Category: cha-cha

cha-cha 2010 ALERT

what a relief it was to see national artist bienvenido lumbera and activist sister mary john mananzan o.s.b. on tv news protesting malacanang’s latest call for charter change and announcing that concerned artists with civil society are holding a rally, a truth festival, sa baywalk 3 p.m. august 22 to 6 a.m. august 23 (should be interesting kahit no alcohol allowed ;)

and what a relief it is to hear that the senators are in no mood to be pushed, manipulated, or intimidated by the palace into a con-ass and a quick shift to federalism for the sake kuno of peace kuno in mindanao.

but why do i get the feeling that we’re being toyed with? why do i get the feeling that the palace does not really expect charter change to happen in time to extend her term? why do i get the feeling that the palace is happy enough that fvr and the senators are all saying, “not before 2010”?

it’s like we’re being conditioned to think to accept that chacha is inevitable, even, that there’s a popular clamor for cha-cha, so it’s going to happen once gloria’s gone, make no mistake about it.

BUT BUT BUT there is no popular clamor for charter change. the clamor for charter change is not coming from the people, it’s coming from the political elite – elected government officials like presidents and senators and congressmen and governors and mayors (and of course their networks of political suppporters across classes and sectors all the way down to the grassroots) who are known to look after self-interests first before the people’s.

and if i’m right, that it’s the political elite behind all this talk of federalizing government and, incidentally kuno, liberalizing the economy, can foreign interests be far behind? more like, breathing down their necks.

mindanao muddle

what a mess. it would seem na si gma-in-china lang ang maligaya about the grp-milf ancestral domain deal.

almost everyone else is unhappy, especially muslims and christians living in lands that government is willing to cede to the milf: muslims and christians who were not consulted – where’s the democracy nga naman. hindi man lang sila tinanong kung payag sila, at walang paliwanag kung bakit nararapat (kung nararapat man) at paano narating ang ganoong desisyon.

the grp-milf deal simply gives away too much to an armed milf, to the detriment of other muslim groups and lumads and christians, rightly raising fears of more terrorism, rather than none, which could be the point of the whole thing.

seems like the grp-milf deal (or no-deal) isn’t meant to settle anything, rather it is meant to UNsettle things further, which lends credence to theories that in her “last two minutes” gloria is out to create an environment that would give her reason to declare martial law, or congress reason to change the charter, both of which bode ill for the nation.

as always, i have a hard time giving gloria and her congress the benefit of the doubt. it’s hard to believethat she did not anticipate this kind of fall-out. she is, after all, neither stupid nor naive.

solving mindanao

GOOD question from jego over at philippine commentary:

I have asked this question over at FilipinoVoices but it seems it’s a tough one to answer: Why is it all important that we keep Mindanao (ARMM in particular) part of the Philippines? What is so terrible about letting it go and be an independent sovereign entity? How many lives have been snuffed out because of this conflict and how many more are we willing to sacrifice just to keep the Philippines together? Is it because we need Mindanao’s resources to be able to survive? That’s not a valid reason, IMO. Mindanao’s resources should primarily be used for Mindanao’s development and not to prop up the central government and its armies. Is it because of ‘national pride’? That’s a hell of a price for the deaths of probably hundreds of thousands by now since the American occupation at least. Why isnt divorce an option a la the Czech Republic and Slovakia? Why do we have to risk doing a Yugoslavia (or Timor L’este even)?”

why is it important to keep muslim mindanao (ARMM) part of the philippines? tough question talaga. i gather (correct me if i’m wrong, anyone who knows better) that it has to do with revenues and with land. government would lose revenues, and government would have to compensate multinationals and other corporate and christian landowners who presently own land in the muslim territories. i have never been able to get any figures or who’s who on this, no thanks to media, but i gather that it’s the major, most thorny problem that government, of course, won’t discuss openly.

now check out this item from taipeitimes.com dated may 2008 that i stumbled on while googling:

Voters may block peace deal
Voters could block a proposed revenue-sharing deal aimed at ending a protracted Muslim separatist rebellion in the south, Manila’s chief peace negotiator warned yesterday. Rodolfo Garcia said Manila has agreed in principle to give Muslims a bigger share of revenues from the natural resources on Mindanao Island, but that voters could reject the change to the Constitution this would require. Peace talks with the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front have stalled after the rebels accused Manila of delaying. The rebels’ claims for “ancestral domain” in the region are also “potentially controversial,” because they would force a change in the law. Only Congress, dominated by the Christian majority including Mindanao landowners, can pass laws.

it would seem that finally government is willing to give up some revenue and, i suppose, some land, except that they’re spinning it so it would require changing the constitution, i.e., shifting to federalism, which jibes with ricky carandang‘s reading that the chacha train has left the station:

