::twentysomething::

2005-04-13T21:37:00.000+08:00

2005-03-16T05:26:00.000+08:00

kalabaw lang ang tumatanda

kaarawan ko sa a-disinwebe.

trenta anyos.

hindi gaanong mabigat ang bagsak ng mga taon kung susumahin ang lahat ng naabot ko sa loob ng isang dekada ng paglalakbay at pagsusulat.

lilipat ako ng bagong blog dito rin. inaayos ko pa ang lay-out sa kasalukuyan.

payak lang ang pagdiriwang sa sabado at linggo. susunduin ko ang aking kasintahan sa maynila at sa bahay kami sa santo tomas hanggang linggo. simpleng handaan ng carbonara pasta [ na gustong iluto ni kumander], piniritong manok at inumin ang pananghalian kasama ang pamilya.

serbesa? malalamig na bote ng san mig light sa sabado ng gabi sa pagitan ng kuwentuhan namin nina tatay at mga kapatid ko.

ano ba ang hiling ko para sa araw ng kaarawan? mahirap ang humiling ng isang mapayapang mundo, ng katarungang panlipunan.

siguro'y tiyaga na lamang sa mga bagay na di ko mababago, pinasiglang-tapang sa mga mababago ko pa - at karunungan upang malaman ang alin.

2005-03-15T16:04:00.000+08:00

dollars and sense
asia is subsidising america's debts, says the march 2005 report from le monde diplomatique

A currency of exorbitant privilege
by Martine Bulard

WHETHER the dollar soars or crashes, other economies always pay for the damage. This is the consequence of the unique position that it enjoys internationally as the currency both of settlement and reserve. This exorbitant privilege has rarely been questioned since the end of the second world war. [ read more ]

2005-03-15T15:55:00.000+08:00

State of the [American]Media
Committee of Concerned Journalists-Project for Excellence in Journalism release the second edition of State of the American News Media annual report

The Committee of Concerned Journalists [ CCJ ] , of which I am a member of, has released the second edition of the Project for Excellence in Journalism's State of the News Media annual report.

According to the study, traditional journalism, with its focus on substantiating facts, now competes with other models of news, and these faster, cheaper and less accurate alternatives have distinct advantages in the marketplace.

What's more, blogs, or personal web logs, have added to this challenge with a new philosophy: publish first and assume the verification process will occur in the response and argument that follow.

As traditional media continue to lose audience, the report suggests, moreover, news organizations will be tempted to cut back on news gathering and change standards to compete with the new models.

"In effect, Americans are shifting from being consumers of news to pro-active partners in creating their own personalized news account each day, and traditional journalism is only part of that mix," said Project Director Tom Rosenstiel. "This amounts to a new kind American citizenship with more responsibilities for the consumer."

The study offers an overview on the state of the news media landscape and then provides detailed chapters on nine different sectors of the press--newspapers, magazines, network television, cable television, local television, the Internet, radio, the ethnic press and alternative media.

For each sector, it examines six different areas: audience, economics, ownership, newsroom investment, and public attitudes. It puts in one place all the major data about journalism-plus significant original research.

Among the findings:

- The notion of growing partisan media has been overstated. While this new "Journalism of Affirmation" is growing, audiences are not splitting along ideological lines. Only cable and talk radio have done so. The audiences of most media reflect the population fairly well-except for age.

--Only three sectors of the media continue to show audience growth-the ethnic press, alternative weeklies and the Internet. In 2003 alone, 14 new Spanish language newspapers were launched.

--The newspaper industry, which already lost 500 more newsroom jobs in 2003, had a tough 2004, with less than expected growth in revenue, circulation scandals, low stock prices and more cutbacks in the newsroom. At the same time, the industry still earned profits of more than 20%, according to analyst estimates.

--Cable news is measurably thinner in its reporting than broadcast news. Cable stories rely on fewer and less transparent sources, contain more journalistic opinion and reflect fewer viewpoints.

--There are clear differences between Fox versus its cable rivals. Fox News stories contain more sources and reveal more about them than those of its competitors, but its stories are also more one-sided and are more opinionated. Indeed, Fox journalists offer their own opinion in seven out of ten stories on the news channel, versus less than one in ten stories on CNN and one in four on MSNBC.

--The news industry is taking the same cautious pay-as-you-go approach to the Internet that seems likely to cede ground to non-journalism competitors. Even though audiences are growing, Internet journalists are almost twice as likely as TV, print and radio journalists to report that their newsrooms have suffered cutbacks.

--There is little sign the major news web sites are taking advantage of the technology of the Internet. Less than a third of lead stories on news sites studied included video links or allowed users to sort through data.

--Network news faces the biggest moment of transitional change in 2005 that it has faced since the 1980s, when a new generation of anchors and a new pressure for profitably changed the face of the networks.

--Morning news is becoming the financial engine of the networks. While evening news audiences continued to decline in 2004, morning audiences were flat. ABC's Good Morning America was growing, while NBC's Today Show was declining. Only the first 20 minutes of morning news tend to contain traditional news about significant events.

"The news is moving from being an organized, prepared lecture to a free-flowing conversation, with all the advantages and disadvantages that implies," said Mr. Rosenstiel. "The process is more open, but, paradoxically, it is also more prone to manipulation by those who want to shape public opinion. The cases of the government hiring commentators and creating faux web sites are part of this phenomenon."

The study, which contains detailed charts, graphs and citations, is now available at www.stateofthemedia.org.

2005-03-13T13:46:00.000+08:00

mga kuwento, mga buhay-buhay

nitong nakaraang mga araw, binisita ko muli ang isang matagal nang kaibigan - ang larangan ng literary journalism - at bumuo ng giya para sa ilang istoryang gusto kong maisulat sa susunod na mga araw.

nananatiling bukas ang lokal at pandaigdigang pamilihan sa mga manunulat at mananalaysay kung nagsara man ang ilang pintuan dito sa atin sa larangan ng pamamahayag.

sa gitna ng paglikha ng batayang framework para sa isang kuwento ay naalala ko ang cinema paradiso ni guiseppe tornatore na napanood ko mahigit isang dekada na ang nakakaraan.

ang konsepto ng universal truth at pamamahayag.

mga ritwal ng paglaki at pagpapatuloy ng mga kuwento ng ating panahon.

2005-03-11T21:30:00.000+08:00

ang tamaan, nabukulan

sumaglit ako kanina sa isang pagtitipon para sa isang magiging ninong namin sa kasal ng aking kasintahan sa a-disinwebe ng hunyo sa st. joseph the worker parish dito sa clark.

ang pagtitipon ay isang parangal para sa aming ninong na human rights lawyer* sa panahon ng diktadurya at ngayo'y kasapi ng gabinete ni pangulong arroyo at tagapayo ng pamahalaan sa usaping pangkapayapaan sa mga rebeldeng komunista.

payak ngunit matao ang handaan sa isang lugar ng mimosa casino sa clark. halos may-edad na - mga first quarter stormers ng dekada sitenta na ngayo'y mga dekalibreng propesyunal - ang mga nagsidalo sa munting salo-salo.

medyo maikli lamang ang pakikipag-usap ko kay ninong dahil marami ang mga bisitang naghihintay sa kaniya sa pagtitipon. isang kumustahan at pagbibigay-abiso para sa araw at lugar sa nalalapit na kasal.

nabanggit niya ng pahapyaw ang balita nitong nakaraang linggo na tumutuldok sa usaping pumapangalawa ang pilipinas sa listahan ng mga bansa sa asya na may pinakamalalang pangungurakot sa pamahalaan.

ayon sa kaniya, kinukuha na ng pamahalaang arroyo ang serbisyo at payo ni tony kwok ng hongkong sa isang pinaigting na kampanya sa bansa laban sa pangungurakot.

isang masalimuot itong usapin. halos P200 bilyong piso o 20 porsiyento ng taunang badyet ng pamahalaan ang nasasayang dahil sa korupsyon. isang napakalaking halaga na sana ay napupunta para sa mga batayang serbisyong panlipunan at iba pang bayarin at gastusin ng pamahalaan.

dahil nga sa institutionalized na ang pangungurakot, nagiging biktima nito ang karaniwang tao lalo na ang mga malalaking lokal at dayuhang mangangalakal at kumpanya.

ito ay isang usaping saklaw ng repormang pamamalakad ng pamahalaan[ rodrik, dani, harvard university, undp, april 2001 ].

sapol sa paksa ang kaunlarang panlipunan at pagpapatuloy ng kahirapan ng mas nakararaming pilipino dahil sila pa rin ang tuwirang napipinsalaan ng "conversion" sa pondo militar at "20% SOPs" sa mga proyektong pambayan.

parehong may sala ang kawani at opisyal ng pamahalaan na humihingi ng lagay at ang opisyal ng pribadong kumpanya na nanunuhol.

Political elites and their cronies continue to take kickbacks at every opportunity. Hand in glove with corrupt business people, they are trapping whole nations in poverty and hampering sustainable development. Corruption is perceived to be dangerously high in poor parts of the world, but also in many countries whose firms invest in developing nations.

Politicians increasingly pay lip-service to the fight against corruption but they fail to act on the clear message... that they must clamp down on corruption to break the vicious circle of poverty and graft.

Corrupt political elites in the developing world, working hand-in-hand with greedy business people and unscrupulous investors, are putting private gain before the welfare of citizens and the economic development of their countries.- Peter Eigen, Transparency International

paano nga ba ito mabibigyan ng lunas kung walang batayang pagbabagong mangyayari sa nakagawiang pamamaraan ng pamamahala at pangangalakal sa pilipinas at sa iba pang bansang lugmok sa kahirapan?

isang panghuling pasintabi.

sa gitna ng isang mainit na away ng mababang kapulungan at senado kamakailan lamang ay nagpanukala ang isang may matalas na dilang mambabatas na upang mabigyan ng kalutasan ang mga suliranin ng bansa ay nararapat raw na magpatiwakal na lamang ang mga lahat ng senador at kongresista.

hindi ko alam kung seryoso siya. pero kung isasama mo ang lahat ng nangungurakot at nanunuhol na na kawani at opisyal ng mga ahensiya ng gobyerno, lokal na pamahalaan, hudikatura, kapulisan, militar, mamamahayag at mga pribadong kumpanya ay mabibigyang kalutasan hindi lamang ang kambal na usaping pangungurakot at kahirapan kundi pati na rin ang paglobo ng populasyon ng pilipinas.

ewan ko lamang kung may matira pang tao dito sa atin.

*noong 2001, naging abugado ko muli siya sa isang malabnaw na kaso ng libelo na inihabla sa akin ng isang opisyal ng kapulisan. hindi umabot sa paglilitis ang kaso dahil iniurong ng pulis ang demanda.

2005-03-11T20:12:00.000+08:00

pamamahayag at pangingibang-bayan

nitong nakaraang disyembre ay nailimbag na at nailabas ang aklat na PHILIPPINE MIGRATION JOURNALISM: A Practical Handbook sa pangangasiwa ng OFW Journalism Consortium [OFWJC], isang pribadong lipon ng mga mamamahayag na nakatuon ang pangunahing pansin sa migranteng lakas-paggawa.

mula sa isang panukalang media advocacy ng Institute on Church and Social Issues na pinamumunuan ng mga paring Jesuits, ang OFW Journalism Consortium ay naging isa nang samahang tumutulong sa migranteng maggagawang pilipino tumugon sa mga napapanahong usapin sa pamamagitan ng malayang pamamahayag.

naging katuwang ako sa OFWJC sa una nitong naging discussion workshop-exhibit sa university of santo tomas sa maynila noong disyembre 2002. sa nasabing pagpupulong ay naatasan akong talakayin ang usapin ng pamamahayag pangkomunidad at paglikas ng lakas-paggawa.

ang aking sanaysay ay nakalimbag na sa aklat kasama ng anim pang paksang tinalakay ng ilang batikang mamamahayag mula sa telebisyon, radyo, dyaryo, internet, at sa hanay ng mga naiwang pamilya ng migranteng manggagawa at mga pribadong organisasyon na tumutulong at umuugnay sa mga pilipinong manggagawang nangingibang-bansa.

PHILIPPINE MIGRATION JOURNALISM: A Practical Handbook
This 200-paged book compiles articles on the history of overseas employment of Filipinos, the issues and the players in this industry, Philippine media’s coverage of the issues, and a list of government, non-government, private organizations, and other groups that work for or against these issues.

Media practitioners, overseas Filipino workers, and development workers will find this handbook useful as well as a light read on the international labor migration that Filipinos form part of.

The book costs P250 each in the Philippines, US$16 in North America, and 15 euros in the European Union. Prices include standard postage as well as handling of between 11 to 20 days.

Monograph One
Monograph One, on Migration Journalism in the Philippines, contains seven papers on how issues in migration are seen from several vantage points: from that of a daughter of an overseas Filipino worker in a community of OFW families in Batangas to the editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper; from a senior business reporter covering the money that flows from OFWs to a former media liaison officer of a migrant nongovernment group; from the chief executive of a booming Internet-based newspaper to the director of a radio program beaming news on OFWs and the Philippines via shortwave. These papers outlined the work of the OFW Journalism Consortium for the past three years when their authors presented their respective opus at the pontifical University of Santo Tomas on December 7, 2002.

Contents [according to presentation during the forum]:

1. “Ano nga ba ang meron sa Italya?: Kuwento ng isang migranteng pamilya ni Aileen Peñas
2. Issues and Concerns on Labor Migration in the Philippines: Inputs for Media Reportage by Dennis D. Estopace
3. Economic Reportage of International Labor Migration: A Reportorial Perspective by Arnold S. Tenorio
4. Community Journalism and Human Capital Flight by Jojo Pasion Malig
5. Online Journalism and OFWs: The Inq7.net Experience By Javier Vicente d. Rufino
6. The Treatment and Packaging of OFW Stories by a Daily Newspaper: An Editorial Perspective By Lourdes Molina-Fernandez
7. The Reportage of OFW Issues on Radio By Tanny V. Rodriguez

[ order here ]

2005-03-11T19:47:00.000+08:00

bill gates, $46b

ayon sa ulat ng forbes magazine para sa taong ito, si bill gates pa rin ang pinakamayamang tao sa buong mundo.

ang kaniyang kasalukuyang halaga? 46.5 bilyong dolyar.

kasabay ng balitang ito nito ay isipin mo na halos kalahati ng lahat ng tao sa buong mundo - halos tatlong bilyong katao - ang nabubuhay lamang sa sa kulang sa dalawang dolyar sa isang araw.

ang malas naman nila no?

2005-03-11T17:25:00.000+08:00

the manila standard-today merger

here's a turn on the pages. first national daily i wrote for - TODAY - which recently repackaged itself as a business paper, has merged with the Manila Standard.

according to inq7.net, the merger is actually a takeover, with standard, backed by the deep pockets of the ceo of international container terminal services inc., [ictsi] as the surviving broadsheet.

inq7.net reported that TODAY has been looking for a stronger financier after telecom heir antonio cojuangco, overwhelmed by the capital-intensive abc-5 television venture, backtracked from pumping in more cash into the daily.

editorial management of manila standard today will be handled by today's chuchay molina-fernandez.

TODAY founder teodoro locsin jr., a congressman from makati city, is seen as the next standard publisher as well as occasional columnist.

my only question is - what happens to the rank-and-file pool of writers, editors, artists and personnel of the two papers? who gets pink slipped and who gets rehired?

2005-03-11T16:45:00.000+08:00

the christian as a right wing american

apologies. but i am having a massive headache dealing with the sense of subversive and deceptive logic and the secular apocalyptic sensibility pervading the majority of right wing/republican christian sects in america today.

living under the shroud of fear, they expect the rest of the world to also do so.

christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of the planet and human civilization is rather irrelevant, because it has no future.

they believe we are living in the "end time", when the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

they may also believe, along with millions of other christian fundamentalists, that wars, famine, environmental destruction are not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

right wing fundamentalists are as unchristian as one could be - false christians doing evil by pretending to be good. their own theology supports this doctrine. evil must pretend to be good.

they openly preach intolerance and the duty to hate. what does the right wing know of love? this cannot be christianity.

their contention that "back to the bible" will solve all our problems is pure hogwash. it is precisely some of the biblical injunctions that are philosophically problematical and are the source of modern problems. for example, judaeo-christianity hasn't been able to philosophically resolve socio-ethnic issues. see palestine.

right wing fundamentalism represent the resurgence of fascism. this authoritarian mindset represents a psyco-social problem dangerous to the health of society. it needs major social therapeutics, as we redefine fundamentalism and fascism as dysfunctional and pathologically dangerous.

but here's the catch.

for the first time, far right christian fundamentalists have one of their own in the white house today.

2005-03-09T16:35:00.000+08:00

fat or gloria-crat?
kulturati rakes her nails at a questionably mundane malacanang appointee at the ncaa

"There has been a mad scramble for its chairmanship, which brings me to the subject of Mr. Gabot, whose first name I don't even know. For reasons best known to Malacañang and God knows who's whispering in the President's ears these days, it is rumored that the man who works for a newspaper best known for its classified ads page (in what capacity I don't know and don't really care) is all set to sit as chair of the NCCA, the lead cultural agency of the government.

No one understands what the President is up to, if the allegations are true, and of course the audacity of certain people who don't know their limits." - Mr. Gabot who? - Bambi Harper, Sense and Sensibility

2005-03-06T10:40:00.000+08:00

NUJP to AFP: Never again!
Press Statement, March 5, 2005

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemns in strongest terms the proposal by Armed Forces of the Philippines deputy chief of staff, Lt. General Edilberto Adan, to penalize journalists and media organizations that interview suspected terrorists.

Adan engages in typical double-speak when he says the military distinguishes between legitimate dissenters and terrorists. His proposal is pure and simple censorship and an imposition of prior restraint on the press. Adan's statements only serve to intensify media opposition to an anti-Terrorism bill that threatens drastic curtailment of civil liberties in the country.

The NUJP will not accept this curtailment of press freedom. The NUJP calls on all media groups to challenge Adan's preposterous proposal.

The Constitution lists freedom of the press and freedom of expression among the basic rights. It is not for the AFP or any other government agency to curtail a right granted by the Constitution on the basis of its often times flawed logic.

Adan's proposal opens up an entire society to the dangerous situation of having a few people dictate what the public should read or listen to. That does not serve national interest at all. An ignorant society is often at the mercy of abusive officials; curtailment of the freedoms of expression and the press strips a people of their right to hold states and governments accountable for their actions and lack
thereof.

The NUJP must also point out that the spotty record of the AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP) on human rights. We do not have to dig through history. The AFP and the PNP, for example, have engaged in a spree of raids recently, arresting dozens of men and women for being suspected terrorists. Both agencies have a penchant for presenting suspects to media, on the one hand, and for detaining some beyond the legally mandated period, on the other.

Yet we have seen the courts order the release of so many suspected terrorists for lack of evidence. In at least one case, of a woman allegedly raped by her military interrogators, the release order came too late to spare her from torture.

Journalists have also first-hand experience of state officials playing loose with the word "terrorist," conferring this – and all its dangerous consequences – on legal personalities.

Giving access to Abu Sulaiman's claim of responsibility for the Valentine's Day blasts was not a crime. Exploding bombs is a crime. Airing a claim of responsibility, on the other hand, served the public's interest to know of details behind the event.

The NUJP believes that the various media codes of ethics, properly disseminated to reporters and editors, anchors and commentators, suffice to ensure both the safety of troops on the field and respect for basic constitutional rights.

But granting the AFP powers to determine what media can cover shall soon lead to journalists being banned from conflict areas, depriving Filipinos of in-depth and multi-sided coverage of tensions in a multi-ethnic society.

Adan prescribes penalties for the airing of "anti-people, anti-state sentiments," and inciting to rebellion. He must be reminded that the press does not belong to the government and its allies. Certainly, media cannot give the government blanket authority to define what is anti-people or anti-state, considering that it has often come under fire for being just that, anti-people.

Curtailment of press freedom is a guarantee for heightened socio-political tensions; driving this freedom underground only encourages people into taking drastic action to seek redress for their grievances. Adan only needs to review his martial law experience to realize this.

Adan claims the country has a weak legal system that hampers the fight against terror. While certain provisions in existing laws may be strengthened, attacking press freedom -- or any basic freedom -- is not the answer. If history has taught us anything, it is that assaults on basic freedoms, often perpetrated by the very agencies tasked to protect citizens, were largely responsible for fuelling the cycles of rebellion in this country.

Media cannot stand silent as government chokes off our national democratic space. To Adan and his ilk, the NUJP says, "never again!"

INDAY ESPINA-VARONA
Chair, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines

2005-03-05T10:45:00.000+08:00

Searching the dead for bombs?
Journalists score police for bomb panic at colleague's wake

Media groups in Pampanga are up in arms against the police for practically raiding the wake of journalist Ody Fabian one night, supposedly in search of a bomb.

"It is conduct unbecoming of a gentleman and officer but also of a Filipino. We know how we Filipinos revere our dead. That is a blatant disregard for that Filipino value," the Pampanga Press Club said in a statement. [ from pinoy press ]

the issue has been resolved apparently, with the regional police director - the lamebrain behind the bomb search order at kong ody's wake - issuing a statement of apology.

forgiven but not forgotten.

2005-03-02T22:51:00.000+08:00

vital stats

php355.64 million [ us$6.5 million ] : the total cut in government subsidy this year for the state's premier university of the philippines.

php4.6 billion [ us$83.6 million ]: the total cut in government subsidy this year for the department of education [DepEd].

php12 million [us$218,000] or php8,219 [us$149] a day: the government subsidy per person for four years for a philippine military academy* [pma] cadet

php43 [ 78 us cents ] a day: for his counterpart at the state polytechnic university of the philippines [pup]

*in the wake of the gen. garcia corruption scandal and multi-millionaires in brass, there was this joke circulating a few months ago that the country's best business school is is not the asian institute of management but the pma.

it figures.

2005-03-01T16:01:00.000+08:00

bin laden's moomoo

funny how osama bin laden (who died in december 2001 according to the fbi , pakistan president musharraf , israeli intelligence) shows up just when the us government needs a boost in public support of another invasion?

funny too for george junior's handlers for using the osama bogeyman as it was money coming from osama's brother, salem bin laden, which george junior used to set himself up in the oil business.

just type in the keywords bin laden business at google.

there you go.

2005-03-01T12:24:00.000+08:00

Memories and beliefs
People believe a 'fact' that fits their views even if it's clearly false
The Wall Street Journal

Funny thing, memory. With the second anniversary next month of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it's only natural that supporters as well as opponents of the war will be reliving the many searing moments of those first weeks of battle.

The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. U.S. troops firing at a van approaching a Baghdad checkpoint and killing seven women and children. A suicide bomber nearing a Najaf checkpoint and blowing up U.S. soldiers. The execution of coalition POWs by Iraqis. The civilian uprising in Basra against Saddam's Baathist party.

If you remember it well, then we have grist for another verse for Lerner and Loewe. The first three events occurred. The second two were products of the fog of war: After being reported by the media, both were quickly retracted by coalition authorities as erroneous.

Yet retracting a report isn't the same as erasing it from people's memories. According to an international study to be published next month, Americans tend to believe that the last two events occurred -- even when they recall the retraction or correction. In contrast, Germans and Australians who recall the retraction discount the misinformation. It isn't that Germans and Australians are smarter. Instead, it's further evidence that what we remember depends on what we believe.

"People build mental models," explains Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychology professor at the University of Western Australia, Crawley, who led the study that will be published in Psychological Science. "By the time they receive a retraction, the original misinformation has already become an integral part of that mental model, or world view, and disregarding it would leave the world view a shambles." Therefore, he and his colleagues conclude in their paper, "People continue to rely on misinformation even if they demonstrably remember and understand a subsequent retraction."

For the study, the scientists showed more than 860 people in Australia, Germany and the U.S. a list of events -- some true (the first three examples above), some reported but retracted (the second two), some completely invented ("Iraqi troops poisoned a water supply before withdrawing from Baghdad").

Each person indicated whether or not he or she had heard of the event and rated its likelihood of being true. People were pretty good at weeding out the invented reports. Then, for each report they said they had heard, they noted whether it had subsequently been retracted.

If the report had been retracted, surely people would no longer regard it as true, would they? Here is where memory parts ways with reason. The Germans and Australians responded as you'd expect. The better they recalled that a claim had been taken back, the less true they judged that claim. They did not believe in events they knew had been erroneously reported.

But for the Americans in the study, the simple act of remembering that they had once heard something was enough to make them regard it as true, retraction be damned. Even many of those who remembered a retraction still rated the original claim as true.

That comes as no surprise to memory researchers. Time and again, lab studies show that people have an astonishing propensity to recall things that never happened. If you read a list of words such as pillow, bed and pajamas, and are later asked whether another word was there, you may well "remember" related words that were never presented. "Sleep" was on the list, wasn't it?

In this case, people's mental model is "words about sleep." In the case of memories about Iraq, people's mental model is why the U.S. invaded. The Germans and Australians in this study were skeptical of the official justification, namely, to find weapons of mass destruction. The Americans were more credulous on that point. How suspicious or credulous people were strongly affected whether they judged a retracted claim to be true or not.

"People who were not suspicious of the motives behind the war continued to rely on misinformation," Prof. Lewandowsky said, "believing in things they know to have been retracted." They held fast to what they had originally heard "because it fits with their mental model," which people seek to retain "whatever it takes."

In contrast, those who were suspicious of the WMD justification believed the retractions. The reason is probably that they weren't sold on the original, erroneous reports -- all of which cast the U.S. in a good light and Iraqi forces in a bad one. These people "are more willing to discard elements of a mental model that turn out to be wrong," says Prof. Lewandowsky.

The news media would do well to keep in mind that once we report something, some people will always believe it even if we try to stuff the genie back in the bottle. For instance, six months after the invasion, one-third of Americans believed WMDs had been found, even though every such tentative claim was discomfirmed. The findings also offer Machiavellian possibilities for politicians. They can make a false claim that helps their cause, contritely retract it -- and rest assured that some people will nevertheless keep thinking of it as true.

