Mechanisms Therefore, and for Other Purposes”, Angara stressed that the policy on automatic appropriations on debt service further encourages reckless borrowing and spending as it guarantees payment without legislative intervention and without going through a thorough screening.

“The power to realign the budget and savings and the automatic debt appropriations make for a deadly combination as it allows the manipulation of the National Budget. As long as these loopholes exist, the temptation will always be present. We must therefore revisit and propose amendments to the budget laws to ensure fiscal discipline,” he proposed.

so, really, when i read this in the news today:

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said he did not have in mind doing away completely with the 60-40 ratio favoring Filipino investors over foreigners.

“Just that we need to give ourselves the flexibility by authorizing Congress to change the ratio when there is a need for it. But (the idea is) always to protect the interest of the Filipino people in controlling the economy,” Enrile explained in a radio interview over dzBB radio Sunday.

… my reaction was, OMG, invoking the interest of the filipino people in controlling the economy!  does he think we’re morons?  if the interest of the people were truly the guiding principle of congress, matagal na dapat na-undo ‘yang automatic appropriation for debt service na ‘yan.

read walden bello’s In the shadow of debt: the sad but true tale behind a quarter century of stagnation that i blogged about in may 2008, when gloria’s congress was pushing for con-ass.  i was against chacha then as i am against chacha now.

hindi charter change ang dapat nating pinag-uusapan.  not at all.  ang dapat nating pinag-uusapan ay ang pagbabago ng debt policy natin.  we spend on the average half of the budget on bayad-utang and bayad-interes para lang makautang uli.  ano ba yan.  enough na please of the model debtor strategy that has only made a basket case of our economy.

and in the comment section, TonGuE-tWisTeD wondered,

Do these big lenders give the president of a country incentives or commissions for paying early? Gloria says we need to take advantage of the strong peso by retiring most of our debts earlier. Fishy, no?

and president aquino has been doing exactly the same thing, sabay pahiram ng one billion dollars sa IMF, sabay gloat that we are no longer a debtor country but a creditor na daw.  LOL!  read Govt debt hits P5.147 trillion and weep.

 

The refusal to give up today

GIVE UP TOMORROW exposes a Kafkaesque extravaganza populated by flamboyantly corrupt public officials, cops on the take, and a frenzied legal and media circus. It is also an intimate family drama focused on the near mythic struggle of two angry and sorrowful mothers who have dedicated more than a decade to executing or saving one young man, Paco Larrañaga.

THE REFUSAL TO GIVE UP TODAY
by Katrina Stuart Santiago

On the evening of July 16 1997, Paco Larrañaga was having drinks with his classmates from culinary school after a full day of exams. He went home at 2AM and was back in school at 8AM on July 17, for more exams. The teacher who proctors the tests swears that Paco was present in that classroom, his classmates are witness to his attendance – in school and for drinks the night before, official school records prove his presence, too. Paco was in Manila, and nowhere else, on July 16 and July 17, 1997.  Read on

 

sooo not worth it

from A tradition not worth it, cito beltran’s column yesterday, in anticipation of the afternoon SONA — a ritual borrowed from the U.S. that Filipino politicians have reinvented and trivialized.

Our local version of SONA has turned into a made for Reality TV event that looks more like a Hollywood Red carpet event where guests dress and behave like they were at a party instead of a serious political event intended to draw the true picture of country’s condition. Even media coverage of the event draws from the styles of US entertainment programs focusing on fashion, looks and social intrigue rather than “Who’s Who” in terms of being responsible for our current state of affairs.

yeah, it’s become so showbiz… all show and tight security…

The House of Representatives always spends extra to dress up the Batasan Pambansa complex. The last time Congress did this, I think they spent over several millions to spruce things up. Then the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have to deploy their respective army of security personnel to secure the President and the VIP guests. This takes months of preparation, with cops and soldiers being deployed days ahead, which requires lots of logistics such as vehicles, equipment, not to mention food and utilities, which again costs millions.

From the Palace side, an equal amount of time, work and money is poured into preparing the SONA speech with the help of “consultants”, a lot of work and fine tuning goes into preparing the agenda, guest lists, as well as the media coverage of the event, not to mention expenses for hair, make-up, and outfits of government officials and their spouses.

… and no substance.

On the average we get a 30 to 45 minute sanitized and politicized recap of events and realities that millions of Filipinos have been living in. Rich or poor, most of us don’t want to be reminded of our sorry state of affairs in terms of crimes, under employment, corruption and poverty. Even the so-called good news doesn’t matter much because most of the economic benefits remain limited to the rich and well connected who control business monopolies in the country.

Is it worth several millions of pesos just to hear a few quotable quotes that are read from the teleprompter and not from the heart? Do we need to spend millions of pesos to watch political turncoats serve out 17 to 21 blasts of applause as if they were watching a tennis match? Regardless of who delivers the speech, the sorry fact is, we the Filipino people are paying too much money for a tradition that does not change our state of affairs.

In comparison, the US model has always been crucial to Americans because US Presidents traditionally uses their State Of the Nation Address as a springboard or opportunity to make a major policy decision or announce vital information, which in turn affects investment decisions, political directions or global relations.

this time it was twice longer than average, punctuated by some 100 more blasts of sipsip applause, the longest one when he called for responsible parenthood, perceived as an endorsement of the RH bill, which was nothing of the sort.  the speech itself, if it can be called that, was self-congratulatory (parang he believes his own propaganda), and packed with trivia.  and promises.  even some defensiveness.  but nothing about palparan and human rights, or EPIRA, or FOI, or RH really.  nothing new, nothing surprising, nothing inspiring.  and that’s the state of the nation.