Recent efforts by the Regime to resurrect the long dormant peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have led to pronouncements by lead negotiators Rodolfo Garcia and Hermogenes Esperon that revisions to the constitution would be required in order to give more legal and fiscal autonomy to the expanded region of Muslim Mindanao. They point to a resolution to shift to a federal form of government proposed by, of all people, Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

This means that aside from Arroyo and her politicans, there will be a significant number of people in Mindanao who will find it in their interest to support charter change this time around. The regime can also pre-empt potential opposition from the international community by arguing that that the revisions would enhance stability in Mindanao and make it less susceptible to terrorism. In which case extending Arroyo’s term would be a small price to pay. I’m told that this the line taken during Arroyo’s recent working visit to the US. Its almost like blackmail. If youwant stability in Mindanao, you must allow us to stay in power beyond 2010.

the question is, will the milf play along? magpagamit kaya ang milf kay gloria? say ni mon casiple:

If the peace negotiations proceeded to the charter change phase, MILF will have lost much of the goodwill it has earned among the majority Filipinos and possibly even among the Moro people who know the real political implication of a cha-cha under the GMA administration. Unfortunately by then, the Moro struggle will have been compromised and subverted by an agenda for prolonging GMA’s stay in power.

I do not think the GMA administration will allow the peace process to successfully end after the charter change. Either it will dribble the ball or it may enter into an agreement it will not implement, as what happened in the Tripoli and Jakarta agreements. It cannot simply forsake its Christian-based constituency or its Moro political allies. If the MILF is not coopted into the current political arrangement, it will not be in position to demand a favorable implementation.

The whole peace process regarding the Moro struggle for self-determination is in danger of being coopted to be sacrificed before the altar of GMA’s political survival. The MILF will then serve only as a decoy for the real charter change agenda.

hopefully the milf will listen to fellow muslims who have long been debating autonomy vs. federalism and who are justifiably wary of federalism. because dr. rene azurin of one voice is right: “devolution of power to local governments can be accomplished without resorting to federalization.”

so, too, can the devolution of power to an autonomous bangsamoro homeland be accomplished without resorting to chacha.

utang na loob

say ni senator nene pimentel, his con-ass cha-cha proposal to shift to a federal form of government needs to be discussed because it is what’s best for the country — federalism will stimulate economic growth in the regions and therefore the insurgency will dissipate and disappear. as in, no problem.

ano ba yan. sounds like a fairytale. why not speak the truth na lang, the truth that what congress really wants to do, intends to do, is to tinker with, amend, junk, if possible, the economic provisions of the constitution because they think, they are so sure, that the limits to full foreign ownership are the reason why we aren’t getting as much foreign investments as thailand and indonesia and vietnam, thats why daw we’re not growing.

i suggest that we all read walden bello‘s latest essay “In the shadow of debt: the sad but true tale behind a quarter century of stagnation,” posted both in the inquirer and freedom from debt coalition websites.

bello’s research and analysis confirm my pet theory that the key to economic growth — yung totoo, yung mararamdaman ng buong bayan, hindi lang ng mga kapitalista — is to STOP being a “model debtor country” and instead do as other heavily indebted countries have successfully done:

Thailand…pushed down interest payments from eight percent of government expenditure in 1980 to two percent in 1995 and raised capital expenditures from 23 percent to 33 percent. . . . Argentina’s five-year string of 10 percent annual GDP growth is due principally to President Nestor Kirchner’s courageous act of unilaterally writing down-that is, paying about 25 cents of every dollar owed to bondholders-on most of that country’s foreign debt and channelingthe money saved to domestic investment….

“Contrary to doctrinaire free-market economics, institutional economists argue that government financial resources devoted to building physical or social infrastructure or shoring up domestic demand ‘crowd in’ rather than ‘crowd out’ private investment, including foreign investment. For instance, one key study of a panel of developing economies from1980 to 1997 found that public investment complemented private investment, and that, on average, a 10-percent increase in public investment was associated with a two-percent increase in private investment….

“There is no doubt that government capital spending crowded in foreign investment in Thailand and the lack of it crowded out foreign investment in the Philippines. And there is no doubt that, as KunioYoshihara asserted, ‘This difference in the flow of foreign investment from [Japan, Korea, and Taiwan] produced a significant disparity in growth performance of the two countries during this period.

“Like all clear-thinking investors, the Japanese were not going (are not going) en masse to a place where infrastructure was (is) decaying and where the market was (is) depressed and poverty was (is) increasing owing to a political economy shackled by structural adjustment and battered by the priority given to repaying the foreign debt. They were (are), in short, not stupid.”

so there. 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.

of course there will be resistance, as usual, but these are unusually hard times, the interests of a few cannot must not prevail any longer over the interests of nation. this could be a matter of survival, a matter of life and death. if the palace and congress are truly after what’s best for the country, then this, not charter change, is the way to go. they owe us.