2005-03-01T11:21:00.000+08:00

marso, tag-init

marso.

sa isang walang humpay na sayaw ng panahon, dumaan ang tagsibol ng walang pasintabi sa mga eskinita ng mga sementadong pilapil ng kalunsuran, sa mga lansangang-lupa ng mga malalayong kanayunan.

marso. mga tanghaling maalinsangan [ when you sweat, it's the humidity - not the heat], mga hapong idinuduyan ng oyayi ng bentilador.

nitong nakaraang linggo, dumaan muli ang isang paggunita sa edsa sa pagtatapos ng pebrero.

si cory aquino - dating pangulo, asawa ng pinaslang na ninoy, kapamilya ng mga cojuangcong nagmamay-ari ng ilang libong ektarya ng lupaing dinilig ng dugo sa tarlac at oo, nanay ni kris - naglabas ng angst sa pagtitipon at sinabihan ang mga "armchair analysts" na "unfair" daw ang paniniwalang sinayang ng mga administrasyon dumaan pagkatapos ni marcos ang mga naging pagpupunyagi ng mamamayan sa edsa.

hindi ko alam kung si deedee sytangco - na aide de camp par excellance dati ni cory - ang kumana ng talumpati ng dating pangulo, pero heto ang malinaw.

ayos lang sa kaniya ang pagkabangkarote ng bansa matapos siyang manungkulan. ayos lang ang galit ng mga naulila ng mga napatay na magsasaka sa mendiola at sa hacienda luisita. ayos lang ang panunumbalik sa poder ng naghaharing-uri dahil kasama naman ang pamilya niya sa mga iyon.

ang sarap kutusan - pero kasalanan daw ang pumatol sa matanda.

marso na. simula ng tag-init. pagpapatuloy ng mga balita ng ating panahon.

nitong nakaraang buwan, ginulantang ka ng mahigit 300 posiyentong singil sa north luzon expressway na nasa ngalan na ngayon ng pamilya lopez. ngayong buwan na ito, oo, tumaas muli ang presyo ng langis sa pambansang pamilihan.

ang 12 porsiyentong value added tax na isunusulong ng administrasyong macapagal-arroyo, pag-uusapan ng masinsinan sa senado.

kaya mo naman daw lahat ng ito, ayon kay gloria at sampu ng kaniyang mga milyong pisong tagapayo.

ang sarap kutusan - pero kasalanan daw ang pumatol sa matanda.

marso. budyong ng isang malupit na tag-init.

2005-02-23T04:18:00.000+08:00

edsa

dahil sa isang naging estudyante ko noon sa pamamahayag at malikhaing panulat [ journalism and creative writing, squirt ], heto at tumipa muli sa midyum na filipino*.

pagbabalik-tanaw nga pala ng 1996 edsa revolution bukas.

nakalimutan na ito marahil ng marami - lalo na at mas mayroong importanteng kailangang pagtuusan ng pansin ang mas malaking bilang ng ating mga kababayan sa kasalukuyan - pagkain sa hapag-kainan, pambayad ng ilaw, tubig at bahay, matrikula ni junior, mga utang na di mabayad-bayaran, ang tatay na nakaratay.

pasensiya na muna kuya. ayaw kasi nilang magtaas ng suweldo. baka raw magsipag-alisan ang mga lokal at dayunang mamumuhunan.

isa siguro ang edsa revolution at ang pagsusulat ukol dito ang isa sa mga naging daang bakal ko sa panulat. hanggang ngayon, nasa tokador pa sa bahay ang isang malaking tropeo na inuwi ko noong kolehiyo matapos manalo ng unang gantimpala sa isang patimpalak sa pagsusulat ng sanaysay.

ang tema - edsa, 2555 days after: an analysis.

simple lang ang naging piyesa ko. walang hifaluting verbiage na pang-bluff ng marami sa mga nagbabasa.

sa english na midyum, inisa-isa ko ang mga dahilan kung bakit nawala ang diwa ng edsa sa pagdaan ng panahon.

bagama't naibalik ang mg batayang karapatang pantao, walang naging pagbabago sa sosyo-ekonomiko-pulitikal na kalagayan sa bansa.

bagama't napaalis ang rehimeng at sampu ng kaniyang mga burukrata-pulitiko, hindi nagkaroon ng karampatang reporma sa pamahalaan upang maalis ang mag dahilan kung bakit nakalikha ito ng isang marcos.

bagama't napalayas ang kaniyang mga crony, pinalitan sila ng mahigit sampu pa na hanggang ngayo'y tila mga lintang nakadikit sa kontrata ng pamahalaan at pampublikong pondo.

si cory aquino nga pala na naging presidente matapos si marcos, napalitan na at hanggang ngayo'y hindi maipamahagi sa pamamagitan ng repormang pansakahan ang libo-libong ektarya ng lupain sa tarlac na nasa pagmamay-ari pa rin ng pamilya cojuangco.

bago mamatay si dating senador ninoy aquino - bayani at asawa ni cory - isa sa mga isiniwalat niyang dahilan ng kahirapan sa bansa ay ang pagmamay-ari ng iilang patabaing kasapi ng oligarkiya sa halos karamihan ng lupain sa bansa.

hangga't di naipapatupad ang tunany na repormang panlupa, wika niya, hindi makakaahon si juan, pedro at maria sa hirap.

pasensiya na at dense si cory. mas lalo si noynoy na anak nilang mag-asawa na ngayo'y isang kasapi ng mababang kapulungan at isa sa mga tagapamahala ng hacienda luisita.

si kris? ewan.

fast-forward tayo. patay na si marcos. nakabalik na sa pilipinas ang kaniyang pamilya. gobernador ang kaniyang junior, kongresista ang unica hija. livin' la vida loca ang biyuda.

ang libo-libong biktima ng tortyur, pananakit, pagpatay, pagkabilanggo noong panahon ng batas-militar, hanggang ngayo'y di pa mabayaran ng danyos perhuwisyo dahil sa di malamang kadahilanan.

ang pangulo ay si gloria. sa kongreso't senado, sa mga opisina ng pamahalaan ay naglilipana pa rin mga buwitre at buwaya.

tuloy pa rin ang digmaan sa moslem mindanao at sa mga liblib na lugar sa bansa na nais ipatupad ng mga rebolusyunaryong gerilya ng cpp-npa-ndf ang kanilang sariling paraan ng pamamahala.

malala pa rin ang sitwasyong pang sosyo-ekonomiko. karamiha'y mas gusto pang mangibang-bansa at doon na lang tumira at makipagsapalaran kaysa mamatay sa gutom sa kawalan ng trabaho at sa nakaliit na pasuweldo dito sa atin.

same old, same old.

pagbabalik-tanaw nga pala sa edsa bukas.

*napalapit ako sa wikang filipino noong nag-aral ako ng ilang taon sa centro escolar u sa bulacan. nanalo rin ako doon ng unang gantimpala sa isang patimpalak sa pagsusulat - sa malikhaing maikling kuwento [ creative short story writing ] gamit ang wikang filipino. ang piyesa ko? ambon , isang dyaskeng love story. :P

2005-02-23T03:37:00.000+08:00

a man writes 30

fyodor "ody" fabian.

journalist, development activist, mentor, friend.

the man, his life and his times.

he quietly passed away sunday night at the young age of 47.

where bullets, prison and the economic realities of philippine journalism failed failed to sap his spirit, a sudden massive coronary quietly suceeded in silencing one of the best journalists pampanga has produced.

he will be laid to rest sunday after his son arrives from the u.s.

no sad memories here. just remembering the years when he took me under his wing for newspaper design and lay-out training.

you will be missed, koya.

2005-02-23T03:34:00.000+08:00

From the mail
Philippines, a virtual hellfire for media

Edgar Amoro, the courageous key witness in the celebrated murder case of slain Pagadian City journalist Edgar Damalerio (killed 13 May 2002), was brutally gunned down before noon last 02 February by three unidentified men.

Amoro's slay was a massive, if not a knockout blow to the ongoing Damalerio murder trial, which has been watched closely by both international and local media organizations, because of its relative progress compared to the other local journalist killing cases.

To further put insult to the injury, the murder took place despite the fact that Amoro was under the witness protection program by the Department of Justice, underscoring the vicious cycle of a slow and inefficient justice system in the country.

The killing seemingly highlighted the rising cases of threats and attacks against journalists. Maximo "Max" Quindao, editor and publisher of the Tagum City-based Mindanao Trucknews, was seriously wounded when unknown gunmen on a motorcycle shot him as he left the newspaper office on 29 January. On 01 February, just three days later after the Tagum attack, journalist Luz Rimban of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, received threats from the head of Green Circle Properties & Resources, Inc., whose firm she identified as running anomalous tree-cutting operations in the Quezon province. While on 08 February, Bulgar veteran columnist Pablo Hernandez survived by a slay try suspected to be orchestrated by a couple of high-ranking police officers.

Amoro's killing also refuted, in a certain extent, the administration's claim that the government had solved "majority of the cases involving the slaying of journalists."

On 17 January, Malacañang released a statement criticizing a report by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on the Philippine government's failure to protect the media people and solve the cases of "13 journalists" killed last year.

Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio Bunye referred to the IFJ commentary as "misleading," and backed this up by citing that the Philippine National Police (PNP) have solved "majority of the cases involving the slaying of journalists." Bunye was obviously referring to the police leads, where suspects were either identified or arrested, in the cases of the fallen journalists. However, as what a National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) statement said, ".we use the universal definition of 'solved' as justice having served, [like] a court conviction of a suspect."

As far as the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ) is concerned, out of all the 49 cases of journalist killings listed in the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) database since 1986, only two cases have resulted in the identification, prosecution, and conviction of suspects.

Curiously, the family of Nesino Paulin Toling, the courageous Ozamis journalist killed on 14 April 1991 and considered as one of the two solved cases, believes that the convicted person was just a fall guy of the real mastermind behind the killing.

Despite obvious manhandling and external influence from some ranks of the government and the police, Damalerio's case was on track to become the third "solved" journalist murder case since 1986. Instead, the trial of policeman Guillermo Wapile, Damalerio's alleged killer, was virtually put to naught by Amoro's murder. The last hope and the second vital witness, Edgar Ongue has long gone into hiding fearing for his life, making the trial's success look bleaker.

>From Pete Mabazza (24 April 1986) to Herson Hinolan (15 November 2004), justice remained elusive in general for journalists. In 2004 alone, there were only two "serious" investigations and none of these led to any prosecutions. At the time of Amoro's killing, Wapile's trial was in the process of being transferred to a higher court in Cebu, ironically, for the safety purpose of the witnesses.

According to PNP, since 1986, there are 15 cases that are still pending in courts and 27 remain under investigation, while eight scribes killed when caught in cross-fires in the late 80's. International watchdogs, like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and IFJ, have criticized government's failure to solve the continuing murders and even threats to media freedom and demanded actions from the Philippine officials.

On Amoro's murder, Lin Neumann, CPJ's former Asian chief coordinator, who also did a piece on Damalerio, said, "This is a great shame. This is a tragic indictment of the state of the Philippine justice system."

Ann Cooper, executive director of the CPJ, and her colleagues expressed their "demand for more than just lip service from the government. It is high time that official made good on their promises to uphold press freedom by bringing those who murder journalists to justice."

International News Safety Institute (INSI) Director Rodney Pinder agreed saying that the "countries with journalists' blood [like the Philippines]" should take "effective action to find and prosecute their killers."

"The sheer number of journalists killed in 2004 is cause for deep concern," Cooper added. "But the fact that so many were murdered with impunity is shameful and debilitating. Governments have an obligation to pursue and prosecute those responsible. By failing to do so, they let criminals set the limits on the news that citizens see and read."

Without a doubt, the criminals are having a "field day" slaughtering or distressing members of the press. Due to lack of action and justice, the crooks are becoming bolder and resolute in attacking the media.

According to reports cited by Jose Torres in his article in the December 2004-January 2005 issue of PJR Reports, some groups were even trying to scare journalists into silence after information surfaced about the alleged existence of a "hit list" targeting at least two journalists in each province. This is a clear bid to "force journalists not to rock the boat."

Just a month ago, the issue was made complicated when, just before dawn, a group of armed masked men set a P35-million ABS-CBN outside broadcast (OB) van ablaze on 11 January. Worse, the continued political bickering left a sour twist into the latest direct assault on media, as some members of both the administration and the opposing parties pointed fingers to no avail.

The journalists' killings, their threats and insults, and now the liquidation of key witnesses in their cases, have definitely cemented the infamy the country learned as one of the worst places in the world for journalists. The government should heed the call of the media organizations for the culture of impunity to end, and in the process bring the killers and those out to shut the media to shackles. The impunity with which the killers of journalists have been able to get away with the murders and threats is alarming, threatening press freedom and the viability of Philippine democracy.

In the longest possible time, the Philippines was regarded as a haven for journalists for having perhaps the 'freest' press, but for having a democracy providing a virtual paradise to murderers and killers, any place here could be a hellfire for media.

The Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists Inc.
c/o The Secretariat
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility

2005-02-21T11:49:00.000+08:00

g-mail me bebe

oooh, finally.

my 1,000 megabyte g-mail account, squirt.

2005-02-21T11:35:00.000+08:00

kulasa anonymous

i'm trying to imagine you humming to john mayer's no such thing. that line which goes "i wanna run through the halls of my high school...i wanna scream at the top of my lungs..."

natatandaan pa kita. kayong mga naging bubuwit ko noon ng kahit isang saglit. :D

hindi ba kita naging paborito? dangan kasi'y di ko nakahiligang magkaroon ng teacher's pet. nakikita ko kasi sa bawa't isa sa mga estudyanteng nababahaginan ko ng kaalaman ang sarili ko noong nasa campus pa ako at nagsusulat.

i did teach you more than the writing you normally learn within the confines of four walls.

the entire world is your classroom. the whole world is your university.

marami doon - sa mga naituro ko sa inyo at sa isang libo pang mahigit na mga bata mula sa ibang paaralan at pamantasan sa rehiyon - ay nailimbag ko na sa isang payak na libro na gamit ngayon sa pampanga sa pakikipagtulungan ng pamahalaang panlalawigan.

si nanay nyo non? matagal ko nang kaibigang matalik yon. mutual friend ng isang manunulat din na namayapa na.

oo. nag-deyt nga pala kami hahaha. heto ung naging kinahihinatnan. *laughs*

kumplikado kse kaya di ko tinuloy ung panliligaw. haven't seen her in years.

naikuwento niya sa akin na me estudyante nga raw siya na naturuan ko sa workshop sssions na umabot sa national level sa journ competition.

masaya ko siyempre dahil umubra ung freireian methodology ko. naks.

at siyempre naman dahil may galing ang estudyante.

di ko na alam nangyari thereafter dahil iba na yata ang humawak sa mga campus journs nyo.

clean cut na ngayon ang naging guro mo minsan noon. naah. wala na ung cordillera beads.

kape? bisyo na yata na di na maiwan iwan gaya ng sigarilyo matapos kumain.

am shuttling to and from pampanga and manila at the moment.

ewan. di ko pa rin alam kung ano ang di ko maiwan sa pampanga.

dang. we've all grown old.

hanggang ngayon manunulat pa rin ako. there was that point when i realized na tatanda na ako at mamumuti ang buhok at takatak ng keyboard pa rin ng pc ang maririnig ko sa mga madaling-araw.

which reminds me of a parable ricky lee tells in his a trip to quiapo.

"may tatlong manunulat," ricky says. "lahat gustong pumunta sa quiapo."

"ang unang manunulat, pag-aaralan niya ang daang ginamit ng mga naunang manunulat, at ito ang susundin niya. makakarating siya sa quiapo," he narrates.

"pero ang ikalawang manunulat, may pagkakalog yata. umikot muna sa mga ilog at bundok at gubat, umiwas sa kumbensyonal na daan, nakipagtsistmisan pa sa kalye. pinagtatawanan natin siya dahil madalas natatawa tayo sa mga nalilihis, tama man sila o hindi. hanggang makarating siya sa quiapo," ricky tells us.

"mas mahusay siyang manunulat kaysa una dahil nakadiskubre siya ng bagong daan papuntang quiapo. hindi magtatagal, marami pang susunod sa kaniya papatag ang landas na ginawa niya at magiging kasimbilis na rin ng unang daan," he adds.

"pero ang ikatlong manunulat, hindi rin siya sumunod sa rules. aba, hindi lang kalog, baliw pa yata! umikot-ikot din siya sa mga ilog at bundok at palengke at simbahan. nagka-wala-wala pa! muntik pang ma-holdap!"

"pinagtawanan natin siya, diniscourage, hanggang sa makarating siya sa isang lugar. hindi ito ang quiapo kanina. pero mapapaniwala niya tayo na ito ay quiapo rin," ricky says.

"siya ang pinakamahusay sa tatlong manunulat. dahil may magic ang ginawa niya. dahil ang mundo ng literature, sining at pelikula, pati na ang buhay natin, ay nagiging napakayaman at makahulugan dahil marami ang quiapo," he concludes.

marami ang quiapo, sa bawa't mga pangkahulugan at yaman ng daigdig ng literatura at pagsusulat.

don't be afraid of losing your way or breaking conventional rules and norms in the craft and art of writing.

ingat.

2005-02-17T21:46:00.000+08:00

bloodmoney
top ten war profiteers of 2004

considering the fact that slavery is the central historical economic base for the development of america, i am no longer surprised that a major portion of us economy today has evolved and is hinged on the military industry and post-war endeavors.

the center for corporate responsibility , a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization working to curb corporate abuses and make corporations publicly accountable, has prepared the list of top american firms that have reaped huge profits as a result of the invasion of iraq and the control of its vast oilfields.

um, you know it's bad when halliburton is #7. [ >>>read more>>> ]

2005-02-17T20:44:00.000+08:00

acquired immunity defense syndrome

it seems like 9-11 needs to find its jim garrison.

former republican aide and lawyer stanley hilton's us$7 billion federal class action lawsuit against the bush administration for authorizing the September 11 attacks has been thrown out.

the suit was against bush, dick cheney, condoleezza rice, donald rumsfeld and norman mineta.

hilton, who represented 400 plaintiffs charged that the bush administration was involved not only in aiding and abetting and allowing 9/11 to happen but in actually ordering it to happen.

"Bush personally ordered it to happen. We have some very incriminating documents as well as eye-witnesses, that Bush personally ordered this event to happen in order to gain political advantage, to pursue a bogus political agenda on behalf of the neocons and their deluded thinking in the Middle East. I also wanted to point out that, just quickly, I went to school with some of these neocons. At the University of Chicago, in the late 60s with Wolfowitz and Feith and several of the others and so I know these people personally. And we used to talk about this stuff all of the time. And I did my senior thesis on this very subject - how to turn the U.S. into a presidential dictatorship by manufacturing a bogus Pearl Harbor event." - Hilton, in his September 10, 2004 interview with Alex Jones

the case was dismissed not because of lack of evidence but was based on the "doctrine of sovereign immunity".

in other words, the judge reasoned that u.s. citizens do not have the right to hold a sitting president accountable for anything, even if the charges include premeditated mass murder and premeditated acts of high treason.

oh. okay.

2005-02-17T18:31:00.000+08:00

american idiot

here's a piece of news for you neocon fans.

Until recent years, US companies employed Americans to produce the goods that Americans consumed. Employment supported sales, and sales supported employment. No more. By their shortsighted policy of moving US jobs abroad, our corporations are destroying their American markets.

Economists give assurances that the dollar's decline and fall will bring jobs and industry back to the US. Once Americans are as poor as Indians and Chinese are today, the process will reverse. Multinational corporations will locate in America to take advantage of cheap labor and unserved markets. By becoming poor, the US can become rich again.- PC Roberts, The Bush Shortfall: 8 Million Missing Jobs

well, lemme see. the us trade deficit grew to an all-time high in 2004; taken together, the debt of the American states and the the US Federal Government totals approximately US$14 trillion; the US national debt has been pegged at US$ 7,937,463,000,000.00 [7.9 trillion US dollars ]; the cost of invading iraq and securing its oilfields is currently at US$155,219,347,523 [ 155.2 billion US dollars ]; holding three jobs to just make ends meet is uniquely american says bush; and he's got massive budget cuts due a fiscal deficit expected to hit a record US$427 billion this year...

well, just shrug it off as long as your economy is growing, to paraphrase a thesis of one of the bush administration advisers.

:chortle:

2005-02-16T12:48:00.000+08:00

bitter grounds

your daily cup of coffee is the result of a complicated global trading system that tracks back to some of the poorest regions of the world.

after all, it is the world's second-most-valuable commodity exported by developing countries, after oil. the global coffee industry earns an estimated us$60 billion annually. more than 500 billion cups of coffee are served worldwide each year.

but the fact is, less than 10 percent of those earnings end up in the hands of coffee farmers. [ >>> follow your coffee dollar here ]

2005-02-16T12:19:00.000+08:00

slavery, america
how slavery became the central economic base for an entire country's development

we don't have pbs here in philippine cable tv and i really do wish we did.

pbs programs [ frontline in particular ], along with bbc's documentaries perhaps provide one of the best, in-depth and incisive news and features documentaries in mainstream broadcast media today.

one latest pbs docu, the slavery and making of america explores slavery as more than just an institution of evil and persecution. rather, the film shows how slavery became the central economic base for the entire country's development -- a base that was dependent on the labor and know-how of generations of black americans.

and it is not african-american history, it's american history. why? because slavery is ground zero for race relations in america. i can only shake my head if you're black, asian, or hispanic and don't understand that.

a most welcome change from fox news' blonde journalism. double entrende not intended.

2005-02-16T09:17:00.000+08:00

vital stats

php9.50 [ about 17 us cents ]: the weekly net salary of farmworkers toiling in former philippine president aquino and the powerful cojuangco family's hacienda luisita in tarlac, just north of manila.

php100 [us$1.78]: the salary increase demand of luisita's farmworkers

php12 [ 22 us cents]: the amount the cojuangcos' central azucarera de tarlac said that it can only provide.

14 people: total number of fatalities - including 2 children aged 2 and 5 years old - who died from automatic weapons fire and tear gas lobbed by a police and army teams ordered to disperse the striking luisita workers november last year. at least 35 others sustained gunshot wounds. police arrested and detained another 133 of the farmworkers - not farmers according to the cojuangco family.

why the verbiage? farmers can avail of the government's agrarian reform program. farmworkers can't, says the cojuangco's legal counsel in a tv interview over the weekend.

insert your expletive of choice here.

2005-02-16T09:12:00.000+08:00

wicked one liners

jamie foxx on ray charles: "[charles] was a visionary..."

dude, check your eyesight. wasn't charles freakin' visually challenged?

2005-02-16T08:56:00.000+08:00

have a blast

i was having dinner monday night in a korean resto in malate with my girlfriend when we heard news over the celfone that the mrt's ayala station has been bombed.

lest this was another case of a false alarm from text messages, i engaged a couple of people in the resto in a conversation. i was informed that a bomb had indeed gone off just below the mrt's ayala station - in a metro bus with the blast triggering a conflagration that engulfed two vehicles.

you all probably know the whole story now, with no need to elaborate on things.

11 dead and at least 90 injured in the simultaneous makati, general santos and davao city explosions, squirt.

here's just one single thing which has been bugging me since monday night. if 'twas muslim extremists behind the bombings, why are military exclusive c4 plastic explosives and high grade military tnt almost always present in bombings here?

do they know something we don't?

2005-02-09T23:10:00.000+08:00

vital stats

average daily cost of living for a family of six in the philippines
- php492.19 [ around us$8.9 ]

daily cost of living for a family of six in metro manila
- php530.01 [ us$9.7 ]

highest minimum wage rate per day [ in metro manila ]
- php300.00 /php250 basic wage+php50.00 ecola [ around us$5.4 ]

lowest minimum wage rate per day [ in mindanao ]
- php129.20 [ around us$2.4 ]

a freakin' cup of mocha ultimate ice blended at coffee bean and tea leaf-greenbelt
- php120.00 [ around us$2.3 ]

*sources:
office of the press secretary, malacanang
national wages and productivity commission
department of labor and employment - bureau of labor and employment statistics

2005-02-09T15:33:00.000+08:00

stop the credit-grabbing too

the president can credit-grab all she wants for the recent surge in the country's gdp [ see earlier post ] and the upswing of the philippine peso but here's a fact -presidents are at the mercy of the business cycle.

there are tools to influence the business cycle, but the president has almost no control over them. at least in economic terms, the most powerful person in the country is the chairman of the central bank.

in all truth, presidents probably have the least control over the economy of any major government player.

the belief that presidents deserve blame for recessions or credit for recoveries is an economic myth. a very popular myth, - but one that no mainstream economist takes seriously.

at the heart of the economy's performance lies the business cycle. for reasons which are still debated, the economy has a natural tendency to expand and contract - otherwise known as recoveries and recessions. this has been going on for centuries, at irregular intervals that economists cannot yet predict.

however, one generalization about the business cycle is known. the economy grows in the long run, thanks to the growing population and rising productivity per worker. this means that expansions tend to be longer than contractions. also, the deeper the recession, the steeper the recovery.

the point is that a president's "handling" of the economy is often a matter a sheer luck; any expansion experienced under his or her term in office is largely predetermined by the severity of the recession that preceded him or her.

this does not mean that the government does not have tools to influence the business cycle. it's just that presidents do not have access to most of them.

you might not know it but the most powerful person in the country is the chairman of the central bank. he controls the size of the nation's money supply (through interest rates and other methods), which has a profound influence on the business cycle. by contracting the money supply, he can create a recession, by removing the pesos that would normally cover the financial transactions between customers and businesses.

this drives up unemployment, but it also has a positive effect: it reduces inflation, by causing businesses to lower their prices, and workers their wage demands, to stay working through tough times.

on the other hand, expanding the money supply helps expand the economy. businesses have more money to hire workers, and customers have more money to spend on goods, so unemployment falls whenever the central bank pumps more money into the economy.

however, there is also a negative effect: it tends to create inflation. why? suppose that the central bank expands the money supply by 5 percent a year. if no one changes their prices, then the nation's productivity should expand 5 percent a year -- the result of more financial transactions being made possible.

but suppose that businesses come to expect the 5 percent monetary expansion every year. it's in their interest simply to raise their prices 5 percent -- that way they make the same amount of extra money without having to work for it.

thus, in order to expand productivity, the central bank has to expand the money supply by 10 percent the next year -- but eventually businesses come to expect that too. the result can be runaway inflation of 20, 100, 5,000 percent.

the role of the central bank, therefore, is to find the right balance. it seeks to expand the money supply just fast enough to avoid high unemployment, but not so fast as to create inflation.

often its work is counter-cyclical, or in opposition to the business cycle. it expands the money supply during recessions, and contracts it during recoveries, to keep both unemployment and inflation in line.

the decisions of the central bank are called monetary policy. there is another way to influence the business cycle: fiscal policy, which is conducted by congress and, superficially, the president.

much like the central bank, congress can either pump money into the economy or take it out, by varying its level of borrowing and spending.

it should be stressed that fiscal policy only expands the economy when the government spends borrowed money.

when congress runs a balanced budget, it really doesn't matter how much it taxes and spends, at least from an expansionary viewpoint. historically, the government has run only small deficits during peacetime, allowing the central bank to exercise the most control over the money supply.

fiscal policy is less effective than monetary policy for another reason as well. whereas the chairman of the central bank has only to make a few phone calls to turn the economy on a dime, the government must take long, slow and uncertain action.

suppose the president wants to pass a budget filled with deficit spending. first he or she has to campaign to get the nation behind it. then he or she has to make deals and twist arms in congress to win support for it.

if either of these efforts fail, then his or her budget won't get passed at all. if he or she wins plausible support, then the budget must be debated in congress.

members of congress will make extensive and profound changes to his original budget proposal. lobbyists will make further changes in conference committee. (the power of lobbyists is not to be underestimated -- their control over the budget is near absolute.)

when the final budget is passed, it often bears little resemblance to what the president requested. then the bill has to be put into effect; this happens in next fiscal year.

bids for government projects must be received and evaluated, contracts awarded, and implementation begun. the effects of fiscal spending may take years to have an effect on the economy.

in recent decades, the president has been relegated to an increasingly minor role in fiscal policy. if congress is controlled by the other party, then he even becomes a mere figurehead.

which begs the question: what, exactly, can a president do to influence the economy?

his or her role in determining monetary policy is limited to nominating the members of the central bank.

the president's role in determining fiscal policy is limited to cheerleading budgets through congress.