Carlos Bulosan on writers after the war

By Elmer Ordonez

Retrieved from my chaotic files is a copy of Carlos Bulosan’s typewritten notes (five pages) on Filipino writers after the war. It was sent years ago by Prof. Epifanio “Sonny” San Juan (the leading authority on expatriate writer Carlos Bulosan) who had done assiduous research on the Bulosan papers at the University of Washington library.

Bulosan died of tuberculosis Seattle in September 1926. The accolades for Bulosan were marred by the comments of two Chronicle columnists who dismissed Bulosan as a plagiarist and therefore worthless as a writer. The plagiarism charge diminished somewhat Bulosan’s stature diminished somewhat and was neglected by the literary community caught up with New Criticism and the Cold War.

A group of us (Frankie Sionil Jose, Alejandrino G. Hufana, B. Burce Bunao, and myself) put out Comment to foster nationalist consciousness against what Leopoldo Yabes called conformism and the fear of ideas as a result of the McCarthyite witchhunt in the country. Prof. Dolores Stephens Feria had an article on Bulosan, her close friend in Los Angeles. Unfortunately I no longer have the 2nd issue of Comment (1957) which has Feria’s essay. In 1960 Prof. Feria, published in the Diliman Review, her collection of letters from Bulosan titled Sound of Falling Light. Thereafter Bulosan would became a literary icon during the radical 60s to the present for his progressive writings and union organizing in the West Coast.

As for the plagiarism charge, Sonny San Juan said this involved Bulosan’s story “ The End of the War” in a New Yorker issue (1944)—a case that was settled our of court. He said he compared the two texts and noted only some similarities in plot— no outright lifting of lines or passages. The critic said Shakespeare did adopt whole stories/plots from other literary works. Any graduate student in English would know the bard’s sources—like Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The Mirror for Magistrates, and Plutarch’s Lives.

In the 90s Prof. Edilberto Tiempo gave a lecture in UP Diliman denigrating the literary work of Bulosan by using formalist criteria– which received no small amount of disagreement from the audience.

I asked good friend Ed Tiempo afterward why he did it. With an impish grin, he replied, “because I know you guys in UP like Bulosan.” I first met him in August 1970 when both of us read papers in a conference on American literature in Srinagar, Kashmir. His paper was on New Criticism, mine was on impressionist writers James and Faulkner. I invited him to the UP Writers workshop in Cebu the following year. He said he would in turn invite me to his Silliman workshop. Martial law intervened.

Clearly leftist Bulosan was not Ed Tiempo’s cup of tea. He called Bulosan’s work a “failure of sensibility.” He also faulted Manuel Arguilla for switching point of view in his proletarian story “Caps and Lower Case” but otherwise admired “Midsummer” at the Cebu workshop—dwelling at length on the “papayas in bloom” in the idyllic story.

Bulosan’s Notes on the Foreword of Philippine Prose and Poetry, Volume Four, were written for Prof. Yabes although Bulosan wrote about the UP scholar: “Leopoldo Y.Yabes. Ilocano. He wrote several articles about me . . . Probably the best critic and historian, besides being a Marxist. He is also a linguist. Like Laya, he studied languages by himself. (Yabes) translated The Laughter of my Father into Ilocano.” Yabes and Bulosan were co-editors of the original manuscript of Philippine Short Stories (1925 -1940 that they tried to get published in the US in the late 40s. The UP Press published it in 1975, followed by two more volumes covering post-war stories.

In Bulosan’s Notes NVM Gonzalez was: “Probably one of the most versatile. Saw him in SF when he was sent to the US on a scholarship after the war.” NVM on his return in 1950 joined the English department in UP Diliman and introduced the concept of a writers workshop, with craft as its primary concern.

On the authors of the fourth volume of Philippine Prose and Poetry (PPP) published in the early 50, he said his notes were “to better understand Philippine writing today in English and my place among contemporaries . . . Contributors are all college grads except—who?” Bulosan was just a high school graduate citing Manuel A. Viray, Maximo Ramos, and Juan C. Laya as having gone to the same school as he did in Lingayen.

Bulosan recalls the 1939 visit of Fred Mangahas and Salvador P. Lopez in Los Angeles. He acknowledges his debt to Mangahas who as literary editor of the Herald Magazine gave him a page every Sunday, his poetry, stories and letters. “God, how I wrote and wrote in those days!” They met again after the war, with Fred as a Palace official; SP Lopez (“very brilliant”) as alternate (to Carlos P. Romulo) permanent delegate to the United Nations.

Of the writers who later became National Artists, he recalled Jose Garcia Villa who “never recognized my talents”; NVM Gonzalez, “probably one of the most versatile”; Carlos Quirino, “tall, suave, handsome”; Nick Joaquin, “probably the most intense writer in the islands . . . Tolstoi type.”

Bulosan met Bienvenido Santos in Washington, DC, during the war and worked in the same office. He also remembered Juan Collas, “the first to write about me in the Philippines way back in 1937 when my first group of poems appeared in Poetry, Chicago, entitled “The Unknown Quantity.”

He remembered Arturo B. Rotor (a wartime Cabinet member of Quezon) who “wrote Quezon’s autobiography” presumably The Good Fight; Stevan Javellana who had probably written the best novel (Without Seeing the Dawn) about the Philippines; and Yay Panlilio, an intrepid woman reporter who became a Marking guerrilla leader. (To be continued)