So the belief that presidents are to blame or to be credited for the economy, especially the current economy, is regrettably uninformed.

whatever small economic gains the country might have achieved in fiscal year 2004 might have been due to fiscal policies of then estrada and not arroyo.

2005-02-09T15:24:00.000+08:00

vat chu want?

before the arroyo administration pursues its railroading of the 12% value-added tax [vat] proposal, government should devise a scheme on how to mop up uncollected VAT.

a study commissioned by the national economic development authority showed that uncollected vat hit php368.1 billion from 1989 to 1997 while another study by the national tax research center showed that vat leakages reached php207.2 billion from 1998 to 2002.

this should be resolved before the matron in malacañang armtwists the senate to approve the proposals to increase the vat rate and to repeal exemptions on certain transactions.

2005-02-07T20:35:00.000+08:00

and on the 8th day, he created idiots

pop quiz, squirt.

were there dinosaurs on noah's ark?

there would be - if the biblical literalist religious right will have their way.

2005-02-07T11:23:00.000+08:00

that gdp thing

last week saw president arroyo jump for joy over news that the country's gross domestic product [gdp] grew by 6.1 percent in 2004, the highest since the term of then president fidel ramos.

interesting, but do the figures tally up to filipinos enjoying better quality of life under arroyo?

quite frankly - not quite - if today's news story on the deterioration of wage levels in the country since she assumed office is to be used as a denominator.

here's a major point that the economist from georgetown and her bevy of ganda-ganda advisers have been missing.

the problem with arroyo's [ and perhaps most mainstream developmental economic schools of thought] is not that she over-emphasizes trade and growth at the expense of poverty alleviation, but that she over-emphasizes trade at the expense of poverty reduction and growth.

confusing means for ends, she is - as yoda might say.

in theory, a country could enjoy a high average growth rate without any benefit to its poorest households, if income disparities grew significantly—in other words, if the rich got richer while the incomes of the poor stagnated or declined.

read previous post for reference.

point two. the economy’s growth rate is not a sufficient statistic for making welfare evaluations because it ignores not only the level of income but also its distribution.

the poor remain poor not because of cultural imperfections or colonial myths but because they cannot borrow against future earnings to invest in education, skills, new crops, and entrepreneurial activities.

they are cut off from economic activity because they are deprived of many collective goods (such as property rights, public safety, and infrastructure) and lack information about market opportunities.

it is a standard tenet of economic theory that raising real average incomes requires interventions targeted at closing gaps between private and social costs.

has the arroyo administration undertaken measures at closing those gaps?

as nobel winner amartya sen has emphasized, the overarching goal of economic development is to maximize people's capabilities - that is, their ability to lead the kind of life they value.

is president arroyo leading us to have the kind of lives we value?

quite frankly not, i fear.

[addenda: you should might as well also read the two studies harvard and berkeley conducted in 1996 that clearly have showed that that income inequality, as opposed to absolute standard of living, is responsible for higher death rates, as well as numerous other social problems like crime, welfare, and poor educational outcomes.

also at the other end of common sense, one of us president george w. bush's economic advisors toyed with the idea in a thesis she did years ago that lower salaries equals economic growth.

seriously.]

2005-02-07T11:18:00.000+08:00

Philippine income levels deteriorating under Arroyo
The final results of the 2003 Family Income and Expenditure Survey showed that the average real family income and expenditures in the country fell in 2003 compared to their 2000 levels, raising more questions on the government’s announcement that poverty incidence dropped during the three-year period. [ read more ]

2005-01-30T14:44:00.000+08:00

payola muzak

here's another interesting anecdote linear to the fact of music video channels - and fm radio stations - are nothing less than advertising jukeboxes.

in the 1950s, when rock 'n roll was the king and popular and was really taking off and selling singles was crucial, the biggest scandal that took place in radio and the music industry was called payola - or grease money.

record companies would come in and pay disk jockeys to play the records for their artists, records that wouldn't be played otherwise if a disk jockey just used their own judgment.

and this was considered a huge scandal, because they thought the people, if you listen to a radio station, you had the right to believe that if it wasn't an ad, that the music was only being played because someone actually thought it was good music. it was an editorial call. and the disk jockeys who were convicted of payola lost their jobs, and some went to prison - including an alanwhatshisnameagan. it was a massive scandal in the 1950s and early 1960s.

well, now payola's legal again. for the those in the music industry it's okay to do payola, but now most of the money doesn't go to a dj or the vj, who's a powerless figure.

the money goes to the company that owns it. so if you're a label and you pay enough money to viacom - which owns mtv, abs-cbn, which owns myx or rupert murdoch's group which owns channel v or the station manager of a nook and cranny radio station- or to get your music on their stations, you could actually buy your way on the airwaves.

that is the music industry. it is by no means a level playing field that anyone can get on the air just because they have great music.

there's a whole politics there in being connected to a large label. having all sorts of marketing muscle behind you has everything to about whether that music gets heard. So then once you're heard and you're exposed to millions of people, of course, it's going to have an influence.

and that's the whole premise of advertising. if it didn't have some influence, it wouldn't exist.

2005-01-30T13:48:00.000+08:00

cable grist

assuming that you're plugged in to cable tv which you regularly have to pay monthly dues for, should you be still subjected to advertising?

that is one question most cable tv subscribers in the philippines are asking, as there is now a noticable barrage of local commercial ads being inserted by cable tv providers in between programs.

i wonder if the ntc even has guidelines on the matter, considering the financial influence the adboard has.

and oh, music videos on MTV, Channel V and MYX? watching 'em is more akin to watching a fat man pimp breast enlargement cream in an infomercial.

there is no difference. both are commercials. you start from the premise that is saying that everything on a music video channel is a commercial. it is an infomercial.

that's all that a music video channel is. sometimes it's an explicit advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product. sometimes it's going to be a video for a music company there to sell music. sometimes it's going to be the set that's filled with trendy clothes and stuff there to sell a look that will include products on that set. sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming movie paid for by the studio, though you don't know it, to hype a movie that's coming out from hollywood or the local movie industry.

everything's an infomercial.

and the music video channels do listen very carefully to minors - their primary audience - in rather the same way, if i can put it controversially, as dr. goebbels, adolf hitler's ministry of propaganda, listened to the german people.

propagandists have to listen to their audience very, very closely. when corporate revenues depend on being ahead of the curve, they have to listen.

2005-01-28T17:33:00.000+08:00

k, in between

it's been a while since i worked on a major ethnologuistic/ethnohistorical project - the last of which was a lecture on austronesian linguistics at holy angel university in angeles city.

then, there were that long series of articles that ran at a newsweekly i formerly headed.

just a few points of clarity perhaps in the course of the years and the days in between.

the kapampangan people's original homeland was neither malaysia nor indonesia but a non-sino region of modern day taiwan.

archeological and lingustic evidence lead to the conclusion the that forefathers of present day inhabitants of malaysia, indonesia, the marianas and polynesia inhabited the philippine islands before they and their descendants continued their waves of migration.

linguistically and genetically, the filipino is kin to the builders of the easter island monoliths.

in between this too, i found out that my wife, abbey, is most likely half-kapampangan.
her mother hails from san miguel de mayumo , which is now part of bulacan.

san miguel de mayumo [ mayumo means sweet in kapampangan, by the way ] was formerly part of pampanga until it was gerrymandered several decades ago to give way to the establishment and enlargement of new provinces in central luzon island such as bulacan, nueva ecija and bataan.

just a few things of note for old friend and now very kapampangan dante - who today lives with his wife and kids in magalang town in the foothills of mount arayat in pampanga.

stay well. :D

2005-01-28T17:12:00.000+08:00

gray noise

Various experts have recently tried to quantify the amount of advertising that suffuses the culture. We hear that each one of us encounters in an average day 2,000 messages or a million solicitations. I don't know how anybody can come up with a figure like that. I think it's probably more poignant than accurate to note that there is so much clutter in the landscape. It's really more accurate to say that the landscape is clutter. There is nothing other than clutter.

It's not as if we have some preexistent blank space that's clean and tidy, and there happen to be a lot of ants floating around in it. It's extremely difficult to cut through that clutter to find a space that's not in some sense advertising already. All the old safe havens -- schools, churches, urinals -- one by one, they've all basically been appropriated by the advertising/public relations force so that it's actually accurate to say that we live in a universe of propaganda. - M.C. Miller, The Persuaders

2005-01-28T16:33:00.000+08:00

Poor man's salary
P137-wage hike to bring wages to World Bank poverty standard

Do juxtapose this with the coming new taxes that will spark another round of hike in prices of basic commodities and cost of living. Otherwise, just whimper and bear it.

Based on global standards, a Flipino worker should be earning P386.70 per day. In the National Capital Region where the legislated minimum wage is the highest at P250, this amount is still P137 short.

The commitment of United Nations member-countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicates the widespread acceptance of the World Bank’s poverty line of $1 a day. This measure is enshrined in Goal 1, which targets the reduction by half of the proportion of people living on $1 a day.

But if the Philippine government, as a country that has committed to achieving the MDGs, accepts this measure, then it should also admit that the country’s legislated minimum wages are not enough to meet this international poverty line.

Based on an average prevailing exchange rate of P56 to $1, the daily poverty line for a family of six members is P336 or P10,080 monthly. This is the minimum amount a local worker must earn to be considered non-poor.

If the poverty line is divided by the average of 26 working days in a month, a worker should thus be earning P386.70 per day. In the National Capital Region where the legislated minimum wage is the highest at P250, this amount is still P137 short.

To bring the minimum wage to international poverty standards, government should thus legislate a P137 wage increase.

The current P125 wage increase that labor groups are demanding is even lower than the World Bank criteria. Government then has no reason not to grant these groups’ justified call for a wage hike. Amid the rising cost of living, this increase would help ordinary Filipinos meet their basic food and non-food needs.

Arbitrary Poverty Line
The government’s poverty threshold--the minimum income needed by an individual to be considered non-poor-- is also substantially less than the World Bank’s poverty line. The annual per capita poverty threshold as of 2002 is P11,906 or almost P33 daily, a shortfall of P23.

The Bank’s poverty measure is based on purchasing power parity (PPP), which suggests that prices of goods and services in different countries tend to equate under floating exchange rates. Therefore, if a poor Filipino living on a dollar a day moved to the US with no change in income, he or she would still be living on $1 a day.

Although the World Bank standard is commonly used in gauging world poverty, what is needed however is a locally generated measure that would accurately define in the Philippine setting how much is actually needed for an individual or a family to meet their food and non-food needs.

Alternative Measures
One possible measure is the family living wage promulgated by the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC), which estimates the daily wage needed by a family of six to meet their food and non-food needs plus a 10% allowance for savings.

As of January 2004, the NWPC estimates the daily family living wage in NCR at P593, assuming that at least two members of the family, or more precisely 1.8 members, work. The daily family living wage therefore should be P329 per working family member or at least P79 more than the prevailing legislated daily minimum wage of P250.

But this is assuming that at least two family members work and earn a minimum wage. Given widespread unemployment and rampant violations of the minimum wage law, this seems unlikely.

IBON’s estimate of the daily cost of living in the NCR, which measures the minimum amount needed to meet a family of six’s food and non-food needs, is P582 as of August 2004. This means that a family needs at least P14,222 a month to survive, or an income of P547 a day.

Thus it is clear that whatever measure is used, the country’s minimum wages are grossly inadequate to allow working-class Filipinos to meet their basic needs. For this reason, a legislated hike in minimum wages is urgently needed. IBON Features

Table
Daily Nominal and Real Wage Rates and Family Living Wage
Non-Agriculture (1994 = 100)

Nominal Real Living
Region Wage /a Wage/b Wage /c
NCR 300.00 156.41 593.00
CAR 205.00 109.56 571.00
I - Ilocos 190.00 110.10 508.00
II - Cagayan Valley 193.00 110.37 455.00
III - Central Luzon 243.50 131.26 509.00
IV - Southern Tagalog 237.00 132.39 538.00
V - Bicol 194.00 96.04 509.00
VI - Western Visayas 190.00 108.10 431.00
VII - Central Visayas 208.00 105.59 530.00
VIII - Eastern Visayas 195.00 105.05 376.00
IX - Western Mindanao 180.00 101.59 504.00
X - Northern Mindanao 202.00 105.97 483.00
XI - Southern Mindanao 195.00 111.97 453.00
XII - Central Mindanao 180.00 107.21 487.00
CARAGA 189.00 102.82 Nda
ARMM 140.00 69.52 748.00

Source: National Wage and Productivity Board
a - Highest nominal wage January to August 2004
b - Real wage as of January to June 2004
c - Living wage as of January 2004

[ibonfeatures]

2005-01-25T15:48:00.000+08:00

sic my duck?

early this morning, while scanning through the front pages of the country's daily broadsheets and tabloids, i came across one story which raised the rather retarded- alarmist warning of the threat of avian flu virus allegedly being brought into the country by migratory birds spending their winter in the alluvial flood plains of the candaba swamp nestled in the boundaries of pampanga and bulacan provinces just northwest of metro manila.

silly journalese ss*. :chortle:

the candaba swamp, a 32,000-hectare marshland nestled in the pampanga and bulacan towns of candaba, san miguel [de mayumo] and san ildefonso, in the country's central luzon island is again an extremely important staging and wintering area for ducks and other migratory birds in the asian region.

in 1982, about 100,000 ducks were observed in a single day. no other site in the philippines has been known to support such large concentrations of wintering ducks, but the number of wintering wildfowl has recently declined dramatically in the previous years. several threatened waterbirds wintered there in the past, although the populations of some of these declined or disappeared until this month. the swamp supports the only known regular wintering population of streaked reed-warbler in the world.

the swamp itself is a complex of freshwater ponds, swamps and marshes with surrounding areas of seasonally flooded grassland, arable land and palm savanna on a vast alluvial flood plain. the entire area is usually flooded in the wet season, but most of it dries out during the dry season (late november to april) and is converted into rice fields and plantations of watermelons. the main area for waterfowl is an impoundment of about 300 hectares, with a mixture of open shallow water, small islands, and rafts of floating vegetation, adjacent to the pampanga river about nine kilometers north of baliuag town in bulacan.

the dormant volcanic arayat peak, which rises to 1,023 meters and has lowland forest on its slopes, is adjacent to candaba marshes.

threatened, restricted-range and congregatory birds migrating in the candaba swamps

spot-billed pelican
pelecanus philippensis

great egret
casmerodius albus

wandering whistling-duck
Dendrocygna arcuata

northern pintail
anas acuta

philippine duck
anas luzonica
the candaba swamp was previously the most important site for wintering waterfowl in the philippines, with as many as 100,000 ducks counted in one day. the philippine duck and garganey anas querquedula were described as the two most abundant species in the 1980s, suggesting that many thousands were present. however, a large area of the site was destroyed in the 1990s, and the philippine duck has virtually disappeared from the site as a wintering bird, the highest recent count being 20+ in 1997.

eurasian wigeon
anas penelope

garganey
anas querquedula

northern shoveler
anas clypeata

common pochard
aythya ferina

baer's pochard
aythya baeri

tufted duck
aythya fuligula

purple swamphen
porphyrio porphyrio

streaked reed-warbler
acrocephalus sorghophilus
candaba is the only site in the philippines where this non-breeding visitor has been reported regularly. there are numerous recent sightings in the period 1982-1996, extending from october to april, but it could not be located in 1997-1999. also photographed at nearby cabiao, nueva ecija in december 1994.

the candaba swamps have been recommended to be protected under the ramsar convention evaluation.

*"ss" is filipino journalism parlance for news sensationalism. the literal translation refers to the pinoy carnal term for self-abuse - which is rather apt given the way most filipino tabloids can't sell copies unless they have a barenaked chick in the frontpage.

2005-01-22T15:56:00.000+08:00

More Weapons of Mass Distraction
An excerpt of MIT Linguistics Professor and US dissident Noam Chomsky's What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream

I ran this complete essay a year ago at Aguman, if I remember correctly. Why the redux? Blame the recent garbage on the airwaves and on newsprint.

The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show). Let them get interested in professional sports, for example. Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious. Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. "We" take care of that.

The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it’s generally true of corporations. It’s true of Fascist states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic. It’s dependent on outside sources of support and those sources of support, such as private wealth, big corporations with grants, and the government (which is so closely interlinked with corporate power you can barely distinguish them), they are essentially what the universities are in the middle of. People within them, who don’t adjust to that structure, who don’t accept it and internalize it (you can’t really work with it unless you internalize it, and believe it); people who don’t do that are likely to be weeded out along the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience; if you don’t do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren’t lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on.

The press is owned by wealthy people who only want certain things to reach the public. The other thing he says is that when you go through the elite education system, when you go through the proper schools in Oxford, you learn that there are certain things it’s not proper to say and there are certain thoughts that are not proper to have. That is the socialization role of elite institutions and if you don’t adapt to that, you’re usually out. Those two sentences more or less tell the story.

When you critique the media and you say, look, here is what Anthony Lewis or somebody else is writing, they get very angry. They say, quite correctly, "nobody ever tells me what to write. I write anything I like. All this business about pressures and constraints is nonsense because I’m never under any pressure." Which is completely true, but the point is that they wouldn’t be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. The same is mostly true of university faculty in the more ideological disciplines. They have been through the socialization system.

Okay, you look at the structure of that whole system. What do you expect the news to be like? Well, it’s pretty obvious. Take the New York Times. It’s a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don’t make money when you buy the newspaper. They are happy to put it on the worldwide web for free. They actually lose money when you buy the newspaper. But the audience is the product. The product is privileged people, just like the people who are writing the newspapers, you know, top-level decision-making people in society. You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations. In the case of the elite media, it’s big businesses.

Well, what do you expect to happen? What would you predict about the nature of the media product, given that set of circumstances? What would be the null hypothesis, the kind of conjecture that you’d make assuming nothing further. The obvious assumption is that the product of the media, what appears, what doesn’t appear, the way it is slanted, will reflect the interest of the buyers and sellers, the institutions, and the power systems that are around them. If that wouldn’t happen, it would be kind of a miracle.

Okay, then comes the hard work. You ask, does it work the way you predict? Well, you can judge for yourselves. There’s lots of material on this obvious hypothesis, which has been subjected to the hardest tests anybody can think of, and still stands up remarkably well. You virtually never find anything in the social sciences that so strongly supports any conclusion, which is not a big surprise, because it would be miraculous if it didn’t hold up given the way the forces are operating.

The next thing you discover is that this whole topic is completely taboo. If you go to the Kennedy School of Government or Stanford, or somewhere, and you study journalism and communications or academic political science, and so on, these questions are not likely to appear. That is, the hypothesis that anyone would come across without even knowing anything that is not allowed to be expressed, and the evidence bearing on it cannot be discussed. Well, you predict that too. If you look at the institutional structure, you would say, yeah, sure, that’s got to happen because why should these guys want to be exposed? Why should they allow critical analysis of what they are up to take place? The answer is, there is no reason why they should allow that and, in fact, they don’t. Again, it is not purposeful censorship. It is just that you don’t make it to those positions. That includes the left (what is called the left), as well as the right. Unless you have been adequately socialized and trained so that there are some thoughts you just don’t have, because if you did have them, you wouldn’t be there. So you have a second order of prediction which is that the first order of prediction is not allowed into the discussion.

The last thing to look at is the doctrinal framework in which this proceeds. Do people at high levels in the information system, including the media and advertising and academic political science and so on, do these people have a picture of what ought to happen when they are writing for each other (not when they are making graduation speeches)? When you make a commencement speech, it is pretty words and stuff. But when they are writing for one another, what do people say about it?

There are basically three currents to look at. One is the public relations industry, you know, the main business propaganda industry. So what are the leaders of the PR industry saying? Second place to look is at what are called public intellectuals, big thinkers, people who write the "op eds" and that sort of thing. What do they say? The people who write impressive books about the nature of democracy and that sort of business. The third thing you look at is the academic stream, particularly that part of political science which is concerned with communications and information and that stuff which has been a branch of political science for the last 70 or 80 years.

So, look at those three things and see what they say, and look at the leading figures who have written about this. They all say (I’m partly quoting), the general population is "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders." We have to keep them out of the public arena because they are too stupid and if they get involved they will just make trouble. Their job is to be "spectators," not "participants."

They are allowed to vote every once in a while, pick out one of us smart guys. But then they are supposed to go home and do something else like watch football or whatever it may be. But the "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders" have to be observers not participants. The participants are what are called the "responsible men" and, of course, the writer is always one of them. You never ask the question, why am I a "responsible man" and somebody else is in jail? The answer is pretty obvious. It’s because you are obedient and subordinate to power and that other person may be independent, and so on. But you don’t ask, of course. So there are the smart guys who are supposed to run the show and the rest of them are supposed to be out, and we should not succumb to (I’m quoting from an academic article) "democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interest." They are not. They are terrible judges of their own interests so we have do it for them for their own benefit.

How did all this evolve? It has an interesting history. A lot of it comes out of the first World War, which is a big turning point. It changed the position of the United States in the world considerably. In the 18th century the U.S. was already the richest place in the world. The quality of life, health, and longevity was not achieved by the upper classes in Britain until the early 20th century, let alone anybody else in the world. The U.S. was extraordinarily wealthy, with huge advantages, and, by the end of the 19th century, it had by far the biggest economy in the world. But it was not a big player on the world scene. U.S. power extended to the Caribbean Islands, parts of the Pacific, but not much farther.

During the first World War, the relations changed. And they changed more dramatically during the second World War. After the second World War the U.S. more or less took over the world. But after first World War there was already a change and the U.S. shifted from being a debtor to a creditor nation. It wasn’t huge, like Britain, but it became a substantial actor in the world for the first time. That was one change, but there were other changes.

The first World War was the first time there was highly organized state propaganda. The British had a Ministry of Information, and they really needed it because they had to get the U.S. into the war or else they were in bad trouble. The Ministry of Information was mainly geared to sending propaganda, including huge fabrications about "Hun" atrocities, and so on. They were targeting American intellectuals on the reasonable assumption that these are the people who are most gullible and most likely to believe propaganda. They are also the ones that disseminate it through their own system. So it was mostly geared to American intellectuals and it worked very well. The British Ministry of Information documents (a lot have been released) show their goal was, as they put it, to control the thought of the entire world, a minor goal, but mainly the U.S. They didn’t care much what people thought in India. This Ministry of Information was extremely successful in deluding hot shot American intellectuals into accepting British propaganda fabrications. They were very proud of that. Properly so, it saved their lives. They would have lost the first World War otherwise.

In the U.S., there was a counterpart. Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1916 on an anti-war platform. The U.S. was a very pacifist country. It has always been. People don’t want to go fight foreign wars. The country was very much opposed to the first World War and Wilson was, in fact, elected on an anti-war position. "Peace without victory" was the slogan. But he was intending to go to war. So the question was, how do you get the pacifist population to become raving anti-German lunatics so they want to go kill all the Germans? That requires propaganda. So they set up the first and really only major state propaganda agency in U.S. history. The Committee on Public Information it was called (nice Orwellian title), called also the Creel Commission. The guy who ran it was named Creel. The task of this commission was to propagandize the population into a jingoist hysteria. It worked incredibly well. Within a few months there was a raving war hysteria and the U.S. was able to go to war.

A lot of people were impressed by these achievements. One person impressed, and this had some implications for the future, was Hitler. If you read Mein Kampf, he concludes, with some justification, that Germany lost the first World War because it lost the propaganda battle. They could not begin to compete with British and American propaganda which absolutely overwhelmed them. He pledges that next time around they’ll have their own propaganda system, which they did during the second World War. More important for us, the American business community was also very impressed with the propaganda effort. They had a problem at that time. The country was becoming formally more democratic. A lot more people were able to vote and that sort of thing. The country was becoming wealthier and more people could participate and a lot of new immigrants were coming in, and so on.

So what do you do? It’s going to be harder to run things as a private club. Therefore, obviously, you have to control what people think. There had been public relation specialists but there was never a public relations industry. There was a guy hired to make Rockefeller’s image look prettier and that sort of thing. But this huge public relations industry, which is a U.S. invention and a monstrous industry, came out of the first World War. The leading figures were people in the Creel Commission. In fact, the main one, Edward Bernays, comes right out of the Creel Commission. He has a book that came out right afterwards called Propaganda. The term "propaganda," incidentally, did not have negative connotations in those days. It was during the second World War that the term became taboo because it was connected with Germany, and all those bad things. But in this period, the term propaganda just meant information or something like that. So he wrote a book called Propaganda around 1925, and it starts off by saying he is applying the lessons of the first World War. The propaganda system of the first World War and this commission that he was part of showed, he says, it is possible to "regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments their bodies." These new techniques of regimentation of minds, he said, had to be used by the intelligent minorities in order to make sure that the slobs stay on the right course. We can do it now because we have these new techniques.

This is the main manual of the public relations industry. Bernays is kind of the guru. He was an authentic Roosevelt/Kennedy liberal. He also engineered the public relations effort behind the U.S.-backed coup which overthrew the democratic government of Guatemala.

His major coup, the one that really propelled him into fame in the late 1920s, was getting women to smoke. Women didn’t smoke in those days and he ran huge campaigns for Chesterfield. You know all the techniques—models and movie stars with cigarettes coming out of their mouths and that kind of thing. He got enormous praise for that. So he became a leading figure of the industry, and his book was the real manual.

Another member of the Creel Commission was Walter Lippmann, the most respected figure in American journalism for about half a century (I mean serious American journalism, serious think pieces). He also wrote what are called progressive essays on democracy, regarded as progressive back in the 1920s. He was, again, applying the lessons of the work on propaganda very explicitly. He says there is a new art in democracy called manufacture of consent. That is his phrase. Edward Herman and I borrowed it for our book, but it comes from Lippmann. So, he says, there is this new art in the method of democracy, "manufacture of consent." By manufacturing consent, you can overcome the fact that formally a lot of people have the right to vote. We can make it irrelevant because we can manufacture consent and make sure that their choices and attitudes will be structured in such a way that they will always do what we tell them, even if they have a formal way to participate. So we’ll have a real democracy. It will work properly. That’s applying the lessons of the propaganda agency.

Academic social science and political science comes out of the same thing. The founder of what’s called communications and academic political science is Harold Glasswell. His main achievement was a book, a study of propaganda. He says, very frankly, the things I was quoting before—those things about not succumbing to democratic dogmatism, that comes from academic political science (Lasswell and others). Again, drawing the lessons from the war time experience, political parties drew the same lessons, especially the conservative party in England. Their early documents, just being released, show they also recognized the achievements of the British Ministry of Information. They recognized that the country was getting more democratized and it wouldn’t be a private men’s club. So the conclusion was, as they put it, politics has to become political warfare, applying the mechanisms of propaganda that worked so brilliantly during the first World War towards controlling people’s thoughts.

That’s the doctrinal side and it coincides with the institutional structure. It strengthens the predictions about the way the thing should work. And the predictions are well confirmed. But these conclusions, also, are not allowed to be discussed. This is all now part of mainstream literature but it is only for people on the inside. When you go to college, you don’t read the classics about how to control peoples minds.

Just like you don’t read what James Madison said during the constitutional convention about how the main goal of the new system has to be "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," and has to be designed so that it achieves that end. This is the founding of the constitutional system, so nobody studies it. You can’t even find it in the academic scholarship unless you really look hard.

2005-01-22T15:50:00.000+08:00

Inkspot
44th U.P. National Writers Workshop Deadline Extended

Likhaan: The UP Institute of Creative Writing (UP ICW) has extended the deadline for submission of entries to the 44th UP National Writers Workshop to 31 January 2005, 6 p.m. Postmarked entries will be accepted. The Workshop has been scheduled from 27 March to 9 April 2005 at the UP Baguio. Twenty fellowships will be at stake: 15 for Fellows in Filipino and English, while the other five for writers in Iluko, Bikol, Waray, Sugbuanon, Hiligaynon, and Kiniray-a, depending on merit. The grants cover board, lodging and stipend.

The textual requirements are: six poems, two short stories or two one-act plays. Mixed genres / experimental pieces will also be considered. All the entries ought to be in one language (English or Filipino, as the case may be). Combined or incomplete submissions will be disqualified.

The technical requirements are: only the nom de plume should be on four separately bound, computer-encoded hard copies (font size 12); an MS Word diskette containing the entries; and a sealed letter envelope with a cover letter, a résumé (with birthday and contact numbers), an attestation of originality, a slip of paper with name and nom de plume together, and a 2" x 2" ID photo.

Manuscripts in the regional languages should be accompanied by Filipino or English translations.

Submissions should be sent to:

DIRECTOR V. E. CARMELO D. NADERA Jr.
LIKHAAN: The UP Institute of Creative Writing
2/F Bulwagang Rizal
University of the Philippines
1101 Diliman, Quezon City

Fellows from the previous UP Workshops need not apply. For clarifications, call 922-1830 (direct line) or 981-8500, loc. 2117 (trunkline).

from Philippine Literature News

2005-01-14T02:47:00.000+08:00

ask hermann

there's this rather interesting anecdote which involved a twentieth-century figure associated with the most chilling example of genocide in human history: hermann goering, adolf hitler's nazi reichsmarshall and luftwaffe-chief.

goering was one of the highest-ranking nazis who survived to be captured and put on trial for war crimes in the city of nuremberg by the allies after the end of world war II. he was found guilty on charges of "war crimes," "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity" by the nuremberg tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging. the sentence could not be carried out, however, because herman committed suicide with smuggled cyanide capsules hours before his execution, scheduled for 15 october 1946.

just before he took his own life however, goering had conversations with gustave gilbert, a german-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the allies to all the prisoners held in the nuremberg jail. gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book nuremberg diary. here's an interesting part of a conversation gilbert held with a dejected hermann in his cell on the evening of 18 april 1946.

gilbert recorded goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

tsk.

2005-01-10T09:53:00.000+08:00

Crony Capital 101

How does this sound? The combined price of every listed asset in a growing country of 77 million people costs just half of what it would run you to buy all of Yahoo! . Better still, while Yahoo! costs 1,585 times earnings, this country sells at about 16 times.

The country is the Philippines, bombed out and abandoned by foreign investors, who have been scared off by a return of the kind of cronyism seen during the bad old days of former President Ferdinand Marcos.

Now the smallest market in Asia, the Philippines has a total market cap of just US$44 billion, less than half of Yahoo!. That's smaller even than all of Indonesia, which has a basket-case financial system, not to mention the risk of separatism in its oil-rich province of Aceh. The Philippines has comparatively healthy banks, at least for Asia, and has quelled political threats, but not political meddling in business affairs.

Just two questions.

Whatever happened to the graft case filed against the Lopez Group and the matron in Malacanang
over the controversy-ridden eight-billion-peso bailout of Maynilad Water Services?

And of the Congressional probes and poised class suits against Benpres over the 600% in toll fees at the North Luzon Expressway?

2005-01-07T11:45:00.000+08:00

Persuasions and distractions

"Advertising has become the point. The TV shows are made not just to make ads look good but to function as enhancements or repetitions of the ad. The TV shows themselves are ads. The radio playlists now are themselves ads." - The Persuaders, US-PBS Frontline documentary

if you were able to watch us-pbs frontline's merchants of cool documentary that showed how music and multimedia conglomerates dominate the selling of popular culture to youth, i'm sure you would have wanted to have glued on frontline's the persuaders, which took an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives.

you can watch the documentary online here, or read the full transcript or browse through the discussion topics in the us-pbs website.

2005-01-07T08:42:00.000+08:00

a spin by any other name
from today's Philippine Star:

GMA offers Pinoy skills to Asian tsunami victims
Compensating for the Philippines’ financial inadequacy, President Arroyo has offered the services of the country’s "world class" workers in health care and engineering in the relief efforts to rehabilitate tsunami-hit countries in southern Asia.

Mrs. Arroyo made the formal commitment yesterday in her speech at the Special Asean Leaders’ Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia. She said the Philippines could offer the expertise of its professionals such as doctors and engineers in the rehabilitation efforts of disaster-stricken nations.

"The Philippines is blessed with abundant human resources and our professionals, including those in the fields of health care and engineering, are truly world class," Mrs. Arroyo said.

two views on these: gloria is seeking for the country's millions of unemployed to cash in on the crisis by finding work in reconstruction efforts in souuthern Asia ala Iraq contracts. view two: tell your matron that charity begins at home. seen continuing disaster that is the human condition in the philippines that has perpetuated under her presidency?

seriously, i gave up on her a loooooong time ago.

2005-01-07T08:36:00.000+08:00

Helicopter Journalism
by Danny Schechter*

NEW YORK, January 5, 2005 -- The lead story from Aceh in today's Washington Post is vivid: The subhead offers its vantage point "Above Indonesia.

"LAMNO, Indonesia, Jan. 4 -- From the skies above Aceh's devastated western coastline, no sign of civilization remains except for the barren concrete foundations of houses sheared clean and wooden debris scattered like multicolored confetti. Š. The line between life and death was evident Tuesday looking down at the countryside from one of the Seahawks.. . . "

It is colorful writing and graphic but also totally inadequate to the task of helping us understand what is happening on the ground in the catastrophe that has struck the region with a force of biblical proportions.

This is an example of helicopter journalism and distanced "outside-in" reporting that accesses few if any sources in the country itself, does not speak the language, and does not explain much about what is going on. It's like the foreign correspondent who flies into a conflict zone for an afternoon and gets most of his information from a taxi driver.

When you watch the coverage, you see endless stories of Colin Powell touring the devastation or Kofi Annan arriving in Jakarta and speaking to the press. You hear the sound bites of the elite and high and mighty, who tend to look at the world from 30,000 feet -- cruising in first class -- and far from the pain of the real worlds below.

And, yes, you also see US soldiers delivering aid, often dropping it from the skies. You hear about the UN Food program with enough food for 100,000 people. (When you read closer, you learn that the food supply will only last a week!)

It looks so impressive -- and in many ways it is. But the reporters on the ground say that there are still major problems reaching those most in need. And those people are dying and at risk from an epidemic of disease.

They say the crisis is getting worse, not better.

As the crisis deepens, the journalism has not.

The reporting is often more graphic than informative as the Indian Express notes:

"Perhaps it's time for channels to draw up a blueprint of coverage norms for different events / incidents/ disasters that involve violence, death and extreme suffering. Perhaps, as is the print media, reporters, or a team of reporters should specialize in certain fields -- as they already do in sports and business -- so that in such moments, they have some understanding of the problem, know what to ask or say. Don't say food, medicines and supplies are required, identify what food, which medicines and the nature of supplies so we Northerners don't donate bajra, Vitamin C and warm clothingŠExpertise may help minimize the hysteria of less informed reporting."

Why is it so hard for western news organizations to connect with local journalists who often know the story best? What we need is "inside-out" and bottom up coverage -- not just reporting from the clouds.

One example of how that might strengthen our understanding. While we were shown examples of help on the way, the local media offered another story -- a story of chaos.

"The massive relief operation for tsunami-hit areas in Aceh is on the brink of chaos with the absence of a single authority directing the aid effort," reported The Jakarta Post. "Vice President Jusuf Kalla, did not deny suggestions that in the first week after the devastation, coordination among government agencies was poor, if not absent."

We have heard about all the money that is being raised, but where is it going and how should it be spent?

What do the people who know the most about delivering aid have to say. What about the agencies who know Aceh best who report that the Indonesian military is using the crisis to sustain its war against local rebels?

Who is thinking about longer-term reconstruction? And what are they planning?

What about organizations in Indonesia who know the country best, groups like United in Diversity. Why not give their thoughts and actions more visibility? They will be living with the crisis long after CNN packs up its cameras and goes home.

What is the relationship between the so called "core countries" designated from afar by President Bush to lead the Aid effort and the UN which will coordinate most of the international involvement?

How about some background on the US history with Indonesia dating back to Washington's support for the dictator Suharto and Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. That would put Secretary of State Colin Powell's comments about "American values "into an Indonesian context --not just one about the war on terror. Are we being as idealistic as many media accounts make it appear?

Covering a crisis like this one is tough and heart breaking. It is easy to criticize from a distance. But there are parallels between the coverage of this disaster and ones in the past. They share problems in common.

Can we learn the lessons of the past and correct the limits of "parachute" reporting before the world press corps gets back on the helicopters for the long ride home?

*Danny Schechter is the "blogger-in-chief" of Mediachannel.org. His new film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception)exposes media complicity in the war in Iraq.

2005-01-07T07:58:00.000+08:00

servers by any other name

if you're looking for international ragnarok online servers to play on, try the list from gamesites 200.

two servers i play on continue to be aeRO and vRO which features 2-2 jobs.

since some server update seems to be being done on aeRO at the moment, i'm over at vRO with level 170+ assassin cross. i won't even mention the uber items i've got. just the 200k+ hp for beginners *lolz*

2005-01-05T19:57:00.000+08:00

waves' ebb

while ex-us ambassador to thailand, morton abramowitz sees the the tsunami tragedy as another american "opportunity to win hearts and minds", znet's pool of writers and analysts has a few intelligent discourses on the aftermath of the tsunami that struck southern asia.

mike whitney reflects:

Where was this “free press” in Iraq when the death toll was skyrocketing towards 100,000? So far, we’ve seen nothing of the devastation in Falluja where more than 6,000 were killed and where corpses were lined along the city’s streets for weeks on end. Is death less photogenic in Iraq?

harsha walia, in the tsunami and the discourse of compassion, writes:

Compared with the absence of this type of global concern for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, in Iraq, in Rwanda, in Palestine, the compassion for more instantaneous “natural” disasters (a misnomer since the impact of such disasters is inextricably linked to the inequalities of empire) as opposed to the more readily preventative devastation of war, militarization and genocide brings to light the degree of indecency and schizophrenia of the colonial consciousness.

Gilbert Achcar has also commented on this depressing contrast in the context of the September 11 attacks when the white world is “thrown into convulsions of distress over the ‘6,000’ victims in the United States, while it can hardly give a thought to Black Africa in its horrible agony.” Achcar describes this phenomenon as a form of what he calls “narcissistic compassion” evoked by disasters striking “people like us.”

Certainly the Tsunami disaster has not struck people “like us” in white America or Europe, but even then, the condescension is apparent. Dropped jaws at the savage sight of brown bodies piled onto each other and mass graves of thousands of young children. One person commented to me that the treatment of the bodies was as disgusting and despicable as the massive death camps of the Holocaust.

And the white world sets the tone of this humanitarian capacity through its domination of corporate media. The media with its images of distant human suffering and distant victims plays the role of giving publicity and inciting compassion and commitment, channelled through appropriately selected international humanitarian organizations.

Political global compassion, we know quite well, is often an ideology of political and social control couched in euphemisms and contradictions of humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian intervention is considered appropriate in the attempts to broaden the reach of so-called democracy. Since the end of the Cold War, interventionist tactics are now couched in the rhetoric of democracy and human rights, instead of Communism and more overt political ideologies, from Kosovo, to Afghanistan, to Iraq. When the US and UK bombed Afghanistan, in order to be perceived as the good Samaritans, they simultaneously dropped over 35,000 food packages over the country (Reuters, Oct 0, 2001). Meanwhile, images of the casualties and humanitarian crisis of Afghanistan and now Iraq (along with Iraq’s history of devastation due to the sanctions) have been unsurprisingly absent from the pubic eye.

But what of humanitarian interventions for natural disasters that appear completely unselfish? One major trend in marketing is the marketing of global compassion and the sponsorship of humanitarian efforts. In 2001, Colin Powel announced the creation of the Global Developmental Alliance, which now consists of 200 alliances between AID (Agency for International Development) and foundations in the U.S., and corporate donors. According to CNN, Amazon.com, Bill Gates Foundation, General Electric, Time Warner, Pfizer, Coca Cola, Starbucks and Exxon have all dipped into their coffers to support the tsunami relief effort.

The biggest irony of all this is that Starbucks is donating money raised from coffee grown in Indonesia’s plantations and Coca Cola is sending bottled water to South Asia. The re-bottling, re-packaging, and re-corporatizing of our lands, our resources, our dreams, and our futures.

Coffee is the world’s second most globalized commodity --produced in 70 countries by more than 25 million farmers. Starbucks, in particular, has grown at an astounding rate: an average rate of 28 percent in the past five years with its market value reaching almost $15 billion in 2004. Meanwhile, the estimated 25 million coffee farmers exist at the bottom of the poverty scale. With increasing anti-corporate protests in the 1990’s, Starbucks jumped on the ‘corporate responsibility’ bandwagon with support for fair-trade coffee and organic farming. This still amounted to just 4-5 cents per cup at most for the farmers, compared with a beverage that actually sells for $2-5 and the amount of “fair-trade certified” coffee that Starbucks purchased in 2003 amounted to less than 1% of its bean purchases.

And like other cash crops, the pattern and organization of labour is traced back to colonial relations – for example, the Dutch smuggling Arabica coffee out of Yemen to their colony in Java, the foundation for Indonesia’s entire current coffee industry; the role of French, British, Portuguese, and Japanese trading companies in Africa, Jamaica, Guyana, Brazil, and Asia, and the role of American companies in Colombia, Central America, and Southeast Asia. In the present context, the colonial relationship established by World Bank structural adjustment programs in the attempts to globalize the coffee market has had devastated impacts on coffee growers, such as in Nicaragua which is now well-documented. The privatization of coffee farms and the emphasis on crash crops for an export-led economy led to bitter competition between Third world countries and the eventual collapse of the Association of Coffee Producing Countries, while consumption, processing and marketing remained in the First World. Due to these free market strategies, according to the World Bank’s own estimates, this caused the loss of at least 600,000 jobs in Central America alone, and left more than 700,000 people in the region near starvation; meanwhile foreign debt and loans increased.

Coca Cola has been at the forefront of controversies it cannot afford: the United Steelworkers of America, on behalf of Sinaltrainal, have filed a lawsuit in the United States charging Coca-Cola with complicity in the murder, torture and intimidation of trade union organizers at Coca-Cola bottling facilities in Columbia. In India, communities around Coca-Cola's bottling plants are experiencing severe water shortages; the groundwater and soil around its bottling plants have been polluted and Coca-Cola products in the Indian market contain extremely high levels of pesticides, including DDT, sometimes higher than 30 times those allowed by US or EU standards. Tests conducted by the BBC found cadmium and lead in the waste, effectively making the waste toxic waste. Coca-Cola stopped the practice of distributing its toxic waste only when ordered to do so by the state government. Millions of dollars of marketing cannot outweigh the increasing public resistance to the company’s practices and the unprecedented victories that have been won.

Earlier this year, the Kerala High Court prevented the Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada village from drawing underground water. This order was issued as the company drew out such an amount of water, that the entire area within a radius of three kilometres has been under severe drought. The pollutants of the company cause so unbearable stink in the water that it is not only unusable for cooking but also awful for bathing. Now, the single largest Coca-Cola bottling plant in India, in Plachimada, Kerala, remains shut down since March 2004.

In the state of Rajasthan, already drought-ridden, over 50 villages are experiencing water shortages as a result of Coca-Cola's indiscriminate mining of water, and "struggle committees" have been formed in at least 32 villages to confront Coca-Cola's abuses. The Central Ground Water Board, a government agency, not only confirmed the declining water table as a result of Coca-Cola's indiscriminate mining of the water; it also faulted Coca-Cola for creating "ecological imbalances".

Most recently, on November 25, 2004 in Varanasi over one thousand farmers and community members marched to the factories premises, demanding that the factory shut down. The Coca-Cola plant in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh draws out more than 250,000 liters of underground water per day. Due to this, the water level of the area has receded from 25 to 40 feet under the ground and the pollutants have rendered many acres of agricultural fields infertile. The march in Mehdiganj was the end of a 10-day, 250 km march from Ballia, the site of another Coca-Cola bottling facility. "Drinking Coke is like drinking farmer's blood in India," said Nandlal Master of Lok Samiti and the National Alliance of People's Movements, a key organizer of the march and rally." Armed police met marchers at the bottling facility and over 350 of the marchers were arrested.

So now, it is nothing short of bitter irony and inhumanness that as the media reports that outbreaks of cholera and other diseases due to unsafe drinking water are looming, one of the biggest offenders is donating bottled water to the very people who have fought tooth and nail to bring this culprit to justice and who have maintained their dignity and honour in previously rejecting the company’s charitable donations of blankets, utensils, medicine or even hard cash.

Meanwhile, international humanitarian and charitable organizations that have increasingly come under scrutiny for not only inefficiency, but also due to the larger effects of “international NGO-ization” that actively hinders grassroots development and autonomy, are suddenly propelled to the forefront as saviours for the Third World. Let us be clear that there is no doubt that humanitarian work in order to save lives and provide adequate access to food and shelter is absolutely necessary. But the larger context must never be lost: international aid and NGO work will largely defuse the anger of those affected by the tsunami. Anger that again the people of the Third world are not important enough to matter; that again, preventative measures (such as early detection measures that exist in the Pacific rim) that could have been taken were considered expendable. (5) The power and anger of the people has again been channelled into victimization to curb any political resistance.

Compassion has become morally and politically appropriate, as it should be. What is inappropriate is the ability to decide which images are worthy of those emotions. What is inexcusable is when those images are a direct consequence of policies waged by our governments and corporations for which we are culpable, we seem to exhibit compassion-deficient syndrome. Snaizder has written “compassion is nothing more than the narcissistic desire of an exploitative bourgeoisie to feel good about itself.” A global compassion not only for human life, but for human dignity, can never be attained as brown bodies swelter and slave in plantations and die everyday in order to live for $2 a day, as thousands of farmers continue to commit suicide as their livelihoods are stolen, and as women and children walk across the parched Earth to confront batons and armed police guarding the gates of the free-market heavens.

imperial america is perhaps just breathing a huge sigh of relief that the intensity 9.0 earthquake that triggered the tsunami didn't occur in the pacific.

oh, the humanity.

2004-12-29T16:28:00.000+08:00

Rethink Christmas

This anti-marketing message is merrily brought to you by Adbusters.org and the Manipulation and Propaganda in Advertising site.

2004-12-29T16:24:00.000+08:00

ties that bind

june 19, 2005. for me and bebe.

see you there.

2004-12-22T14:57:00.000+08:00

from the comm box

a few notes from the comm box:

you make me laugh, jojo.naah, am not laughing AT you. i hope you understand what i mean. i know you do.in my quest for "ehem" the lightning seeds cd "ehem-luckily i found one at amazon.com"
- richelle

i do? matagal na akong di kalbo. nyahaha. uh.

oh, the lightning seeds cd? i lost it. good you found a new one. merry christmas :D

i stumbled upon a wicked awesome blog by a filipino artist. anyway, i just decided to go blogging again after i read it. curiosity got the better of me, so i decided to check out your blog. i'm glad that i have contributed to your weltanschauung "your post-coupland tralalala"
-Anonymous

it's artiste, not artist. wickedly awesome is an understatement, hija [ or hijo ]. i'm glad i inspired you to spill your guts [ and humiliate yourself ] before millions of strangers again.

and uh, you do have a name don't you? have a merry christmas :D

just think of this as my olive branch , jojo. i'm a bitch. hindi na mababago yon. well, i think your a jack-ass... my perceptrion of you being that, probably won't change but nevertheless, you never cease to amuse me- i don't mean amuse in a circus-y michael jackson kind of freaky way. neither am i mocking you or am i being sarcastic. nor am i carying a freakin' torch for you (heaven forbid). you're just cool -despite you being a jack-ass and all... yeah, i need to rub it in.
anyway, hope you keep in touch. - richelle

i've seen worse bitches than you, hija, and i'm not rubbing it in. nyahahahaha.

2004-12-22T14:45:00.000+08:00

christmas circa 2004

since my in-between-jobs escape clause aeRO [ level 122, job 79 sniper { high hunter } with equiptments: +10 triple bloody bow of verserk {3 hydra and 1 doppelganger card}, +10 triple boned bow of verserk {3 skel worker and 1 doppelganger card}, archangel wing, +4 kakashi headgear, binocs, +6 ghost tights {ghostring card}, +7 mocking muff, +7 muff of rogue, +4 sleipnir boots, 2 ancient brooch of nimble ] seems to be offline for the umpteenth time, here's a decent try at updating my blog which i haven't really touched since george w. got reelected by hussein's hairline weeks ago.

a few more days and it's christmas.

fine.

don't get me wrong though. i'm merely waiting for my career to thaw out like a frozen popsicle melts in a january sun.

and while the holidays seem to be like holidays of yesteryears [ well, not really, since i remember spening one christmas day and new year's eve asleep ] i'm not going out on a limb and spreading cheers for strangers.

uh yeah.

bah. humbug.

:D

2004-11-29T22:41:00.000+08:00

Hunger in the homeland
The latest report from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Much apologies for the rather long spell of unblogness as I am adjusting to not being able to get online faster as I normally did [ the nearest cafe is kilometers away unlike before when it was just mere walking distance. Ditto Leelock for missing out on the global policy confab. I checked my mail a day late.

The Face of Hunger is Female
by Vinia M. Datinguinoo

Our latest report shows how women are bearing the brunt of the burden of feeding their families, frequently skipping meals or eating last just so husbands and children can eat. The psychological stress of stretching meager budgets also falls on the women, who have traditionally been in charge of family budgets.

This report says that many poor families now resort to eating rice with salt, soy sauce or coffee, or what has been called surrogate ulam, because they can no longer afford to buy vegetables, fish or meat to eat with their rice. Instant noodles diluted with plenty of water are also now considered a full meal by many poor families. The poor, therefore, subsist on a diet of carbohydrates and salt. The result is chronic malnutrition.

But because their diets are short on nutrients but packed with calories, poor people may not look thin and gaunt, some may even be plump. But that is no indication of good health. According to nutritionists, overweight people are at higher risk of acquiring illnesses related to high cholesterol levels such as hypertension. A diet with too much salt can then affect vital organs such as the heart and kidneys.

About 40 percent of all Filipinos — 5.14 million families or over 31.2 million people — live on P32 or less a day. The Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) has prepared a menu of what it calls the "national food threshold" that costs about P22 a day per person. This includes a cup of rice, a slice of fruit, a third to half a cup of green, leafy vegetables, and a glass of whole milk.

The FNRI also recommends that mothers serve their children fish, poultry or meat three times a week. For many poor families, however, even these basics are difficult to meet. Some, as the report shows, now eat only twice daily. Others have resorted to giving up some of their children to the care of relatives. [ read more ]

2004-11-17T16:45:00.000+08:00

homebody anonymous

finally hauled all of my stuff from the old staffhouse to our old home in santo tomas, pampanga last week.

since chic-chic [ the second eldest sister ] has taken over my old room [ and decorated it with a thousand posters of that taiwan boyband group f4 [ wah ], i'm occupying the first room in the house.

mental note. major redecoration and room refurnishing slated.

abbey has also spent the last three week-ends with me at home and has bonded fairly well with my mom and dad and my two sisters.

still adjusting to life at home again. been away for four years and the neighborhood has changed quite a bit. still dozens of assembled auvs [asian utility vehicles] parked by the roadside in the small community where i grew up. but scores of new houses too have sprung up.

maybe it's just me who has grown older.

2004-11-08T14:06:00.000+08:00

counting crows

two related articles today for you on chew on:

an analysis on the recent US polls which suggests that votes might have been hacked;

and an associated press news story which reveals that "machine error" in tightly-contested Ohio gave Bush extra votes.

one, little two, little three, little indians...

2004-11-05T01:42:00.000+08:00

the old house still stands

in a flyleaf on my visual journal is a turn-of-the-19th century painting by daniel dizon sr. of the old malig clan residence in bacolor town here in pampanga.

continuum.

as i imagine the camisa and baro-clad great-great uncles and aunts letting the humid afternoons pass by with iberian conversations.

romanticism.

my grandfather left some two hectares of land before he died and with my eldest uncle settling in italy for good with his family, it would be up to my father to take care of of the family property.

earth and water.

this weekend, i, along with abbey, talked to my father about using a hectare of our land for an aquaculture business - prawns, crabs, freshwater fish. he was enthusiastic with the idea, considering that the farmland was made idle for more than a decade by the eruption of the pinatubo volcano and subsequent pyroclastic lahar flows into the town.

january.

seasons and beginnings.

*the old malig residence, located in cabambangan, bacolor, is believed to be the oldest house of its type in the town, built by the spaniards who came first to the philippines. it was the home of the friars who established the church in the town. bacolor itself was the capital of the country during the british occupation of manila in 1762-63.

2004-11-04T23:55:00.000+08:00

A collage for your President

Michael Moore, director of the award-winning Fahrenheit 9-11, with a photo collage of American fatalities in Iraq since the start of the occupation. Here's to four more years - and a larger collage.

2004-11-04T23:29:00.000+08:00

A post-mortem for America
George W. Bush's reelection will mean America becoming an empire in decline, with the United States to continue lose standing as Bush presses his military agenda and European alliances will continue to wither, says villagevoice

The dream has become a nightmare. Not only did George Bush win, but he captured the presidency by a margin of what now looks like 4 million votes. That's a clear mandate and a big green light for the right wing to push ahead with an ideological program.

Barring an almost mathematically impossible outcome in Ohio, there will be no suprise win by John Kerry, no swooping in by a centrist Democrat to vanquish the specter of a modern American theocracy.

Bush will have no meaningful opposition, with a fully Republican Congress at his disposal. Even Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, was beaten in what looks like a rout of the Democrats.

The dream of a secular, liberal democracy is lost: Christians are stronger than ever, and whether it's true or not, the spin will be that they played a key role in building the Bush base. The visceral, cutting edge of the Bush mandate is the attack on same-sex marriage, led by the Christian right.

African Americans may have voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry, but Republicans without a doubt have made some, if only marginal, gains among black voters. In black Ohio churches, Democratic leaders were experiencing muttering discontent from the congregations over the issue of same-sex marriage. Abortion may be a given in the black community, but gay people marrying each other is definitely not.

Neoconservatives can proceed with business as usual—for the time being. But they will want to watch out for attacks—not from Democrats, but from the Reagan wing of the GOP.

The Patriot Act will become the modus for the increasing activities of the federal police. And again, criticism will come from the right, not the left. People like former Georgia congressman and lead Clinton impeacher Bob Barr already are out against the act. Paul Weyrich, long the most important conservative voice in Washington, is against it. He fears Senator Hillary Clinton will use it against himself and others on the right.

Abroad, the United States can only continue to lose standing as Bush presses his military agenda. European alliances will continue to wither and more and more people around the world will start seeing America as an empire in decline.#

Basically, with Bush's reelection, everyone's screwed, the global economy, world oil, middle east stability and politically - those on the left and on the right. It's just that the right doesn't know it yet, and by the time they figure it out it'll be too late.

A few more good reads on the subject:

Consortium News' Robert Parry writes in Too Little, Too Late:

George W. Bush’s electoral victory is chilling proof that the conservatives have achieved dominance over the flow of information to the American people and that even a well-run Democratic campaign stands virtually no chance for national success without major changes in how the news media operates.

While MotherJones' Tom Engelhardt gripes in The Election Hangover of a Lifetime:

A little over half of voting Americans voted for another Bush term. Now, they have to live with it. Unfortunately, so do we.

Maureen Dowd bewails in The New Work Times:

Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.

Blogger Kurt Nimmo in Another Day In the Empire:

According to Drudge, the Daily Mirror will run a photo of Bush and the following headline: “How can 59,054,087 [Americans] be so dumb!” It is a perfectly legitimate question.

Rebecca Blood reflects:

In a way, this is fitting: Bush will have to deal with all of it himself now. I can guarantee you that if Kerry had won, this morning the right would have awakened with strong concerns about the deficit, the fact that we haven't yet captured Osama bin Laden, and the quagmire in Iraq. On the other hand, without re-election looming in four years-- and with a Republican congress--I fear that George W. Bush's agenda will become more radical than it has been, and his actions even more irresponsible.

Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy four years.

Mike Marqusee narrates in The Guardian:

My friend in Brooklyn fears for his children's future. He sees them growing up in a benighted, detested land, their liberties, living standards and security menaced by the triumphant neocons. He's right to dream of danger. But the millions of US voters who queued for hours to register their protest against Bush should reflect in their hour of despair that they are by no means alone - not within their own country and not within the human community at large.

And -- Joshua Micah Marshall on what Americans might expect:

"Our system is majority rule. And 51% is a win. But [Bush is] claiming a mandate. ... [H]e plans to use this narrow victory as though it were a broad mandate, starting right back with the same strategy that has already come near to tearing this country apart."

I can only empathize.

2004-11-03T13:38:00.000+08:00

The America that Bush created

If John Kerry wins -- about which I feel a modest optimism -- we will indeed credit that victory to some impossible to measure and distinctly unpollable combination of the above factors, especially of the upsurge in activism George Bush called forth from quiescence by his very extremism. If John Kerry loses and the most dangerous American government in living memory gets four more years to gerrymander the universe and pound a one-party, all-war-all-the-time state into place, I think what we first have to realize is that all the rifts and new forces described above will not suddenly disappear. Quite the opposite, they will only grow. - A Couch Potato's Guide to Election Night, ProgressiveTrail.org

2004-11-03T02:10:00.002+08:00

Ask Adolf

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one."
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf | Persuasion, Advertising and Propaganda

2004-10-30T01:46:00.000+08:00

Meet Jon

Oh, if you [ like I did ] missed The Daily Show's Jon Stewart guesting on CNN's Crossfire where he berated the show's hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala [ republican/democrat; rightwing/leftwing mascots] for being no better than actors in a fake stage play [ or WWE wrestlers in a scripted fight], here are the links:

MPEG-4
WMV
Media Matters transcript

Hammer. Head of nail. Bang.

CNN's Robert Novak came to the defense of the show and said later: "I don't think he's funny. And I know he's uninformed."

Well, back in September, Stewart awarded rightwinger Novak the "Congressional Medal of Douche Bag" for having first published the name of a CIA operative.

Oooh.

I suggest Jon - in order to satisfy "informed" Novak - that you read up MIT Linguistics Prof. Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent — The Political Economy of the Mass Media where he presented a theory called the "propaganda model"> In it, Chomsky argued that since mass media news outlets are now run by large corporations, they are under the same competitive pressures as other corporations.

According to Chomsky, the pressure to create a stable, profitable business invariably biases the kinds of news items reported, as well as the manner and emphasis in which they are reported. This occurs not as a result of conscious design but simply as a consequence of market selection: those businesses who happen to favor profits over news quality survive, while those that present a more accurate picture of the world tend to become marginalized.

The book further points out issues with the dependency of mass media news outlets upon major sources of news, particularly the government. If a particular outlet is in disfavor with a government, it can be subtly 'shut out', and other outlets given preferential treatment. Since this results in a loss in news leadership, it can also result in a loss of readership/viewership.

That can itself result in a loss of advertising revenue, which is the primary income for most mass media (newspapers, magazines, television). To minimize the possibilities of lost revenue, therefore, outlets will tend to report news in a tone more favorable to the government and giving unfavorable news about the government less emphasis.

Chomsky's October 1997 essay What Makes Mainsteam Media Mainsteam, is also quite "informative", I say.

An excerpt:

So, he says, there is this new art in the method of democracy, "manufacture of consent." By manufacturing consent, you can overcome the fact that formally a lot of people have the right to vote. We can make it irrelevant because we can manufacture consent and make sure that their choices and attitudes will be structured in such a way that they will always do what we tell them, even if they have a formal way to participate. So we’ll have a real democracy. It will work properly. That’s applying the lessons of the propaganda agency.

I'm waiting for Jon to go on Fox and guest on one of their canned shows - such as O'Reilly's mayhaps.

Nuninuninuninu.

2004-10-29T15:54:00.000+08:00

Bodycount
New medical study says 100,000 civilians have died since Iraq invasion

An estimated 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a direct or indirect consequence of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to a new study by a research team at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The estimate is far higher than previous mortality estimates for the Iraq conflict.

Editors of The Lancet, a London-based medical journal, where an article describing the study is scheduled to appear, decided not to wait for the normal publication date next week, but to place the research online today at www.thelancet.com, so it could circulate before the U.S. presidential election.

The Bush administration has not estimated civilian casualties in Iraq, and independent groups have put the number at 10,000 to 30,000.

In the study, teams of researchers led by Dr. Les Roberts fanned out across Iraq in mid-September to interview nearly 1,000 families in 33 locations. Families were interviewed about births and deaths in the household before and after the invasion.

Although the authors acknowledge that thorough data collection was difficult in what is effectively still a war zone, the data they managed to collect is extensive. Using what they described as the best sampling methods that could be applied under the circumstances, they found that Iraqis were 2.5 times more likely to die in the 17 months following the invasion than in the 14 months before it.

''We were shocked at the magnitude but we're quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate,'' said Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins team. Burnham said the team excluded data about deaths in Fallujah in making their estimate, because of the unusually intense violence in that city.

In 15 of the 33 communities visited, residents reported violent deaths in their families. They attributed many of those deaths to attacks by American-led forces, mostly airstrikes, and most of those killed were women and children.

There is bound to be skepticism about the estimate of 100,000 excess deaths, since that translates into an average of 166 deaths a day since the invasion. [ miami herald ]

the usual bush/cheney/rumsfeld retort to this would be: "ingrates! we [secured iraq's oilfields] got rid of saddam didn't we?"

2004-10-29T13:49:00.000+08:00

cherry blossom zero

early monday morning this week found me hiking up lily hill at clark field to take part in the annual shingon buddhist rite of prayers at the site where the first japanese kamikaze [ suicide ] airmen flew their death flights against american vessels in the last world war.

having already done newsfeatures on the kamikazes at clark and an article on the legendary mitsubishi zero-sen for new zealand-based aviation zine pacific wings and a first-person acquaintance with retired U2 spyplane jock james crossley [usaf] who also happened to be an adopted son of japanese air ace saburo sakai makes me feel at home at lily hill every time i go for a visit.

the kamikaze memorial site at clark itself is serenely sublime. just a female goddess of peace statue on the hilltop overlooking a vast expanse of grassland and century-old rain trees.

i arrived at the peace memorial site just after the prayer ceremony - and in time to find indra - a buddy at epaf, who was in his zero flightsuit telling busloads of japanese tourists, filipino, japanese and american military and diplomatic officials where clark's east airfield is located, for the ceremony's second leg.

he was a bit relieved at seeing me, i guess, and promptly shoved me in a waiting van to act as an informal guide for a japanese film crew shooting the epilogue of a movie on the kamikaze squadron.

uh, great.

in the van, i sat alongside the film's main actor, who was busy memorizing his lines for a speech the journeys' third leg.

we pass by school kids waving miniature japanese and filipino flags.

"these are aeta children from the upland areas of clark field in sacobia valley," i tell the film crew.

heads nod. "hai."

a few more minutes and we reach clark's east airfield, the second kamikaze site in the former us base.

more photos. more speeches. the film director asking me if he could borrow my cellfone to make a call.

"sorry. no battery charge," i replied.

shingon buddhist bishop ekan ikeguchi leads several japanese monks in prayers.

i quietly hum along the percussive mantra while allowing a petite japanese girl in a kimono comfortably distract me from the heat and humidity.

"sakura," i mutter to no one in particular. cherry blossoms.

twenty minutes later, we were in nearby mabalacat town for the last leg of the peace pilgrimage.

a torii. japanese and filipino flags carved in stone. a bronze statue of a kamikaze airman in the midday sun.

cherry blossoms in autumn.

2004-10-29T13:46:00.000+08:00

october

eight octobers ago, i was nursing a cup of coffee in a city a thousand miles away - wishing for a flight back home.

tonight, i'm packing my all my gear for a trip back home anew after having resigned from the newsweekly with a perfunctory two week's notice.

i wanted to go today but the traffic in angeles city's balibago entertainment district is hellish. blame it on the month's end octoberfest two-day street party shebang that coincides with the city's twin fiesta cap.

dad will be helping me bring home most of the heavy stuff. abbey wants to help arrange my things - books, memento and kitsch - in the new room i'll be occupying back at my parent's house since a younger sister already moved in my old room.

since the daily an old colleague has been working on seems to be still caught in the freezer, i might as well as continue work on my zine, as well as pay a visit to an old daily i once worked for.

cups of coffee to go.

2004-10-29T13:21:00.000+08:00

Standardly poor

Based on global standards, a Filipino worker should be earning P386.70 (US$6.86, based on an exchange rate of P56.37 per U.S. dollar) per day. In the National Capital Region where the legislated minimum basic wage is the highest at P250 ($4.43), this amount is still P137 ($2.43) short.

The government’s poverty threshold – the minimum income needed by an individual to be considered non-poor – is also substantially less than WB’s poverty line. The annual per capita poverty threshold as of 2002 is P11,906 ($211.21) or almost P33 ($0.58) daily, a shortfall of P23 ($0.41).

A Social Weather Station survey for the third quarter of 2004 found a near-record-high 15.1% of household heads reporting that their families had experienced hunger, without having anything to eat, at least once in the last 3 months.

2004-10-22T19:16:00.000+08:00

Cuba

I still find it amusing how big media played up the incident of Cuban President Fidel Castro getting tripped , injuring his knee and arm in the process.

More interesting is the US remark on the incident:

"We heard that Castro fell," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "I guess you'd have to check with the Cubans to find out what's broken about Mr. Castro. We, obviously, have expressed our views about what's broken in Cuba."

When asked if he wished Castro a speedy recovery, Boucher said, "No."

[ CNN ]

Well, if there are points of clarification needed, here's a short gist of the US government's reasons why it hates socialist Cuba:

Prior to January 1st 1959, which marks the triumph of the radical nationalist Cuban Revolution, Cuba's economy was completely reliant on the United States. U.S. corporations controlled large land holdings and invested heavily in sugar production, tourism, and mining. In short, the U.S. dominated Cuban markets, trade, and financed their industries. Cuba's economy was completely reliant on the U.S. The U.S. military reinforced this relationship of capitalist dependency through direct and indirect violent repression.

This relationship was radically altered after 1959. Revolutionary Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro directly challenged U.S. neocolonial and imperial dominance over the island. Cuba would nationalize millions of dollars worth of U.S. corporate landholdings, oil, utilities, ranches, mines and other forms of capital, in an attempt to restructure the economy to the benefit the Cuban population.

Like the hyperpower had done many times before, the U.S. would make the Cuban people suffer both monetarily and militarily. This occurred for three reasons: (1) As a response to defiance of U.S. dominance in the region; (2) The loss of profits to U.S. based multi-nationals; (3) and to stem the threat of what Noam Chomsky calls the "demonstration effect"-The idea that Cuba might actually succeed in providing health care, education, and food to its people autonomous of the U.S., and encourage other countries to emulate them.

Former president John F. Kennedy's explained succinctly the detrimental effect the "demonstration effect" has on U.S. policy goals: "the very existence of his regime [Castro's government]…represented a successful defiance of the U.S., a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost half a century". Moreover, the U.S. has been ruthless in its attempts to put an end to the Cuban Revolution and government. With much unnecessary suffering and death, the Cuban people have resisted for over 45 years of undeclared monetary and military war, waged by the largest military power the world has ever known.

Cuba's relationship with the Soviet Union, based on a early model of "fair trade", was deviously used by the U.S. during the Cold War to justify its aggression against Cuba. There are two points of significance here that clarify this position taken by the U.S.. First, U.S. military aggression against Cuba began as early as 1959, and furthermore, it was not until after the Bay of Pigs invasion and the severing of U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, that Cuba began to ally itself with the Soviet Union. Secondly, after the collapse of the Soviet Union (1989-1991), the U.S. tightened the blockade-twice.

And the U.S. persists in its obsession with the small island just 90 miles from its shores, with a series of new measures by the current Bush Administration because of the same fears J.F.K. mentioned. The new measures, in effect, tighten the 45-year-old blockade, and increase the aggression to subvert and destroy the Cuban government and all those willing to defend their homeland.

The U.S. has brutal, drawn out history of consistently attempting to undermine the Cuban Revolution through military measures, but possibly less well known about in the United States is the economic sanctions unilaterally imposed on Cuba by the U.S..

The U.S. implemented the first direct economic measures against Cuba in 1960 when then president Dwight D. Eisenhower imposed a partial trade embargo and cut 700,000 tons of sugar from the U.S. quota. In 1961, president Kennedy eliminated the remaining U.S. sugar quota with Cuba.

These measures had a profound effect on the Cuban economy. Sugar was a monoculture in Cuba, and thus its primary means of economic survival, compromising 89% of their total exports. Prior to the draconian measures taken by Eisenhower and Kennedy, U.S. markets were Cuba's lifeline, representing almost 70% of all Cuba's trade and over half of their sugar sales. The effects of which were minimal in the U.S. and monumental for Cuba.

Adding insult to injury, diplomatic relations were severed and an imposed ban restricted U.S. travel to Cuba. In June of 1961, a full trade embargo was declared, and a year later Cuba was expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS). Cuba was denied loans from the IMF, U.S. banks, and other banks in the OAS, denying Cuba access to much needed hard currency for internal development.

Cuba endured the economic sanctions by strengthening its relationship with the Soviet Union and Eastern-bloc through trade agreements based on 'fair trade'. The trade relationship, Cuba primary means of economic survival lasted up until 1991, marking the collapse of the Soviet-bloc. In effect, Cuba spiraled into a extreme economic crises, dubbed the 'Special Period', a misnomer for dire conditions for the Cuban people. Cuban trade with the Soviet Union fell by 89% between 1989 and 1994, causing food, medical, and material shortages. Additionally, Cuba emersion into the competitive global capitalists market prompted Cuba to make structural reforms to the economy. Along with shortages, production and consumption decreased, blackouts were frequent, disease became more wide spread, and unemployed and underemployment increased.

Seeking to internationalize the embargo, forming a blockade, in 1992, Congress along with President Clinton passed a bill put forth by Democrat Robert Torricelli, called the "Cuban Democracy Act", further tightening the blockade. The act bans foreign-based U.S. subsidiaries from trading with Cuba; allows for the seizure of foreign ships that trade with Cuba if they enter U.S. waters; and prohibits foreign ships that dock at Cuban ports from entering U.S. harbors for 180 days. It has been estimated that 90% of this trade and aid it has cut off has been food and medicine, having obvious deleterious effects on the population.

Cubans have accurately labelled U.S. sanctions a blockade for its all-encompassing effects hampering third countries and institutions from conducting normal relations with Cuba.

The reach of the blockade was strengthened and further internationalized in 1996 by the "Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act" better known as the Helms-Burton Law. The Act seeks to deter foreign investment in Cuba by demanding compensation for former U.S. owners of now nationalized land or property, from nationals or states that benefit from this property. Furthermore, the Act reads the U.S. will lift its sanctions on Cuba under the conditions that Fidel and Raul Castro are no longer part of the Cuban government and normalize relations when Cuba pursues "democracy" and a "free" capitalist economy.

The international community at the UN has consistently condemned the U.S. imposed blockade as a human rights catastrophe. The overwhelming agreement of the blockades barbarity has been silenced by U.S. veto power.

On May 6, 2004, George Bush announced the latest set of measures against Cuba, which were officially implemented June 30, 2004. Washington's latest aggression against Cuba is detailed in an over 400-page document, constructed by the Reagan-era think tank: "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba". The report is extremely far-reaching and very detailed. I will highlight a few of the stated measures:

- Over the next two years, up to $59 million is to be spent promoting 'democracy' in Cuba.
- $36 million for "democracy-building" and the support of political opposition groups-meaning well-known terrorist groups based in Miami and Cuba.
$- 18 million to fly planes in Cuban airspace to jam Cuban airwaves with Radio and TV Marti-U.S. based radio and TV broadcasting falsifications about Cuba and the Cuban government-a violation of international law.
- $5 million to promote and disseminate anti-Cuban propaganda abroad as well as fund conferences concerning U.S. policies to overthrow the Cuban government.
- Cubans living in the U.S. have been restricted how often they can visit their families and the amount of money the can send.
- The definition of who is family has been limited to "immediate" family grandparents, parents, siblings, and children-negating Latin American cultural ideals of family. Aunts, Uncles, cousins etc. are restricted from every seeing their families again.
- Family members are only allowed to travel to Cuba once every 3 years, whereas before it was once a year.
- Now only family members can send money to Cuban relatives and are further limited in how much they can send. This money sent into Cuba, called remittances, provides much needed hard currency to supplant the meager Cuban wage. Remittances are the largest flux of capital inflow into the economy after tourism.
- Cubans in Miami are barred from sending money to relatives in the Cuban Communist Party.
- Educational travel is further limited. Cuba is the only country in the world that the U.S. forbids its citizens to travel to.
- All primary educational travel has been cancelled (high school and below)
- Undergraduate and graduate schools are limited to travel no longer then a semester under the conditions that "the program directly supports U.S. policy goals;" The NYT reported that the college program Semester at Sea has just cancelled all trips to Cuba, and the planned trip to Cuba in the spring has been cancelled by Evergreen faculty.

The majority of the 400-page document goes on to layout a post-Castro structure of government and economy, based on "free-markets", "free-trade", and "democracy".

On May 14, in response to Bush's speech announcing the latest aggression toward Cuba, millions of Cubans took the streets to display their unity and denunciation of the U.S. government. Fidel along with many other Cubans see these measures as preemptive to invasion as was done in Iraq.

The new measures are intended to and surely will make the Cuban economy suffer, and bring much hardship to the Cuban people. The hope of the U.S. government is that the conditions in Cuba will become so intolerable that Cubans detract their support of the Cuban government.

[ a history lesson brought to you by lefthook.org ]

2004-10-19T13:53:00.000+08:00

Right and wrong

A few good readings on subtle right wing schools of thought*, with the two major flavors anarcho-capitalism (that wishes to eliminate political governments) and minarchism (that wishes to minimize government.)

Anarcho-capitalism has recently had the greatest impact in the United States, where Republicans like Ronald Reagan wanted to be remembered for cutting taxation and for getting 'the government off peoples' backs'. In the United Kingdom, neo-Conservatives have argued that 'there is no such thing as society' and wish to 'roll back the frontiers of the State' -- a view adopted evangelically, in theory if not always in practice, by Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. State socialism [ big government] is attacked not so much because it is egalitarian but because it seeks to accrue more powers for the State to exercise centrally.

The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism

LIBERTARIANISM: BOGUS ANARCHY

Ayn Rand and the perversion of libertarianism

International Socialist Organisation (Australia) - by Dimity

The Myths of "Libertarian" economics.

Is "anarcho" capitalism against the state? * by Iain MacSaorsa

The Ideas of Lysander Spooner - Libertarian or libertarian socialist? * by Iain MacSaorsa

Ecology or "anarcho" capitalism * by Iain MacSaorsa

Chile, capitalism and liberty for the rich * by Iain MacSaorsa

Benjamin Tucker - Anarchist or capitalist? * by Gary Elkin

Capitalism, Right Libertarianism and the problem of "externalities?" * by Gary Elkin

The Myth of "Natural Law" * by Iain MacSaorsa

A Non-Libertarian FAQ

*There are many more subtle flavorings, such as Austrian and Chicago economic schools, gold-bug, space cadets, Old-Right, paleo-libertarians, neo-conservatism, hard money, the Libertarian Party, influences from Ayn Rand, and others.

2004-10-19T13:10:00.000+08:00

In between days

With less than two weeks before I say sayonara to the newsweekly for other independent ventures, weekdays have become quite squallish.

No, I'm not tired of things. I just have too much time on my hands.

Which leads me to the fact that I'm boomeranging back home to Santo Tomas in a week and I need to pack personal stuff at the staffhouse before Saturday.

The choochoo train chugging contentedly along - Balen+, Pampanga Phoenix, the April wedding.

2004-10-19T11:56:00.000+08:00

8 out of 10 countries favour Kerry for president
Poll reveals world anger at Bush

George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries - including some of its closest allies - growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office.

According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month's US presidential election.

The poll*, conducted by 10 of the world's leading newspapers, including France's Le Monde, Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Canada's La Presse, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian, also shows that on balance world opinion does not believe that the war in Iraq has made a positive contribution to the fight against terror.

The results show that in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans.

The 10-country poll suggests that rarely has an American administration faced such isolation and lack of public support amongst its closest allies.

The only exceptions to this trend are the Israelis - who back Bush 2-1 over Kerry and see the US as their security umbrella - and the Russians who, despite their traditional anti-Americanism, recorded unexpectedly favourable attitudes towards the US in the survey conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy.

The UK results of the poll conducted by ICM research for the Guardian reveal a growing disillusionment with the US amongst the British public, fuelled by a strong personal antipathy towards Mr Bush.

The ICM survey shows that if the British had a vote in the US presidential elections on November 2 they would vote 50% for Kerry and only 22% for Bush.

Sixty per cent of British voters say they don't like Bush, rising to a startling 77% among those under 25.

The rejection of Mr Bush is strongest in France where 72% say they would back Mr Kerry but it is also very strong in traditionally very pro-American South Korea, where fears of a pre-emptive US strike against North Korea have translated into 68% support for Mr Kerry.

In Britain the growth in anti-Americanism is not so marked as in France, Japan, Canada, South Korea or Spain where more than 60% say their view of the United States has deteriorated since September 11. But a sizeable and emerging minority - 45% - of British voters say their image of the US has got worse in the past three years and only 15% say it has improved.

There is a widespread agreement that America will remain the world's largest economic power.

This is underlined by the 73% of British voters who say that the US now wields an excessive influence on international affairs, a situation that 67% see as continuing for the foreseeable future.

A majority in Britain also believe that US democracy is no longer a model for others.

But perhaps a more startling finding from the Guardian/ICM poll is that a majority of British voters - 51% - say that they believe that American culture is threatening our own culture.

This is a fear shared by the Canadians, Mexicans and South Koreans, but it is more usually associated with the French than the British. Perhaps the endless television reruns of Friends and the Simpsons are beginning to take their toll. [ The Guardian ]

2004-10-19T11:35:00.000+08:00

Whatever happened to the Fergie's lads?
Fergie's Fledglings should be in their prime, yet almost all of them they are well past their best, says Guardian's Rob Smyth

In the delirious aftermath of Manchester United's victory in the European Cup final of 1999, Clive Tyldesley sounded a note pitched perfectly between caution and celebration. "Gary Neville 24, David Beckham 24, Nicky Butt 24, [Ryan] Giggs 25," he said. "Whatever they achieve in their future, I doubt they will ever, ever cap this."

It was hardly a hostage to fortune - you don't top the Treble - but nobody realised that they would never get near those heights again. Like Tyldesley, United's fledglings have been living off May 26, 1999 ever since.

This golden generation - a crop so talented in their teens that Alex Ferguson ripped up his awesome mid-90s side so as not to stunt their development - should now be at its absolute peak: Gary Neville 29, Beckham 29, Butt 29, Giggs 30, Phil Neville 27.

Instead they are, almost to a man, past their best, pale and poignant ghosts of the players who scared all-comers witless domestically between 1998 and 2001. A place in the pantheon alongside Peter Schmeichel and Roy Keane has long gone. [ read more ]

2004-10-16T04:32:00.000+08:00

Flip-flopping donut
Rumsfeld contradicts himself--and the 9/11 Commission report-- on the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda link

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that the Bush administration's attempts to link Iraq to al Qaeda - which have been so effective in rallying Americans' support for war - were not based on any substantial evidence.

A Newsweek poll conducted Sept. 2-3, 2004 asked "Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was DIRECTLY involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, or not?" Forty-two percent answered that they thought Hussein was directly involved. [PollingReport.com]

When he was asked to explain the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda link at the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Rumsfeld replied: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two." [Reuters]

This admission is significant, not just because it is coming from the Secretary of Defense, but because Rumsfeld, along with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, led the rush to war in Iraq.

The excerpts below, from Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" and the 9/11 Commission Report, show how Donald Rumsfeld was already trying to find a link between Iraq and al Qaeda on the afternoon of 9/11 - while millions of New Yorkers were walking home across the city's bridges.

Bob Woodward, "Plan of Attack" - pp. 24-25: "Rumsfeld asked if the terrorist attacks did not present an 'opportunity' to launch against Iraq."

At 2:40 p.m. [on 9/11], with dust and smoke filling the operations center as he was trying to figure out what happened, Rumsfeld raised with his staff the possibility of going after Iraq as a response to the terrorist attacks, according to an aide's notes. Saddam Hussein is S.H. in these notes, and UBL is Usama Bin Laden. The notes show that Rumsfeld had mused about whether to "hit S.H. @ same time - not only UBL" and asked the Pentagon lawyer to talk to Paul Wolfowitz about the Iraq connection with UBL." The next day in the inner circle of Bush's war cabinet, Rumsfeld asked if the terrorist attacks did not present an "opportunity" to launch against Iraq.

The 9/11 Commission Report - page 334 (page 351 of PDF): "The secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time—not only Bin Ladin. Secretary Rumsfeld later explained that at the time, he had been considering either one of them, or perhaps someone else, as the responsible party."

On the afternoon of 9/11, according to contemporaneous notes, Secretary Rumsfeld instructed General Myers to obtain quickly as much information as possible.The notes indicate that he also told Myers that he was not simply interested in striking empty training sites. He thought the U.S. response should consider a wide range of options and possibilities. The secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time—not only Bin Ladin. Secretary Rumsfeld later explained that at the time, he had been considering either one of them, or perhaps someone else, as the responsible party.

(For an abbreviated timeline of the Bush administration's attempts to link Iraq and al Qaeda, see "Were Bush's Iraq War plans finalized before November 2002? ")

Just hours after his comments on Monday, Rumsfeld posted a statement on the DoD website claiming that he had been "misunderstood." [U.S. Department of Defense] The statement repeats several Bush administration allegations which have been disproved by the 9-11 Commission - and then, in a classic example of Bush administration double-speak - also claims that the 9/11 Commission report "described linkages between Al Qaeda and Iraq as well."

"A Statement From Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld," Oct. 4, 2004:

*We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade, and of possible chemical and biological agent training...

*We do have one report indicating that Iraq provided unspecified training relating to chemical and/or biological matters for al Qaeda members.

I should also note that the 9/11 Commission report described linkages between Al Qaeda and Iraq as well. [U.S. Department of Defense]

The 9/11 Commission Report on alleged cooperation in weapons training - page 470

Although there have been suggestions of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda regarding chemical weapons and explosives training, the most detailed information alleging such ties came from an al Qaeda operative who recanted much of his original information.

The 9/11 Commission Report conclusions on alleged Iraq-al Qaeda link - page 66:

The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.

Rumsfeld's statement exemplifies the most disturbing problem with the Bush administration: its shameless willingness to make claims that directly contradict the known facts. What makes this example particularly reckless is the fact that millions of Americans have copies of the 9/11 Commission report - and can fact-check Rumsfeld's statements themselves.

Recommended reads:

- CIA Comprehensive Report on Iraq's WMD [PDF format; BitTorrent link]
- The forged Iraq uranium documents
- The Fay & Schlesinger reports on Abu Ghraib
- Testimony of Abu Ghraib prisoners
- Torture scandal documents (32.5 MB - 30 memos, reports, and sworn statements)
- 9-11 Commission documents (10.2 MB - includes the complete 9-11 Commission report, all 17 staff statements, and testimony by key Clinton and Bush administration staffers)

2004-10-16T01:10:00.000+08:00

They love Lucio
The country's richest crony capitalist having the time of his life

With the way they're running the sponsorship Lucio Tan-owned cigarette ads on radio and television programs these days, you would think Tan remains the Philippine media's largest benefactor.

Ergo, if it were not for his ads that sponsor program segments ranging from "music countdowns" to flash reports and primetime news programs, many media firms would have been in the red a long time ago.

The relationship remains an ideal situation for Tan - whose multibillion-dollar business empire makes him probably the richest man in the Philippines and who is facing legal charges for evading over P26 billion in taxes.

The Marcos years
Tan comes from poor Chinese immigrant descent and started off as a scrap dealer – thus fulfilling the Filipino stereotype of Chinese. As a young man he moved into the tobacco industry, where he first met the young Congressman, Ferdinand Marcos.

That was the key. In 1966, when Marcos was President, Tan founded Fortune Tobacco, which is now the country’s biggest tobacco company. It accounts for over half of all cigarettes sold in the Philippines. Fortune took off after Marcos imposed martial law, in 1973, thanks to generous tax and other incentives. In 1977 Tan bought a bankrupt bank from the Government, which is now Allied Bank, one of the country’s top banks. In 1982 he established Asia Brewery, benefiting from a Marcos ruling that allowed new beer companies to open. Today, he is the Philippines’ top cigarette and booze baron.

During the long years of the Marcos dictatorship, Lucio Tan was his closest crony. In 1987 (after Marcos’ overthrow by the People Power revolution) Rolando Gapud, Marcos’ financial adviser, swore an affidavit to the Presidential Commission on Good Government: "I know that Mr Marcos and Mr Lucio Tan had an understanding that Mr Marcos owns 60% of Shareholdings Inc, which owns shares in Fortune Tobacco, Asia Brewery, Allied Bank and Foremost Farms…Mr Lucio Tan, apart from the 60% equity of Mr Marcos, has been regularly paying, through Security Bank, 60 to 100 million pesos a year to Mr Marcos, in exchange for privileges and concessions that Mr Marcos has been giving him" (Public Eye, January-March 1999; "Into The Light"; Sheila S. Coronel)

In 1986, when Marcos was compelled to end martial law and call an election, the workers at Tan’s Fortune Tobacco factory were loaded into "Love Buses" and sent en masse to cheer for Marcos, after which they were paid allowances by the company (of course, Marcos "won" that fraudulent election, and was then overthtrown by the outraged people).

In December 1998 the Philippine Daily Inquirer ran an explosive front page series of articles, in which Wonderwidow and shoe fetishist, Imelda Marcos, opened her books to the paper and detailed just which cronies owned what.

Her motive was revenge – she said that the Marcos cronies had been given all sorts of companies and assets by the late Ferdinand, for safekeeping (until things settled down), then refused to give them back to the Marcos family. She claimed, as one PDI headline put it: "We own practically everything" (5/12/98). She reckoned that Marcos, having obtained all sorts of companies by fair means or (very) foul, dished them out to his mates: "I won’t be president of any company because I’m already President of the country" (7/12/98). Tan got 12 companies. All the cronies paid Marcos hundreds of millions of pesos per year into his secret bank accounts, in return for privileges and concessions (Ferdinand used the name "William Saunders" for his hidden accounts and assets; Imelda was "Jane Ryan"). She wasn’t very flattering about Lucio Tan: "…he’s nothing, just somebody who used to buy used bottles" (9/12/98; "Imelda: We made Tan, Cojuangcos").

Estrada's buddy
After Marcos’ downfall, Tan faced a hostile President in Cory Aquino. But he continued to thrive and acquire more major assets. In 1992 he bought the privatised Philippine Airlines Ltd (PAL - known universally as Planes Always Late). He attached himself to the rising star of Senator Joseph Estrada, who went on to become Vice-President under Fidel Ramos, then was elected President, in 1998. Tan was the major financier of his successful Presidential campaign. He became Estrada’s closest crony, regularly being seen with him in public and travelling with him (most unusual for the usually circumspect Filipino-Chinese business class).

Estrada looked after his mate – when the tax department charged Fortune Tobacco with P26.5 billion in tax evasion, Tan’s well placed connections throughout the bureaucracy, judiciary and the political system (including the President) ensured that the charges were dropped (the Court of Appeals ruled that the Government had filed its case 11 days too late).

Solita Monsod, economics professor and former economic planning secretary, said: "Lucio Tan is a role model for the worst kind of conduct as far as our national economic objectives are concerned. He signals that you can evade taxes and get away with it, pay the courts and get the judges to decide in your favour, get good lawyers and delay your cases. The messages that are given by the kind of treatment that he gets from the Government are the antithesis of what we need for sustainable development: an even playing field and Government intervention of the right kind" (Public Eye, January-March 1999; "Into The Light"; Sheila. S Coronel).

Tan is a past master at dispensing bribes to politicians – the same article recounts him giving P100,000 "Christmas presents" to Congressmen in 1998. And the Estrada government made sure that Tan would have no more tax hassles by appointing a new tax commissioner who proclaimed himself a longstanding friend of Tan.

In the late 1990s, PAL took on two Taiwanese airlines in a dispute that led to the cancellation of the Philippines’ air agreement with Taiwan. For keeping PAL afloat, Estrada hailed Tan as a "hero". He was no hero to PAL’s workers and their unions, whom he had locked out and bashed by company security goons, in a contract dispute. For some time PAL was grounded, leaving the Philippines with no national airline (an even worse aeronautical predicament than Air New Zealand found itself in recently); Tan was one of the five co-winners of the 1998 Notoryus Award - he was adjudged by human rights groups to have been one of the worst human rights abusers that year (no mean feat, given the competition in this field in the Philippines) for his anti-labour policies and union busting at PAL). In 2000, the Philippines was compelled to resume the Taiwan air rights agreement, on Taiwan’s terms – Tan was looking to sell the airline.

The government's Social Security System and the beleaguered GSIS have both coughed up P7 billion each in 1999 to assist Lucio Tan's (in)Equitable Bank gobble up RCBC.

Tan has also bought the state-owned PNB and was able to pull off a conspiracy, in obtaining a P16-billion bail-out from funds mandated to be primarily spent for workers' and employees benefits'.

Today, PNB is owned by Tan and the government, each with a 44.98-percent stake.

The Arroyo years
Estrada went the way of Marcos, in January 2001, when People Power 2 overthrew him – universal disgust at the way he flaunted running the country as a private piggy bank for himself and a coterie of cronies, Tan foremost, led him to where he is now - in custody and on trial, facing the capital charge of plunder. But Lucio Tan emerged unscathed. True to form, he has renounced Estrada and carried on profitably under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Business is business – politics is only the means to enable him to acquire more wealth and power. And any means will do.

An independent research organization, CRC, had done a study on cigarette taxation and discovered that Fortune Tobacco, had been reducing its tax payments, according to CRC, by some P3 billion per year through the simple device of reducing its manufacturer's price and transferring profits to marketing companies that appear to be related to it.

Just a few weeks ago, the Court of Appeals (CA) granted Tan's Fortune Tobacco tax refunds amounting to P1.035 billion.

2004-10-15T13:03:00.000+08:00

No, I still ain't buying

US Congress eyes laws vs ads aimed at kids

Responding to growing outrage from parents and public health groups, members of the US Congress have proposed a variety of ways to curb the aggressive tactics of advertisers and marketers who seek to influence the behavior of children and teens. [+]

US journalism profs want new rules to stop advertisers’ threat to press freedom

In an effort to keep advertisers from undermining freedom of the press and editorial integrity, 61 journalism and law professors sent a letter today to the American Society of Magazine Editors, asking it to enact new rules to require disclosure of product placement in magazines, and to prohibit the disguising of ads as editorial content, or providing special favors to advertisers. [+]

Consumer resistance to marketing reaches all-time high

Results from a recent Yankelovich poll this year show that:
* "65% think there should be more limits and regulations on marketing and advertising";
* "65% feel constantly bombarded with too much advertising and marketing".
[ download pdf file ]

[ commercialalert.org]

2004-10-13T21:22:00.000+08:00

break a pencil

tomorrow morning, i am scheduled to give a lecture for rank-and-file government employees of the state firm clark development corp. [ cdc ] with the topic being press freedom and its limitations - contemporary realities.

the subject is a libertarian-utopian paradox.

the philippines, after the fall of the marcos dictatorship in 1986, remains a much freer country compared to other nations such as singapore as far as press freedom is concerned.

and in many nations aroudn the world, the idea of “free press” is nonexistent with only perhaps a public information machinery in place where the nod of those in power precedes broadcast or publication.

press freedom remains a paradox as the quest for truth has a price. when people can be hurt, journalists withhold part of the truth: they should not be compelled to reveal their sources of information, identify rape victims or disclose names of minors.

to say that media practitioners must be ethical is also easier said than done. journalists at times deviate from ethics because of the following reasons: the philippines is a personalistic society and sometimes, journalists compromise a little bit; they are vulnerable to corruption because of their low economic status; journalists resort to gimmickry because of the passiveness or fearfulness of people who are being interviewed; the media are owned by influential people and the journalists do not want to antagonize their employers who undoubtedly have their own agenda.

and the object of searching and writing truths is often fatal.

there were six journalists killed in line of duty in the philippines this year, doubling the average of three journalists killed annually in the country. since 1986, the number of murdered journalists has reached 42.

no one has been convicted for any of the slayings.

what do the figures mean? local journalists covering crime, corruption, and human rights violations are extremely vulnerable, particularly locales where conflict is widespread and impunity is the norm. those are the facts suggested by local and international statistics on journalists' killings over the last decade. covering combat is risky, but a much greater threat than a stray bullet are the murderers who kill journalists deliberately, using generalized violence to cover their tracks.

attacks against the press and press freedom also comes in various forms: journalists can be physically assaulted or news facilities and offices damaged, raided, searched because of news coverage or commentary; censored or officially suppressed or banned, editions confiscated, news outlets closed; expelled or forced to leave a country because of news coverage or commentary; subjected to legal action with credentials denied or suspended, fined, sentenced to prison, visas denied or canceled, passage of a restrictive law, libel suit intended to inhibit coverage; harassed or access to source denied or limited, materials confiscated or damaged, entry or exit denied, family members attacked or threatened, dismissed or demoted (when it is clearly the result of political or outside pressure); freedom of movement impeded, or detained for less than 48 hours; made missing, or kidnapped or detained by nongovernment forces for at least 48 hours; imprisoned, or arrested or detained by government for at least 48 hours; threatened or menaced with physical harm or some other type of retribution.

reporters without borders ranks the philippines in 118th spot in terms of press freedom - with the country caught in the pack of banana republics with tin pot dictators. the ranking reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country, and the efforts undertaken by the state to respect and ensure respect for this freedom.

finland, iceland, the netherlands and norway all shared the top spot with journalists in the said nations enjoying a huge degree of press freedom and their respective states undertaking huge efforts to respect and protect that freedom.

the list ranked the us in 31st place.

not all liberatarian-utopian fun isn't it - when everything comes down to the objective matter of the act of truth telling.

the center for media freedom and responsibility perhaps sums it all up in one statement:

press freedom has been found to be essential to the democratic system. effective participatory government is possible only when it can count on a well-informed society where individuals freely exchange ideas, where public debate and discussion arise from knowledge and understanding of national affairs.

that freedom involves not only the professionals of the media, but the public served by the media - public officials, the private sector, members of civil society, readers, listeners and viewers - who receive information and are part of the cycle of public communication.

without a free press, few other human rights are attainable. a strong press freedom environment encourages the growth of a robust civil society, which leads to stable, sustainable democracies and healthy social, political, and economic development.

that - at the very least - is the idea, charlie.

2004-10-13T20:45:00.000+08:00

Titanic Chief Executive

We swim or sink together under my dev’t plan, GMA says

Lifeboats, Ma'am?

‘50 billionaires, 42,500 millionaires not paying proper taxes’

Lucio Tan seems to be lost in a crowd.

Bush slams Kerry on economy ahead of crucial last debate

He has mastered the art of preemptive attack, I told ya.

AFPSLAI refuses to reveal general’s finances in House probe

They were just following orders, silly.

DepEd admits public school textbooks contain numerous errors

Does that mean the Philippines does not have weapons of mass destruction?

Journalists in RP an endangered species, Arroyo says

Funny.

2004-10-13T01:55:00.000+08:00

Poverty amidst milk and honey
39M working Americans are poor, study finds

WASHINGTON, USA [ Agence France-Presse/Inq7.net ] -- More than a quarter of American working families -- or nearly 39 million people -- have trouble making ends meet and can be qualified as poor due to a fast shrinking pool of well-paying jobs, according to a new report due for release Tuesday.

The study, coming on the eve of the third and final presidential debate between President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, was likely to add fuel to the already heated political campaign, during which Kerry has been accusing Bush of outsourcing good American jobs.

"The president does not seem to understand how many middle class families are being squeezed by falling incomes, and spiraling health care, tuition and energy costs," the Massachusetts senator stated just last week, pointing out that 1.6 million private sector jobs had been lost in the country during Bush's nearly four-year term.

Although the report, compiled jointly by the respected Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller foundations, refrained from direct partisan blame, it appeared to back Kerry's argument by insisting that "our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families."

A total of 28 million jobs, or almost 25 percent of all available in the country, can no longer keep a family of four above the poverty level, the study found.

the issue, as always, is well-rooted in unemployment, underemployment and salary inequality. i remember to have already blogged here an analysis of a harvard study correlating salary inequality and poverty. but then again, one of bush's top economic advisers maintains that salary inequality is good for the economy.

a case of mixing means for ends, these neocons.

the economy is only as good as it serves a far larger purpose of enabling people - as individuals and as members of a larger society - to lead the lives they value.

2004-10-13T01:52:00.000+08:00

Miseducation 101

Feisty Philippine Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago revealed this week that a recent study on the state of education in Asia states that none of Philippines' top universities are among the top 25 in Asia.

Even the University of the Philippines [UP], which for a long time was touted the country's best, is in the lower 25 of the Top 50. Ateneo and La Salle are near the bottom of the Top 80.

Other factoid: In every 100 Filipino school children enrolled, only 66 will complete elementary education, 42 will finish secondary, however only 14 will earn a college degree.

I can only shake my head.

2004-10-13T01:11:00.002+08:00

No food on the table
Agricultural production rose in 2004 - so why are Filipinos going hungry?

The Philippine government has responded to the recent Social Weather Station's report of rising hunger with promises of food coupons.

While admitting that the plan is just a temporary relief, the response belies a lack of understanding of the real problem and is indicative of how unprepared the government is to tackle these issues. To address the worsening problem of hunger and poverty, the government should buckle down to the serious business of revising its food, agricultural and trade policies.

The Social Weather Station's (SWS) survey reported an alarming 15.1% of households reporting hunger, or not having anything to eat at least once in the three months prior to the survey, with Mindanao reporting the highest incidence of 23%, followed by Metro Manila at 15.7%.

But agricultural production expanded by 6.61% in the first semester of 2004, with crops and fisheries leading the growth.

So why are people hungry? The answer lies not in the availability of food, but rather in the people’s capacity to access food.

Inflation is one culprit. Starting at a low rate of 3.4% in January, it reached 5.1% in June and peaked at 6.9% in September.

Next is unemployment and underemployment, which stood at 13.7% and 18.5% in April, respectively. While this has improved a bit in July (also owing to improved agricultural production), the fact remains that more than four million job seekers cannot find jobs, and 5.6 million of those who have jobs are not working full time or desire more work.

The employed also have to contend with low wages. Wages range from 140 to 250 pesos (US$2.50-4.46) in industry, and 131 to 213 pesos (US$2.34-3.80) in agriculture, depending on the region.

This means that a family of five must have two members working full time and earning a minimum wage to meet at least their monthly food needs, which the government estimates at 3,349 pesos (US$59.80).

But how many poor families actually have two members employed formally?In short, people have become much poorer and less able to access food because of meagre income. If the self-rated poverty reported in the SWS stabilized at 53% (which is low compared to previous results that hit as high as 60%), the SWS was quick to note that this was because of belt tightening or the lowering of people’s economic standards. All the more reason that the problem should be attended to immediately – people are bracing themselves for an even lower quality of life.

While the hunger may be borne out of income declines, unless government seriously reorients its food policy there could be a real supply crunch in the future leading to increased prices.The liberal attitude towards food policy produced a new definition of food security that emphasises availability and affordability rather than prioritizing agricultural production. Importation has become a strategy equal to production and no longer just a policy tool to address production shortfalls. As a result, the Philippines has not graduated from being a net food importer.

The national food import bill has been increasing over the last ten years, from $714 million in 1993 to $2.38 billion in 2003. Yet even the supposed advantage of a liberalized trade regime on consumer prices remains elusive for Filipinos. Food inflation continues to outstrip overall inflation.

Thirty-nine percent of the country’s labour force depends on agriculture (only 2/3 of whom are employed), and they have to compete for the shrinking share (to GDP) of the sector from 22% in 1993 to less than 15% in 2003. Moreover, they have to contend with the continued encroachment of industry and speculative ventures into productive land, the continued lack of incentive and support to agricultural production, and steep competition from imports.The low priority given to food production is worrying, given that even with trade, global food production has been unable to catch up with demand.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, food harvest is expected to fall short of meeting consumption for the fifth consecutive year in 2004. This reality should be considered seriously by government, to at least temper the rabid optimism that trade liberalization alone will solve our food security concerns. Nor will intensified agriculture and use of GMOs do the trick without first addressing food safety, biodiversity and production viability.

The SWS survey highlights the special case of Mindanao. The Mindanao situation has been punctuated by ironies throughout history, not least of which is hunger in a region blessed with vast food and agricultural resources. Certainly you would expect more from a region that runs an annual trade surplus (in bananas and crude coconut oil) of around $600 million in recent years.

Nor is hunger new to Mindanao. A few years ago, it was devastated by severe drought that government refused to acknowledge immediately, until the hugely successful Tabang Mindanaw campaign pressed the issue in its face.Mindanao is the poorest island. Four of the five poorest regions and six of the poorest provinces in the Philippines are in Mindanao, including all four provinces in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao where more than half of households live in poverty.

The problem can be rooted to the long-term marginalization of Mindanao in national development policy. The bias against agriculture has been felt most harshly in Mindanao because it is farthest from Manila. Access to land is worst in the region. The lack of peace and order, and insurgency problems contribute to the vicious circle of poverty and violence in the region. Unfortunately the government’s uncritical support to the war on terror aggravates rather than abates the Mindanao quagmire. [focusweb]

2004-10-12T19:14:00.000+08:00

tinker, tailor, soldier, teacher

i'm scheduled to facilitate a journalism and writing workshop thursday morning for the clark development corp [ cdc ], the government firm tasked to oversee the full conversion and development of the former clark us air force base into a premier civil aviation, tourism, manufacturing and industrial hub in asia.

no grind tonight too - as it seems like the newsweekly's owner needs to settle some accounts first this week. i'm leaving the paper by month's end if you haven't been told yet.

there's a new news daily that i've been appointed editor just last week, along with my business and culture zine which time table i really have to meet.

superman is not writing 30 yet as far as i'm concerned, squirt : D

2004-10-12T01:16:00.000+08:00

Disappointing Dan

Bought two books yesterday at Powerbooks-Greenbelt in Makati. Dan Brown's tech conspiracy thriller Digital Fortress and Bob Ong's latest zany tongue-in-cheek narratives Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas.

Will do a review of Ong's book later this week. Brown's novel, I say, was mildly disappointing.

He should read up on Echelon*, the 24-hour global electronic communications surveillance system which captures and analyzes staggering volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic and communications.

Every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world passes through the system established and controlled by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and is operated in conjunction with the Government Communications Head Quarters of England, the Communications Security Establishment of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate, and the General Communications Security Bureau of New Zealand.

Other electronic surveillance systems already online today include:

United States-Total Informational Awareness

A project of the United States Department of Defense, Total Informational Awareness (TIA) is designed to gather personal data on a grand scale, including emails, phone calls, financial records, transportation habits, and medical information. Its proponents believe that by scanning and analyzing this massive pile of data, government agents will be able to predict and prevent crime. Many specifics concerning this plan have yet to be determined, including methods to protect the security of the warehoused information and other prevent unauthorized access. It is known, however, that the U.S. government is already funding projects to develop tools that could be used as part of this system, including software to predict an individual's behavior based on what that person does online. Reports indicate the state of Florida (with Federal support) is developing a system (called the MATRIX) that is broadly similar to TIA.

United States-Carnivore

This Internet surveillance program, which is currently being used by the United States government, is somewhat similar to ECHELON. Contrary to prior assertions, a subsequent government-commissioned review panel found that Carnivore is indeed capable of collecting all communications over the segment of the network being surveilled: "The results show that all TCP communications on the network segment being sniffed were captured by Carnivore." Moreover, the default configuration is to do just that: "When turning on TCP full mode collection and not selecting any port, the default is to collect traffic from all TCP ports." Carnivore is now being replaced by an even more powerful system, known as DCS 1000 or Enhanced Carnivore, which reportedly has higher capacity in order to deal with speedier broadband networks. The United States government also has issued a controversial field guidance memorandum regarding the installation and operation for this family of surveillance tools.

United States-Oasis & Fluent

United States intelligence officials have developed two programs which many experts believe may be used to enhance ECHELON's capabilities. One of these programs, Oasis, automatically creates machine-readable transcripts from television and audio broadcasts. Reports indicate that Oasis can also distinguish individual speakers and detect personal characteristics (such as gender) then denote these characteristics in the transcripts it creates. The other program, FLUENT, allows English-language keyword searches of non-English materials. This data mining tool not only finds pertinent documents, but also translates them, although the number of languages that can currently be translated is apparently limited (Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Korean and Ukrainian). In addition, FLUENT displays the frequency with which a given word is used in a document and can handle alternate search term spellings.

European Union-Enfopol

Enfopol is a special document created with the blessing of a special European Union council. It lists various "technical requirements" that essentially would make it easier for law enforcement officials to wiretap European communications networks. Efforts are now underway to implement these standards in the telecommunications systems of EU member countries.

United States-CALEA
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) generally requires telecommunications carriers both to modify their existing networks and to design and deploy new generations of equipment (including software), all to ensure that carriers can meet certain specified "capability" and "capacity" requirements related to the ability of authorized government agencies to engage in wiretapping.

United States-TEMPEST
Reports have indicated the existence of another NSA project that is designed to capture computer signals (such as keystrokes or monitor images) through walls or from other buildings, even if the computers are not linked to a network. Details about this project, which is apparently codenamed TEMPEST, are only just becoming available. One NSA document, entitled "Compromising Emanations Laboratory Test Requirements, Electromagnetics", was prepared by the NSA's Telecommunications and Information Systems Security group. It describes test procedures for measuring the radiation emitted from a computer -- both through radio waves and through telephone, serial, network, or power cables attached to it. A second document the NSA released describes the agency's "Technical Security Program," which is responsible for assessing electronic security and providing "technical security facility countermeasures." Two subsequent research articles how the blinking patterns of LEDs and changes in the light intensity of cathode-ray tube displays, even from a distance, can allow someone to eavesdrop on the data passing through a given computer.

I know, I know. I should have just bought either the Neil Gaiman or Milan Kundera title instead.

Remind me.

*Related resources on Echelon:

ECHELON: America's Secret Global Surveillance Network

Final Report on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system), European Parliament Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System, approved September 5, 2001 (~1 MB PDF file)

A Dissent from the European Parliament Echelon Committee Report, minority report, July 4, 2001.

Draft Report on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system), European Parliament Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System, May 18, 2001 (780 kB PDF file)

Legal Standards for the Intelligence Community in Conducting Electronic SurveillanceThe U.S. government issued this report on the legal basis for ECHELON and similar activities. The report included several appendices; the declassified versions are available below.
- U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18
- Attorney General Guidelines
- "Department of Defense Activities that May Affect U.S. Persons"

NSA aids on USSID 18
The National Security Agency has published the following materials which describe its intelligence procedures with regards to United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18.
- NSA Guide to USSID 18
- NSA USSID 18 Contextual Identifications Memo
- NSA manual on handling information on U.S. citizens

"An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control" -- Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA)

This document was one of the first reports to the European Parliament that described Echelon activities and possible improprieties.

Sandia Intelligent Agent Program

Sandia National Laboratories (a division of United States Department of Energy) has developed "Intelligent Agent" software that scans for "unusual" computer activity. Once detected, this surveillance program can automatically shutdown machines that engaged in such behavior.

National Security Archives

This research institute is based at George Washington University, and is dedicated to collecting and publishing declassified documents. They have recently uncovered several U.S. Government papers which apparently confirm the existence of ECHELON and describe its structure. Read the documents and decide for yourself by clicking below.

-History of the Air Intelligence Agency
- NAVSECGRU INSTRUCTION C5450.48A

NSA Technical Description

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has published a technical description of ECHELON-type information sorting and retrieval systems.

European Parliament minutes-1999

The European Parliament discussed ECHELON in the autumn of 1999. See this website for more details.

MIT Technology Review

This article (dated December 2001) surveys the capabilities of various communications surveillance systems (including ECHELON and Carnivore). Its conclusion: "Even if the obstacles of bureaucracy, societal resistance and technical limitations were all to be surmounted, there's no assurance that high-tech spyware would ever provide the kind of security that people now crave."

JYA

This site contains numerous documents on Echelon and the National Security Agency (NSA).

EPIC

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a law suit to obtain further information on the legal standards by which Echelon operates.
To see EPIC's press release, click here.
For more media coverage, click here.

Echelon Research Resources

Patrick Poole, who is the Deputy Director of the Center for Technology Policy (a division of the Free Congress Foundation), has compiled an extensive listing of materials concerning ECHELON.

EP Temporary Committee Final Resolution

A European Parliament investigatory committee has issued a Final Resolution regarding possible ECHELON abuses. The voting on the resolution is scheduled to occur in plenary session sometime in the fall of 2001.
Text of Final Resolution
Minority Report #1 (Turco)
Minority Report #2 (Schroeder)

Map of Echelon network

This German language map, courtesy of FAS, shows the location of Echelon bases around the world.

Intelligence Capabilities 2000

This report to the European Parliament was written by Duncan Campbell, and describes ECHELON activities in great detail. Intelligence Capabilities 2000 is one of a series of reports on the "Development of surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information".
HTML format
PDF format

Intelligence Capabilities 2000 is one of a series of reports on the "Development of surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information." The following reports are in PDF format.

-Presentation of the four studies and Analysis: Data protection and human rights in the European Union and the role of the European Parliament.

-Encryption and cryptosystems in electronic surveillance: a survey of the technology assessment issues.

- The legality of the interception of electronic communications: a concise survey of the principal legal issues and instruments under international, European and national law.

-The perception of economic risks arising from the potential vulnerability of electronic commercial media to interception.

2004-10-11T23:28:00.001+08:00

Jeepney journeys
US military vehicle+ingenious grease monkeys

Passengers in Japan rocket down the tracks aboard sleek 170-mph bullet trains. In Vietnam, passengers move at a sedate five mph while sitting in cyclo pedicabs. Passengers in Thailand buzz about in three-wheeled tuk-tuks, while in Hong Kong they steam across the harbor on green-and-white Star Ferries. In the Philippines, we cruise along in style aboard chrome-plated jeepneys that literally dazzle the eye.

While the jeepney certainly offers a practical means of getting from A to B, it is much more than just a form of public transport. After all, jeepneys embody the history of the Philippines in the previous century. They also stand as a testament to Filipino mechanical genius. Most uniquely of all, jeepneys are mobile works of art that dominate streetscapes from Luzon to Palawan.

Like an automotive phoenix, the jeepney rose from the ashes of Manila at the end of the Second World War. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the U.S. military began sending millions of American servicemen home to their peacetime lives. Much of their surplus equipment stayed in the Pacific, however. In Manila, which had been leveled when the Americans retook the city street by street from the Japanese, the U.S. Army sold or simply gave away a huge number of surplus jeeps to local Filipinos.

Manila's transportation infrastructure had been destroyed in the fighting, so entrepreneurial Filipinos began using these surplus jeeps as share taxis. Drivers soon began painting their olive-drab jeeps in a bright rainbow of peacetime colors designed to grab the attention of potential passengers. Drivers added metal roofs to ward off the sun and rain; they extended the rear of their vehicles in order to crowd more people aboard. An entire range of accessories followed-chrome hood ornaments, ear-shattering airhorns, religious icons and flashing multicolored lights. Manilenos suddenly realized that an entirely new sort of vehicle had been born in their war-ravaged city.

In creating the jeepney, we had taken a quintessentially American item - the military jeep - and modified it to suit our own needs.

Digression. The jeepney too remains a symbol of the marketing of the American Dream in the Philippines. Film-maker Kidlat Tahimik used the jeepney as this symbol in his Perfumed Mightmare, a Critic's Prize winner at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival.

Fifty-seven years after the Second World War ended with a double atomic bang, jeepneys with too many passengers on board are still hauling passengers throughout the Philippines. Though these sturdy machines face increasing competition from more modern sedan and minivan taxis, jeepneys remain the backbone of public transportation. Many jeepneys operate in the Metro Manila area, but a large number also ply jungle back roads as well. Unlike a bus or minivan, a jeepney can handle a muddy country track with ease.

Today's jeepney drivers face an ever-increasing amount of rules and regulations. Most residents of Manila agree that this is largely for the best. An anti-noise ordinance, for example, now forbids Metro Manila jeepney drivers from cranking up their high-decibel stereo systems. A government agency issues licenses for jeepney drivers to ply established routes at set fares that begin at a very reasonable php5.50. A jeepney driver who picks up passengers off his licensed route faces stiff penalties as well as the potentially violent ire of the drivers whose fares he is poaching.

Nonetheless there is still an outlaw feel to the jeepney, a vehicle that is irrepressibly exuberant in its chrome finery. For all the attempts to bridle them with government regulations, jeepneys still lack safety gear as basic as seatbelts. Ride in a radio taxi and you will simply go from one place to another in seat-belted comfort; ride in a jeepney and you will enjoy a uniquely authentic Filipino experience, complete with passenger camaraderie, hard bench seats and the occasional white-knuckle road maneuver.

The original jeepneys were modifications of existing military vehicles. However, since the U.S. military has long since run out of surplus jeeps to give away, today's jeepneys are quite literally manufactured from scratch. As might be expected, they aren't rolling off the high-tech assembly lines of Toyota and Ford. Instead, independently owned factories turn out homemade jeepneys tailor-made for aspiring drivers.

I was 18 when I worked in several of my uncles' AUV assembly shops back home in between college semesters. The process of assembling AUVs [ Asian Utility Vehicle] - themselves being the nearest modern cousins of jeepneys - resemble Filipino jeepney factories with a corps of skilled mechanics who can assemble a jeepney from a second-hand Isuzu or Mitsubishi car engine, a reconditioned Toyota transmission, a Honda Civic front grill and a set of retreads, a tangle of rusty steel bars and sheet metal.

My job there took me to crafting the vehicle's passenger seats and support beam structures using low-tech tools like handheld welding and acetylene torches, ballpeen hammers and C-Vise grips. Workplaces were often grimy and hot but it was a good way to earn a living, as most families back home would tell you.

The whole process of jeepney/AUV assembly takes up to two months, but the end result is well worth the time spent. Unsurprisingly, a new jeepney does not come cheap by local standards. A basic model goes for about Php300,000, while a deluxe version fetches as much as Php400,000.

No two jeepneys are ever alike. Flamboyant overkill characterizes these jeepneys, which sport not one but four silvery hood ornaments-usually galloping horses-along with chrome pushbars, rows of mirrors, ranks of radio aerials and an uncountable number of reflectors. Many have elaborate paint jobs; others are decked out in a mirror-bright chrome finish. Deluxe models feature onboard color TVs and air-conditioning, not to mention power steering and four-wheel drive.

Ingenious grease monkeys us.

*The word jeepney is commonly believed to be a conflation of "jeep" and "jitney", or "jeep" and "knee", the latter referring to the jeepney's crowded face-to-face seating. [ wikipedia ] .

2004-10-09T19:07:00.000+08:00

fergie's midfield dilemma

while everyone will be glued to the england v. wales fifa world cup qualifying match today at manchester united's old trafford stadium, it's still the red devils' last match against m'boro that i couldn't get some decent sleep over.

fergie's midfield sucks major. no, i'm not talking about wingers ryan giggs or ronaldo who have been playing excellent football since rio ferdinand's return at center back. i'm seriously in doubt of sir alex ferguson's questionable penchance to partner roy keane with john o'shea in the center midfield in his old school 4-4-2 formation.

o'shea - whose home is at the back four - has been looking like a duck out of his elements every time fergie plays him in the midfield.

i could comprehend fergies' permutation challenges during the start of the season - when practically all of his attacking crew were on the injured list, but with ruud van nistelroy's return and the addition of alan smith and youth sensation wayne rooney, he could have several excellent permutations to work around with, notwithstanding paul scholes' recent injury.

their recent champions' league match against fenerbach showed excellent promise, even if the reds had to concede two goals to their six hits.

here is my point of clarity. with scholes still out, fergie can use either eric djemba djemba or brazilian international jose kleiberson [ whom i think deserves better playing time with the reds] if he wants to go on with his 4-4-2 formation.

with both van nistelrooy and smith in-form and saha returning, fergie has a surplus of attackers. he can play a loose 4-4-2, with his wonderboy rooney the ideal candidate for the role 'in the hole' between keane and the strikers.

saha [ with his pace and strong left foot ] can also drop out to the left should giggs be in need of a rest while on the other side, how many left-backs would like the sight of rooney cutting down the inside-right channel and looking to link with smith and van nistelrooy?

you are both god and devil, fergie - but tonight, i'll watch eriksson* with his three attacker 4-4-2 diamond [ if he uses it ] with rooney in the hole between defensive midfielder nicky butt and strikers michael owen and jermaine defoe :D

update: eriksson did use the 4-4-2 diamond with michael owen and jermaine defoe as strikers and wayne rooney as an attacking midfielder :D england wins 2-0 on goals from wingers frank lampard and david beckham.

beckham left the turf limping though - and booked for a challenge on wales' ben thatcher - ruling him out of england's game against azerbaijan on wednesday.

[ full match story available at bbc news ]

2004-10-08T22:15:00.000+08:00

Say hi, Hermann

Why is this so 9-11/Afghanistan/Iraq, uh Mike?

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

- Adolf Hitler's Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe [Air Force ] Chief Hermann Goering at the Nuremburg war Trials, as reported in the book Nuremberg Diary

2004-10-08T22:05:00.000+08:00

Distract me, silly

"One fundamental goal of any well-conceived indoctrination program is to direct attention elsewhere, away from effective power, its roots, and the disguises it assumes." - MIT's Noam Chomsky /Persuasion, Manipulation, Advertising, Propaganda

2004-10-07T17:11:00.000+08:00

word of the day
[ from wordspy ]

imperial overstretch
noun. The extension of an empire beyond its ability to maintain or expand its military and economic commitments.

Example Citations:

Might Washington, like Rome, fall victim to imperial overstretch? Could military force abroad eventually have to be withdrawn because of bankruptcy at home? Might the whole idea of America eventually be challenged and destroyed by some charismatic new faith: some fundamentalist variant on Christianity? Or will nature disrupt America's new world order?
— "Does Rome's fate await the US?," Sunday Mail, October 12, 2003

As the dynamic of imperial overstretch became clearer, many of the great powers decided to solve their security dilemmas through even bolder preventive offensives. None of these efforts worked. To secure their European holdings, Napoleon and Hitler marched to Moscow, only to be engulfed in the Russian winter. Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany tried to break the allies' encirclement through unrestricted submarine warfare, which brought America's industrial might into the war against it. Imperial Japan, facing a quagmire in China and a U.S. oil embargo, tried to break what it saw as impending encirclement by seizing the Indonesian oil fields and preventively attacking Pearl Harbor. All sought security through expansion, and all ended in imperial collapse.
—Jack Snyder, "Imperial Temptation," The National Interest, Spring 2003

2004-10-07T17:02:00.000+08:00

Weapons of Mass Distraction
Non-existent Iraq weapons of mass distraction an embarrassment to the U.S.
[ tufts daily ]

Suspicions have been proven correct. Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) when the U.S. and allies invaded in March 2003, nor did it have the capability to produce WMDs, according to the Iraq Survey Report released yesterday.

The report was sanctioned by the CIA and was presented to the Senate by the author, Charles A. Duelfer.

According to the report, Iraq had "essentially destroyed" its nuclear and WMD program in 1991, after the Gulf War. However, President Bush assured the United Nations, allies and the American public that Iraq definitely had WMDs and had to be stopped.

When U.N. investigators could not find evidence of WMDs, the Bush administration decided to go ahead and invade Iraq. The threat of Saddam Hussein's WMD stockpile was the Bush administration's justification to go to war.

Now, that justification has been proven false. Over 1,000 American lives and countless Iraqi lives have been lost for a war that was waged on false grounds. President Bush has been covering his tracks by repeatedly saying "the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein." True, Hussein was a tyrant who tortured his own people. But if that was the reason to go to war in Iraq, Bush should have said that in the first place.

Instead, the Bush administration misled the American public with promises of Iraqi WMDs. Perhaps the administration itself was misled; that is irrelevant. Facts should have been checked and made absolutely certain. Wars must be launched on complete confidence, not entered lightly on a hunch.

Senior administration officials have conceded that Hussein had no link with al-Qaeda, and that the U.S. did not send enough soldiers to successfully occupy Iraq. Today's revelation will further fuel the conspiracy theories and strengthen the resolve of those already against Bush.

Americans should be asking important questions - did the government know Hussein did not have WMD capabilities? The Iraq Survey Report said that any weapons program Iraq ever had was directed towards attacking Iran. If the U.S. is to be protecting itself from prospective enemies, was Iraq even a suitable choice? Should attentions instead have been focused on North Korea?

Saddam Hussein was an oppressive dictator, but that did not mean the United States needed to oust him. If it is America's job to rid the world of tyranny, then why is Saparmurat Niyazov still in control of Turkmenistan? Why is the Sudanese government been able to conduct a campaign of genocide against black Africans?

This report is an embarrassing slap on the face for the Bush administration and should rightfully upset Americans. The entire reason our country entered an extremely controversial war has been proven invalid by the CIA. The actions of the Bush administration in the months immediately preceding the Iraq war should be investigated and scrutinized. Americans deserve to know if our own government lied to enter an unnecessary war.

2004-10-07T01:05:00.000+08:00

tatang dan
on growing old with grace

the last time i had a good time with tatang dan, he was riding his harley full throttle as it caromed through the mountain passes of the cordilleras.

together with my female trek buddy from cebu, we were on the back of a 4x4 pinatubo series ford ranger, chronicling the 2,000 kilometer north philippines exploration challenge.

"balakusa anggang baguio kayu mu keng bike? [ i thought you'll be on the bike up to baguio only?]" i asked tatang dan as the caravan of more than 200 vehicles made camp for the night at john hay.

"agyu ku pa pala. das ke hanggang mayari, [ i can still handle it. i'll finish the journey]," he replied with a laugh.

tatang dan is in his early sixties and belongs to angeles city's ilustrado class - owners of huge tracts of lands who were the backbone of the settling and founding of the city in the 19th century much like the pioneer settlers of the american wild west.

i got acquainted with him in the mid-nineties, during poetry reading sessions friday nights at the culture shack bar along the red light fields avenue district, in angeles city.

the bar, which he built and later sold in favor of other business ventures, was the sole watering hole then for many young collegiate and professional urban intellectuals, artists and musicians.

one kapampangan restaurant venture he remains proud of until today is trellis, located near the university of the philippines-diliman campus.

"peburen ku no reng anak talnan de bang naman baintau ku bili [ i've let my kids manage it today, allowing me to live a bachelor lifestyle]," he once said in jest.

i bumped into him tonight in a 24-hour internet cafe in the city amid the quiet clickety-clack of keyboards.

he asked how i was doing and i told him of my own lifestyle and culture zine which i am already in the process of doing.

"ala ne yi kong elmer eh. kelangan punan ya itang vacuum na nitang k magazine na [ kong elmer is no longer around and i felt like it was tiem to fill the vacuum which his k magazine has left behind," i said.

"yi tatang alex, ma-appoint ya mu naman yatang political attache san francisco. etana mamrublema visa kanyan [ kong alex is also getting his appointment as government political attache in san francisco. we won't have any problem getting our visa anymore ]," i said with a laugh.

we exchanged cellphone numbers and left him to his business meeting with an american national.

our brief crossing of paths again tonight was short and brief. but it left in its wake a pleasant aftertaste, like good wine that grew old with grace.

2004-10-06T23:18:00.000+08:00

The Great Fiscal Crisis debate
A new debate is now raging over the causes and extent of the fiscal crisis gripping the Philippines

As you now well know, eleven professors from the University of the Philippines School of Economics released the report, “The Deepening Crisis: The Real Score on Deficits and the Public Debt”, which drew attention to the declining state of the economy in the wake of the growing public sector deficit and rising debt.

The public debate that ensued touched on critical questions: Is the crisis real? Is it looming or is the country already in the middle of it? And if so, what caused the crisis and how can we get ourselves out of it?

The UP paper attributed the crisis to falling government revenue including tax collection and huge losses incurred by government owned and controlled corporations (GOCC). A number of proposals from government, under the advice of the newly created Economic Managers Group, have been put on the table. These include earning revenues through improved tax laws, belt tightening measures and “slicing the pork” from legislators’ budgets.

In response, Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South and Lidy Nacpil, and Ana Maria Nemenzo of the Freedom from Debt Coalition published their critique to the much talked about UPSE report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer .

The article called the UP report overdue, selective and not daring enough.

“This report should have come out before the election campaign,” argue the authors, “Then it could probably have acted as a brake on the administration spending its way to victory in the May 10 elections—a fact underlined by the sharp P7.8 billion rise in government expenditure in April compared to the figure for April 2003.”

Bello et al assert that the UPSE report is biased and selective: “It fails to point out that the unilateral liberalization program initiated by Ramos’ technocrats made it more difficult for succeeding administrations to balance the budget. Why is such a major cause of significantly reduced revenue completely ignored by the UPSE report? Can it be that the reason lies in the ideological bias of some of the authors, who were uncritical supporters of the program of unilateral trade liberalization?”

Finally the critique also pointed out a lack of courage in addressing the issue of public debt: “The truth of the matter is that the main item that has busted and will always bust any attempt at fiscal alleviation, much less balance, is the never ending and rising payments to foreign creditors.”

The September 19, 2004 issue of the Inquirer featured a response to the critique of Walden Bello, Lidy Nacpil, and Ana Maria Nemenzo on the UPSE report.

The response, entitled “The Bello, et al critique: Biased and Economically Unsound”, was penned by six Phd students of the UP School of Economics.

Their critique questioned the assertion made by Bello et al that the unilateral tariff reduction program is partly to blame for the decline in government revenues.

Continuing the debate, Bello, Nacpil, and Nemenzo came out with their own response. Entitled “Contra Factum non esse disputandum : Reply to the UP School of Economics on the Fiscal Crisis”, it was again published in the Inquirer .

The debate has not been limited to these exchanges. The UP 11 paper (as the report has been called) has triggered a number of public forums and discussions organized by various groups from political parties to trade unions and reinvigorated the debate not just on the fiscal crisis but on a whole range of economic policies particularly on trade and debt.

2004-10-06T22:30:00.000+08:00

Bleed, Napocor, Bleed
by Maited Diokno-Pascual
Chairperson, Board of Directors
Institute for Popular Democracy

Since the time of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant all the way to the present, the bleeding of the National Power Corporation has been intimately linked to the government’s fiscal and debt woes. From 1981 to 1986, Napocor accounted for nearly half (46%) of the deficits of government-owned non-financial corporations. At the end of 1982, slightly over a fifth of the country’s medium- and long-term external debt was owed by Napocor.

The company’s record since 1998 is instructive: losses that have climbed from P4 billion in 1998, to P13 billion in 2000, to P34 billion in 2002. And while the government has yet to publicly release Napocor’s financial statement for 2003, it is said that its losses breached P100 billion in 2003.By end-2003, according to the Freedom from Debt Coalition, Napocor’s liabilities stood at P1.4 trillion, and were equivalent to over 40 percent of the National Government debt of P3.3 trillion as of the same date.

When in the 1980s the National Power Corporation incurred a $1.2 billion debt to pay for an overpriced power plant, we should already have learned our lessons.

The Marcos crony who brokered that deal has gotten away, himself and his loot stashed safely away in Europe. The Marcos widow and heirs are back from exile, back in politics, and were even seen exchanging “besos” with the President last July.

The US multinational that built the plant (which has yet to produce a single watt of electricity) has been paid twice over. And the US banks whose loans made the fraud possible have recouped their funds, with interest.

We the people are not as fortunate with this debt of dishonor. For one it refuses to go away and to this very day we are still paying for it. President Aquino tried but failed to go after the culprits through the US courts. Following her lost legal battle, her word of honor—surrender?—ensured the security of the country’s creditors.

And what a price we’ve had to pay for their security: a debt crisis in the 1980s, more than one economic recession thereafter, succeeded by a power crisis so disrupting that blackouts were the norm rather than the exception, followed by a shortlived boom that erupted with the Asian financial crisis. And now, a fiscal crisis that threatens a fragile stability.

Throughout all this, the bleeding of Napocor continued unabated. The bleeding has fed and has been fed by cronyism and the debt crisis. It has morphed into lopsided and overpriced Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with independent power producers (IPPs). Its old traditional self is returning with all the drama of a multi-billion peso deal, the full details of which have yet to be disclosed to us, but which already promises to (again!) favor an elite family group at our expense.

If the Marcos era was illustrated by an overpriced power plant supplied by an American multinational brokered by a crony, the Ramos era saw a mushrooming of deals that involved more multinationals and billions more of dollars.• New power giants such as Enron, Mirant, Covanta, California Energy, took the place of Westinghouse. As in the Bataan case, income and profits were guaranteed whether or not they produced electricity.

Between 2000 and 2002, Napocor was paying its IPPs capacity fees amounting to an average of P28 billion each year. Of this figure, Napocor recognized just P17 billion (on the average) as expenditures in its annual income statement. Consequently, Napocor’s annual losses were in fact understated. And like the National Government, Napocor had to borrow more than its yearly deficit.

President Ramos misled us when he promised we would not shell out a single centavo for the PPA contracts with the IPPs. He knew—we did not—that the contracts contained clauses that guaranteed the profits of these IPPs. He knew—we did not—that the normal business risks of a peso devaluation and of a fuel price hike were to be absorbed by the Napocor. He must have known—we certainly did not—that the contract price for a good number of these PPAs was higher than Napocor’s own costs for a comparable generating asset.

The PPAs with IPPs have created a new monster that walks like the debt, talks like the debt and moves like the debt: contingent liabilities of Napocor which were 1.6 times Napocor’s debts as of end-2002.

But worse is yet to come.

This year, Napocor’s losses promise to outdo last year’s reported losses of P100 billion.

How and why did this happen? The answer lies in decisions of President Arroyo herself. The first decision explains to a large extent how Napocor’s losses went from P13 billion in 2000 to P10 billion in 2001 to P34 billion in 2002.

In May 2002, in response to the public outcry over the PPA charges in our electric bills, the President imposed a cap on what Napocor could recover from us for the contracts it had entered into with the independent power producers (IPPs). In short, she reduced Napocor's PPA charge from P1.25 per kilowatthour down to 40 centavos per kWh.

Thus she reduced Napocor's revenues by 85 centavos per kWh.

Anyone in business will know that when one’s revenues fall by 85 centavos per kWh, one ought to find a way to reduce costs by at least as much, to avert a disastrous bottom line. The opportunity to do so was via the renegotiation of Napocor's contracts with the IPPs, following the review of these contracts by an Inter-Agency Committee headed by then Finance Secretary Jose Camacho.

Unfortunately, all the Arroyo government was able to renegotiate was a marginal savings of 9 centavos per kWh. Take note that these 9 centavos per kWh are in terms of present value, so the improvement, small as it were, on Napocor's profit picture would not even be immediately felt. And if an independent assessment were made of each of these renegotiated contracts (I have seen one such renegotiation), no doubt the savings claim of 9 centavos per kWh could be legitimately questioned.

The set of decisions taken by the President’s men during the renegotiation of the IPP contracts is the second decision that led to the ballooning losses beginning in 2002. By the end of 2003, the Arroyo government, through the PSALM (Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation) had announced that it had renegotiated all it could with the IPPs and that was that. It patted itself on the back for saving consumers a mere 9 centavos.

So, against a loss in revenue of 85 centavos per kWh, all the Arroyo government could muster was a cost savings of 9 centavos per kWh. That should have been enough to make the economic cluster of the Arroyo Cabinet very nervous.

But the bloody tale doesn’t end here. We must remember one thing: the 85 centavo figure is not static. When the peso depreciates against the dollar, when the cost of imported coal, fuel oil, etc., goes up, when Napocor's credit rating falls or world interest rates go up, then that 85 centavo figure also correspondingly expands. And that's another reason why the Arroyo government should have targeted a cost reduction of more than 85 centavos per kWh when it sat at the table with the IPPs to renegotiate the PPAs.

So a cap on the PPA recovery of Napocor, plus bungled and ineffective renegotiations with IPPs—both actions of which only President Arroyo has herself to blame—are resulting in lower revenues for Napocor and rising costs.

That explains the ballooning of the losses of NPC from P4 billion in 1998 to P34 billion in 2002.

A third, even more damning decision of the President will further sink Napocor's losses to new depths this year. In 2003, in exchange for a P20 billion “settlement” that will be collected from us consumers again, the Arroyo government allowed Meralco to renege on its contract to buy electricity from Napocor.

Think of it this way: Napocor's main markets are distribution utilities, and the biggest utility with the biggest market is Meralco. Meralco’s franchise is equivalent to about 70% of the national market for electricity. With the go signal from the President, Napocor lost its biggest client, on whom it was relying for a significant chunk of its earnings.•

Meralco had a contract to purchase electricity from Napocor. But since the time of Secretary Mario Tiaoqui, ERAP’s Energy Secretary, Meralco had been trying to get out of this contract. It finally succeeded with President Arroyo.

In an interview with BusinessWorld (2 December 2002), Vincent Perez, President Arroyo’s Energy Secretary, explains why Meralco wanted out of its contract with Napocor.

“…Napocor has a 10-year power sale agreement for 3,600 megawatts since 1994. Meralco management subsequently overcontracted power from its own IPPs – 440MW from Quezon Power, 1,500MW from Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo. That combined contracted level of 5,540MW is a lot higher than the current Meralco requirement of 4,500MW.”

Secretary Perez further explains:

“The position of PSALM is that this is a contract that is valid and that Meralco should respect this contract. The contract provides that Meralco can reduce its offtake from Napocor in any economic slowdown, which indeed there is, but provided that it does not reduce its offtake from Napocor and give it to its IPPs.”

Yet this appears to be precisely the outcome of the deal with President Arroyo.

What exactly the deal entails is something the public has not been told. But we must demand to know all the details, as well as the role of the President and her Energy Secretary in brokering this deal. Especially since the latter, together with the professors of the UP School of Economics, wants Napocor's rates to increase to stop the bleeding.

The pattern continues. Deals are made without our knowledge and consent, but we foot the bill. For as long as this pattern continues, the bleeding will not stop.

Any serious attempt to address the National Government’s fiscal problems must seriously put an end to the bleeding of Napocor. A price increase at best neutralizes part of the effect of the hemorrhage, but it fails to attack the cause of the disease.

A price increase creates the illusion that the problem is solved. But we all know, starting with the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, that it is unjust to solve a problem by socializing the burden of privatized gains. Moreover, economists and technocrats, the keepers of the neoliberal flame, would like us to believe that having raised power rates and privatized Napocor, the bleeding is stopped. It doesn’t take a PhD to know that this isn’t true.

Nor will the privatization of Napocor end the culture of rent seeking, influence peddling and of passing the buck to the government at our expense. It will just make available Napocor’s assets at bargain basement prices to those very actors who have profited from this culture. Upon its privatization Napocor may disappear from the government scene, but its culture will thrive and will re-emerge in another entity in no time at all.

That is because those responsible for its bleeding have been rewarded over and over again, while we are told to brace ourselves and bear the burden of painful power rate hikes in the months to come.

We didn’t learn our lesson from the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant 20 years ago. We should start waking up now.

2004-10-06T22:23:00.000+08:00

Statesmanship and the debt issue
[ freedom from debt coalition ]

This year, debt service amounts to PhP 542.2 billion. In 2005, debt service amounts to PhP 645.8 billion pesos [PhP 344.1 billion pesos for maturing principal and PhP 301.7 billion for interest payments].

In flesh and blood terms, this means the Filipino people will be paying PhP 1.48 billion a day, PhP 62 million an hour, or PhP 1.03 million a minute for this year. Next year, the figures will be PhP 1.76 billion a day, PhP 73.7 million an hour, or PhP 1.2 billion a minute.

Such is the gravity and enormity of the debt problem, which is central to the country’s current fiscal quagmire. The problem can no longer be glossed. Semantics nor fancy statistics or computations as recommended by the International Monetary Fund could no longer hide the problem.

Its resolution lies not in concealing the particulars of the issue, but in revealing them. Thus, an important and decisive first step is to conduct a legislative inquiry on the public sector debt and contingent liabilities of the national government as well as the government owned and controlled corporations.

Integral to this is a thorough and systematic review of the laws, regulations and policies, which governed the country’s debt management strategy since the 1980s. Part and parcel of this process is for our people – farmers, fisherfolk, workers, indigenous peoples, women and children - to tell their own stories about how debt-financed government and private projects and businesses affected their communities and the natural environment in their areas.

The resolution of the debt problem demands the energies and efforts of the entire Filipino people. In the legislature, its resolution transcends party lines and current political agendas.

In the Lower House, Joint Resolution no. 2 – creating the Congressional Commission on Debt – was passed on second reading last week.

The ball, so to speak, is now in the Senate’s court. Should a similar resolution be approved and passed, the first step toward resolving the debt problem can begin. A historic opportunity stares us in the face – a chance to break the chains from an odious legacy of the past.

2004-10-06T19:00:00.000+08:00

Welcome to the Machine
Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control
Edition: Paperback
Format: bibliography, index
Pages: 5.375 x 8.375, 304 pages
ISBN: 1-931498-52-0
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Release Date: 2004-08-09

[An Excerpt]

The All-Seeing Eye
The eye you see isn’t an eye because you see it; it’s an eye because it sees you.
Antonio Machado

When I was a child, I was taught—as a fundamentalist Christian—that while the devil could not read my mind, he watched everything I did, scanning for the slightest shift of my body or expression that would reveal my thoughts. He did this, I was told, because he wanted to know me. And he wanted to know me not because he loved me—as God did, who watched me also and who knew in addition what went on in my head and in my heart—but because he wanted to tempt and even control me.

My response as a child was to attempt to control myself, to let neither my face nor body, nor especially my actions, reveal my thoughts. I’d fool him! But I knew even at age five that this was a waste of time. I knew—though of course I could not have used this language—that if the devil, or for that matter anyone, could assemble a large enough body of data about my external habits, he could in time effectively read my mind. I knew also that the capacity to read my mind, whether by God, man, or devil, would lead necessarily to the capacity to control me: surveillance controls, and absolute surveillance controls absolutely.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that by attempting to control myself I was effectively surrendering my freedom. I was allowing my fear—of the devil, and in retrospect even more so of God—to determine my actions, my expressions, my thoughts, and most damning of all, what I did not think.

I no longer believe in a devil, nor in a God, at least not the sort about which I was taught as a child. I do, however, carry with me the lessons I learned about the relationship between information held by a distant authority and control by that authority. This relationship has always been understood by those in power. It is a relationship we all need to remember.

By now, most of us can see the central movement of our culture: for the last several thousand years it has relentlessly expanded its region of control from its original base in ancient Mesopotamia—the “cradle of civilization”—through the Middle East and Levant, around the Mediterranean, into Europe, then Africa, the Americas, Asia, Oceania. In exerting this control, the culture has deforested more than 90 percent of the world, depleted more than 90 percent of the world’s fisheries, similarly destroyed the great flocks of birds, the great herds of ungulates. It has destroyed, subsumed, or forcibly assimilated nearly all the cultures in its path, until most of these other ways of perceiving and being in the world have been forgotten. This much is clear. These are simply facts. They are beyond dispute.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that this movement toward the attempt at absolute control extends only into the external world. It extends as surely into our inner worlds, into what we think and who we are, with the attempted control as complete, the devastation as severe, as that in the outer world.

Pretend you’re sitting in a room, surrounded by cops. Or perhaps you’re surrounded by representatives of a major corporation. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference.

They ask you questions, show you pictures, read you slogans. You do not want to respond. You do not trust them, these cops, these representatives of a corporation. You do not want to give them information.

But you do. Not by speaking. Not by a barely perceptible tightening of your clasped hands, nor by a shifting of your shoulders. You do not betray yourself by a flash of recognition, nor even by the slightest movement of your eyes nor a moistening of your skin with sweat. Instead you are betrayed by the activities inside your brain itself. They have a machine that can read these activities. And there’s nothing you can do about it. They know this. They get the information they want.

Or you walk into a store. The representative of a major corporation—or maybe it’s a cop, sometimes you can’t tell the difference— glances at a console, then greets you by name. You do not know this representative, this cop. You have never seen him before in your life. But he knows you. He knows where you bought your shirt, and how much it cost. He knows the same about your pants, socks, shoes, backpack, car. He may know your credit history, your medical conditions, your arrest (or non-arrest) record.

It’s not you. He’s not reading your brain, as did the cops—or maybe they were representatives of a major corporation. He’s reading your clothes. He’s reading every mass-produced item in your possession. He’s reading your cash. The items contain computer chips, you see. Or rather, they hold chips you don’t see. The chips are smaller than a grain of sand. And cheap, five cents a piece, soon down to a penny. These chips continuously broadcast information about you to whoever has the proper receiver. Agents of major corporations—or of the state, whichever they happen to be—know how much you paid for your sweater, know where you are, and know where you’ve been.

You begin to notice cameras everywhere you go. At first they were only in obvious places, like casinos and 7-11s. But then you start seeing them elsewhere, in intersections, ATMs, hotel hallways, schools. You notice them at airports, and even at the Super Bowl. No matter where you are, someone is able to watch you, record your movements. Sometimes these watchers—cops, or maybe salesmen from major corporations—use computers to scan your face and compare these scans to other faces in their databases, maybe deadbeats, maybe criminals, maybe terrorists,maybe people whose politics they don’t like, maybe people who do or don’t buy their products.

Or maybe you’re crazy. Paranoid. You’ve been hearing voices lately. You can’t always tell which thoughts are yours, and which belong to someone else. You’re not even sure any longer who you are. Who are you? Do you think your thoughts, or are they someone else’s?

You’ve read that scientists at Yale have been doing studies in which they use magnetic resonance imaging machines (MRIs) that provide pictures of what physically goes on inside the brain, to detect people’s responses to pictures. (They found, no big surprise here, that many white people who claim not to be racist, and who in fact may not be particularly racist on a conscious level, feel fear when shown pictures of unfamiliar black men.) And you know MRIs are already used by market research companies to “gauge consumers’ unconscious preferences by looking at the pattern of brain activity as they respond to products or messages.” And if you know that market researchers are using MRIs, then you probably can’t even imagine the uses the cops, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have dreamed up. One clue: researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that some parts of your brain “light up” (to use their words) when you are presented with a face you’ve seen before. Another clue: scientists at Stanford are beginning to map the electrical and magnetic brain waves associated with thinking specific words and sentences. You think this, your brain does that. Already, the scientists say, “Recognition rates, based on a least-squares criterion, varied, but the best were above 90 percent.”

You have the right to remain silent. It just won’t do you any good.

You know, too, about the computer chips. They’re everywhere. Not yet. But soon. Katherine Albrecht wrote recently in the Denver University Law Review, “A new consumer goods tracking system called Auto-ID [now called RFID, for Radio Frequency Identification tags] is poised to enter all of our lives, with profound implications for consumer privacy. Auto-ID couples radio frequency (RF) identification technology with highly miniaturized computers that enable products to be identified and tracked at any point along the supply chain. The system could be applied to almost any physical item, from ballpoint pens to toothpaste, which would carry their own unique information in the form of an embedded chip. The chip sends out an identification signal allowing it to communicate with reader devices and other products embedded with similar chips. Analysts envision a time when the system will be used to identify and track every item produced on the planet. Auto-ID employs a numbering scheme called ePC (for ‘electronic product code’) which can provide a unique ID for any physical object in the world. . . . For example, each pack of cigarettes, individual can of soda, light bulb or package of razor blades produced would be uniquely identifiable through its own ePC number. Once assigned, this number is transmitted by a radio frequency ID tag (RFID) in or on the product. These tiny tags, predicted by some to cost less than 1 cent each by 2004, are ‘somewhere between the size of a grain of sand and a speck of dust.’ They are to be built directly into food, clothes, drugs, or auto-parts during the manufacturing process. Receiver or reader devices are used to pick up the signal transmitted by the RFID tag. Proponents envision a pervasive global network of millions of receivers along the entire supply chain—in airports, seaports, highways, distribution centers, warehouses, retail stores, and in the home. This would allow for seamless, continuous identification and tracking of physical items as they move from one place to another, enabling companies to determine the whereabouts of all their products at all times. Steven Van Fleet, an executive at International Paper, looks forward to the prospect. ‘We’ll put a radio frequency ID tag on everything that moves in the North American supply chain,’ he enthused recently. The ultimate goal is for Auto-ID to create a ‘physically linked world’ in which every item on the planet is numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked. And the technology exists to make this a reality. Described as ‘a political rather than a technological problem,’ creating a global system ‘would . . . involve negotiation between, and consensus among, different countries.’ Supporters are aiming for worldwide acceptance of the technologies needed to build the infrastructure within the next few years.”

The Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has funding and/or participation from global corporations and universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and Switzerland. Sponsors include Pepsi, Gillette, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, and (who would have guessed?) the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2001 this gang wired the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma with RFID to see if they could track objects tagged with Auto-ID. Gillette, Wal-Mart, and Tesco are installing shelves that can read RFID radio waves embedded in shavers and related products. The European Central Bank is planning to imbed Euro banknotes with RFID tags by 2005. Hitachi Europe has already developed a smart tag chip small enough, at .3 mm square and thin as a human hair, to fit inside a banknote. Mass production of these chips will start within a year.

And the cameras. You’ve seen them with your own eyes. You know. You know.

But maybe you don’t. There are still the voices, telling you that you’re crazy, saying you’re paranoid, saying it’s no big deal, saying those in power have more important things to do than to watch you (more important things like tracking the movements of every roll of toilet paper, every dollar bill, every person: NO! Don’t think like that! That’s not right!). The voices tell you that those in power have your best interests at heart. The chips are to reduce theft, the cameras to increase security, and the MRIs, well, if you have nothing to hide, what are you afraid of?

Another article, written not so long ago, began with the unforgettable first line: “Those voices in your head may be real.” It went on to say that scientists have been able to develop the capacity to project a beam of sound so focused that only one person can hear it. It can be transmitted from hundreds of yards away. The military is of course extremely interested in this technology. Microwaves can also be used to transmit sound. Pulses can be beamed into your head, such that you might think that you’re hearing them, or even thinking them. These pulses could be shaped into words, into thoughts.

But that’s all crazy, the voices tell you. None of that could happen. None of that could happen to you.

Just today I learned that schoolchildren in Akron, Ohio are being fingerprinted so they can be identified when they go through school lunch lines. This seems pretty absurd to me. Lunchroom monitors “back in the day” had little trouble keeping track of who was little Derrick and who was little George, with no need for fingerprints or photo IDs. The monitors knew who we were and often had relationships with us: imagine that! And even if groups of children from other schools (or, the horror, homeschooled children!) had snuck into lunchrooms so they could steal taxpayer-subsidized mystery meat, I can’t see how it would have been cost effective (or relationship effective) for the government to go all high-tech on their ass.

I suspect, however, that there are other reasons for the fingerprinting. Especially if the students are children of color, it may be useful for the police to keep the prints on file for later use: it saves trouble when figuring out how to send them to prison. But I’m sure there’s another reason, too, that works for all children in our culture, regardless of race: forcing children to endure day after day of sitting in rows bored out of their skulls breaks their wills and destroys their intelligence sufficiently to prepare them to take their proper places in adult society, where they will lead lives of drudgery, obedience, tedium, painful employment, and quiet desperation. As R. D. Laing wrote, “Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high IQ’s if possible.” So too this forced fingerprinting prepares children for adulthood, in this case for lives in which they will submit to more or less constant surveillance.

Say hello to the twenty-first century.

One of the pioneers of modern surveillance was the eighteenth century utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, designer of the Panopticon. The Panopticon is a blueprint for a prison designed as a cylinder, with cells radiating from the central guard station. There are no nooks or crannies where prisoners can hide. The cells are always lit, while the guard station is dark. Because prisoners can never tell whether or when they are being watched, they have no choice but to presume that at every moment they are under surveillance.

Here is what, with the Panopticon, Bentham proposed to accomplish: “Morals reformed—health preserved—industry invigorated instruction diffused—public burthens lightened—Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock—the gordian knot of the Poor-Laws are not cut, but untied—all by a simple idea in Architecture!” Perhaps more to the point, whoever ran the Panopticon would gain a “new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”

Bentham was ambitious. This power was to be used widely, for “punishing the incorrigible, guarding the insane, reforming the vicious, confining the suspected, employing the idle, maintaining the helpless, curing the sick, instructing the willing in any branch of industry, or training the rising race in the path of education: in a word, whether it be applied to the purposes of perpetual prisons in the room of death, or prisons for confinement before trial, or penitentiary-houses, or houses of correction, or work-houses, or manufactories, or mad-houses, or hospitals, or schools.”

Here’s how it works: “It is obvious that, in all these instances, the more constantly the persons to be inspected are under the eyes of the persons who should inspect them, the more perfectly will the purpose X of the establishment have been attained. Ideal perfection, if that were the object, would require that each person should actually be in that predicament, during every instant of time. This being impossible, the next thing to be wished for is, that, at every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself to the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so.”

The Panopticon serves as the model for modern supermaximum security prisons such as Pelican Bay in Crescent City, California. But Bentham’s ideas have been even more influential than that.

Indeed, as Michel Foucault wrote in the 1970s, the Panopticon has become a model for the entire culture. The Panopticon has become not only a “simple idea in Architecture,” but also a metaphor for the power relations that undergird modern civilization: “Hence,” Foucault wrote, “the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent ivisibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen.”

That is bad enough, but Foucault continues, “It is an important mechanism, for it automizes and disindividualizes power. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up. . . . There is a machinery that assures dissymmetry, disequilibrium, difference. Consequently, it does not matter who exercises power.”

When I was very young, I sometimes heard the phrase, “money is the root of all evil.” When old enough to look it up myself, I found that the quote was inaccurate. Paul (or at least the authors of the King James Bible) had actually said that the love of money was the problem, and I grew quite fond of correcting my elders on this score. Now as an adult I’ve come full circle and see that my childhood understanding was closer to the point. The only word I quibble with is all, as I think we need to leave room for the evil caused by patriarchy, industrialism, nation-states, military technologies, vivisection, Christianity and other institutional religion (including the apostle Paul himself), numbness, and the designated hitter rule.

Money. I remember how when I was a kid the backs of dollar bills used to creep me out. To the left of where it says “In God We Trust” (how weird, I thought, to have that phrase on something that is the root of all evil?), there was the obverse of the Great Seal of the United States, with its truncated pyramid and its all-seeing eye. Combine my understanding that money is the root of all evil with my belief that the devil could see my every move, and you might get a sense of why I never put an upside-down dollar bill on my nightstand before I went to sleep.

I’ve since learned that the eye on the back of the dollar bill does not belong to the devil, but, essentially as scary, to God, or in the secular language of the U.S. State Department, to providence. It is there because, as the Latin phrase ANNUIT COEPTIS written over the eye in this Great Seal means, “the eye of providence has favored our undertakings.” George Washington, whose face, of course, appears on the front of the bill, put it well (if a tad awkwardly) in his inaugural address: “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”

Certainly the Revolutionary War came at a providential moment for Washington, one of the richest men in the new United States. His fortune—and of course we can say the same for essentially all fortunes, but this was especially true in his case—was founded on land illegally taken from Indians. In fact, his fortune was so fraudulent that the (British) governor of Virginia declared Washington’s title to these lands null and void. “Providentially” the Revolutionary War broke out the same month as this declaration, saving Washington’s fortune.

I’m not sure whether the Indians, whose lands were being stolen by Washington and many others, would be so quick to ascribe the loss of their lands and their way of life—what is these days called genocide—so much to the Invisible Hand of providence as it was to an entire culture of rapacious people hellbent on taking everything that could be turned into money and destroying everything they did not understand.

Annuit Coeptus. “The eye of providence has favored our undertakings.”

You and I both know who determines what actions are deemed “providential,” that is, ordained by the all-seeing eye of God, and what actions are deemed improvidential, that is, subject to the all-seeing eye of the guard at the center of the Panopticon.

Similarly, when those in power put on the back of the dollar bill “In God We Trust,” we can have a pretty good idea who this we is, and what we can trust this God—as mediated by those in power—to do.

The controller of the Panopticon thus becomes god, or rather God. Omniscient God. Invisible God. God with oversight both omnipossible and unverifiable. God unapproachable and unknowable. God mediated and represented by those in power. God so internalized that we would never even conceive of going against His word. Or is it the word of those in power? Power is God. Control is the way to God. Those in control are God.

Perhaps the fear of God was once enough to keep people in line, but for better or worse we live now in what we perceive to be a more secular society. And what happens if those of us in our cells begin to disbelieve that there is someone at the center of the Panopticon, that we are no longer watched? What will we do? How will we act? How will we act if we no longer believe in original sin, no longer believe we deserve to be in these cells, under the watchful eye of those in power? What if we no longer believe we need their supervision? What will we do then?

And what will those in power do? How will they shift, and whom will they bring in to replace the Old Man who may no longer be there?

Or perhaps that’s the wrong way to look at it. Perhaps the Old God at the center of the Panopticon never left at all but merely changed form. Perhaps we are seen now as clearly as we ever have been. Perhaps the cells are even smaller, the lights brighter, the space outside our cells ever darker.

2004-10-06T18:43:00.000+08:00

word of the day
[ from wordspy ]

acoustic privacy (uh.KOO.stik PRY.vuh.see) noun. A state or condition in which external sounds are reduced or eliminated.

2004-10-05T21:33:00.000+08:00

Whither Brand America?
[ adbusters ]

What do you think when you hear the word “America”? The Statue of Liberty, or despicable images of torture? The core cultural values of the US brand – optimism and democracy – are eroding with the reverberating damage of the prison pictures. Commentators are saying it will take “50 years” to rebuild goodwill, but Brand America was already in trouble.

“Hostility towards America has reached shocking levels,” a panel appointed by George Bush said in September last year. Opinion polls from the Pew Research Center this March confirmed that US image was poor in both Western and Muslim countries.

Who’s going to save it? Not the Bush administration that, according to former State Department official Cari Eggspuehler, is “not a credible messenger . . . the rest of the world sees its [words] as propaganda.” Communication skills are, she snorts, “lost on the federal government.” That may explain the recent resignation of Margaret Tutwiler, who was in charge of overhauling public diplomacy efforts at State, following two other resignations in the same area last year. Her job will not be filled until well into 2005, demonstrating how much Team Bush cares about the US image.

Enter the private sector and the “Task Force to Mobilize American Business for Public Diplomacy,” for which Eggspuehler is now executive director. (They ditched government involvement after a power struggle between State and the White House over direction.) The project, she says, is about “reducing anti-US sentiment.” Asking foreign nationals for their views on the US – at State you never got to do that, she said – gave them four areas to think about. There was foreign policy, the negative impact of globalization, the pervasiveness of US culture, and “our collective personality . . . we are seen as arrogant and not listening.” One region described Americans as being “very amoral and too materialistic.” Yes, it was the Middle East.

To counter these problems – “the root causes . . . not PR spin, that’s not going to change what people see on TV” – Eggspuehler wants to see Americans being “sensitized,” increased newspaper readership, and a public and media that “pay attention” to the issues. It’s like hearing Oprah explain Media Carta. At some point down the line Eggspuehler’s task force wants to organize a day for CEOs to answer concerns and complaints broadcast from around the world. The event’s working title? “The Day America Listens.”

But check that title again and what it means: business = America. As President Calvin Coolidge famously said, “the business of America is business.” These companies are worried that the continuing hatred of the US abroad will affect their bottom line.

And they recognize that US outreach, and explanation of its values, helps protect national security. But their focus is still on the future, and the damage is being done now. A global survey by NOP World in early 2004 found that 10 percent fewer consumers used US brands compared with a year earlier. Non-American brand use remained stable. Only 31 percent of German consumers thought honesty was an American cultural attribute and in Saudi Arabia, the figure is just 23 percent.

America is more widely loathed abroad than at any time since the Vietnam war, if not ever, and its ratings are still sinking like a stone. In the words of an Australian advertising executive: “America’s reputation may be so badly soiled that a rebranding exercise may be required. Rebuilding respect and affection for a brand called USA may be too hard. A brand called South Canada, on the other hand, has potential.”

2004-10-05T20:29:00.000+08:00

Ivory towers
World’s wealthiest let down world poorest, again

WASHINGTON -- Debt campaigners attending this week’s annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have expressed disappointment and outrage over the failure of the world’s richest nations to cancel the debt of the world’s poorest nations.

Hopes had been running high last week that finance ministers of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations would agree on a plan that would provide 100 percent debt relief to nearly three dozen of poor countries, most of them in Africa where cash-strapped governments have been overwhelmed by the HIV -AIDS epidemic, drought, and, most recently, skyrocketing oil prices.

But the G-7, which includes the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Japan, could not agree on ways to finance cancellation of the debt, which totals more than US$100 billion, or roughly two thirds of what the U.S. Congress has thus far appropriated for the war in Iraq .

“It is outrageous that the G7 have failed to answer the moral imperative of debt cancellation,” said Marie Clarke, national coordinator of the Jubilee USA Network, a coalition of mainly church-based groups that have been campaigning for debt relief for the past five years.

“It is a real shame that the richest nations were divided over how to cover the minimal cost of impoverished country debt to wealthy creditors like the IMF and the World Bank, especially when the IMF is sitting on a mountain of unused gold.”

The IMF and the Bank, as well as a number of regional multilateral development banks, are owed almost all of the public debt of the world’s poorest nations. [ read more ]

2004-10-05T15:05:00.000+08:00

cinephile redux

The on-going International Film Festival at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City just north of Metro Manila enters its second month with a dozen award-winning foreign films lined up for October.

Anton Prima, project coordinator, said the festival aims to bring to students and faculty of schools in Pampanga the films which they normally would not have access to. "We invite everyone to come, it's free admission," he added.

Showing at the Center for Kapampangan Studies theatre are: La Strada (Oct.2), a 1954 Fellini tragi-comic pathos film on the life among the peasant circus performances and gypsies of postwar Italy; The Fast Runner (Oct. 4), a Zacharias Kunuk epic on Inuits; the 1962 Truffaut Jules and Jim (Oct. 7); Elia Kazan's 1954 classic On the Waterfront* (Oct. 9) which starred Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint; Pedro Almodovar's Latino black comedy Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (Oct. 11); a 1965 Fellini Juliet of the Spirits (Oct. 14), a film on the life of a well-to-do Italian housewife in her 30s and the inner changes she experiences through several events in her life including the infidelity of the husband she loves; Roman Polanski's The Pianist (Oct. 16), a story on a Jewish musician's struggle to stay alive from 1939, when the Nazis first arrived and gradually began to introduce anti-Semitic law, to the final days of German occupation in 1944; Arcand's The Barbarian Invasion (Oct. 19), a diary of a dying man's last days told through the eyes of a number of people who loved him -and despised him- all throughout his lifetime; the 1925 montage editing masterpiece The Battleship Potemkin (Oct. 21), a tribute to the 1905 revolution portraying the uprising in microcosm; the Aussie-made Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Oct. 23), a film which stars LOTR's and The Matrix's Hugo Weaving as a drag queen; Ingmar Bergman's 1982 Oscar-winning Fanny & Alexander (Oct. 25); and the 1989 Baghdad Cafe (Oct. 28), a wonderful film on friendships, crossing boundaries and discovering how much of our life is other people.

2004-10-04T23:36:00.000+08:00

word of the day
[ from wordspy ]

danny boy
noun. A news story or column that contains fabricated data.

2004-10-04T23:19:00.000+08:00

The twilight of newspapers

Newspapers are losing their audience and their advertising to television, but they still set the news agenda and retain their influence on policy makers. [ read from PCIJ.org ]