Islander:
1973 - A new constitution allowing Marcos to stay in office indefinitely and to rule by decree is introduced. The result is confirmed by a fraudulent referendum enabling him to continue as president until the end of martial law and to arbitrarily appoint all government officials, including members of the judiciary. Imelda Marcos is made governor of Manila and minister of human settlements and ecology.
Reply:
This is a given argument. Of course he ruled by decree because there was no congress. He was the Martial Law administrator.
Islander:
***
Political prisoners are routinely tortured by the military. "Disappearances" and murders of suspected political activists are common, with over 500 cases being recorded for the period 1975-80. Meanwhile, inflation and unemployment rise while already low living standards drop.
Reply:
There was not a single case of torture... if there was who was the accuse military personnel. This issue is part of the hate campaign against Marcos. Those who disappeared or presume to be murdered were part of the campaign against the insurgency.
Islander:
Is.: true, true. but:
Martial law initially brings stability and an economic turnaround but with the costs of reduced social freedoms and increasing corruption. Limited land reforms are introduced but prove ineffective. Manufacturing and business enterprises
are nationalized or handed to Marcos's cronies or relatives. Profits are siphoned off for personal enrichment and mismanagement is rife.
Reply:
You are admitting to this fact. This is true also in other countries who were able to sustain authoritarian regimes that in exchange for a fast economic recovery you have to surrender your freedom temporarily.
Islander:
Is.: why add some more when these ‘specialty hospitals’, as you call them, are already there? more so when until now our country is paying for the loans made to finance those structures? isn’t it more commonsensical to just fully utilize what are already existing rather than borrow some more from foreign creditors and deplete the country’s coffers some more, the way the marcoses did to fund their grandiose show windows? by the way, the term “edifice complex†bestowed on
imelda was not for nothing.
Reply:
If they cannot add some more then they should put extensions to some of those hospitals. Some of these hospitals are overcrowded. Patients are already in the corridors especially in the Heart Center.
Islander:
Is.: filipino migration for jobs abroad started in 1906. the number increased greatly in the 1960s. we had a young new president then on whom our country pinned so much hopes. during his tenure of 21 years, the country’s foreign debts ballooned and the economy worsened. this was when filipinos began their job diaspora in droves. the trend hasn’t stopped decades after as the country hasn’t gotten out of the morass of those foreign debts.
Reply:
I agree... there were already Filipino workers went to Hawaii and California as farmers but it was not said that their earnings were to help the economy of the Philippines. The late Blas Ople the minister of labor during the time of Marcos did not open the Middle East for Filipino laborers to help the economy of the Philippines but to give more employment to the Filipinos.
After Marcos because of their campaign of hatred many investments were closed especially the EPZA in Morong, Bataan. Ford Australia who established spare parts manufacturing in the Philippines transferred to Malaysia. Volkwagen cars was closed. Mattel was sabotaged by the labor union and closed shop. Filipino workers who lost their jobs looked for jobs abroad. And for the first time Filipinos were to accept petty jobs as domestic helpers in Bahrain, Kuwait, saudi Arabia, Singapore and Hongkong. Our women because of poverty... and mind you it is happening today as we speak; they accept sleazy jobs as stripteasers and entertainers/cum prostitutes.
And our government hailed them as heroes for sending dollar remittances to the country helping the economy grows.
===================================================
Statements below are issues I brought up for you to comment.
But you comment on the WB conditionalities of borrower country
like the Philippines. Anyway I'll try to answer those issues
fro Robin Broad and John Cavanagh.
==================================================
11. WN: Marcos signed PD's that were favorable for foreign investors which is why there were many export processing zones that were established in our country... Mactan in Cebu, Morong in Bataan and Baguio city.Marcos caused the establishment of Offshore-Banking System in the Philippines thus upgrading the banking system and invite foreign banks to do business in the Philippines under certain incentives and guarantees.
There is no more clamor for his return, he is dead already but there are political sounds echoeing for the return of Marcos parliamentary form of government through charter change.[cha-cha] According to a study in UP the Marcos decrees and edicts that are deemed beneficial to the Filipino people are the OPSF or the law subsidizing the price of oil and the Price Control Law through the Price Stabilization Council which control the price of prime commodity in the market.
===================================================
Islander:
Is.: yes, as dictated by the world bank and the international monetary fund (IMF) as preconditions for loans. thus:“Companies importing capital goods could expect approval of foreign loans only if their production processes were geared to exports, decreed the Central Bank.†(Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, Unequal Alliance, University of California Press, 1987)
Reply:
When your a borrower your option is to agree to the conditions of the lender. Why? If your the owner of a bank are you not going to put conditionalities to whoever is going to borrow
money?
Islander:
and this says it all:
As opportunities for profit in the Third World dwindled, transnational banks and corporations refocused their sights back on the developed world. Four years as the lead international institution in this era of debt crisis management left the IMF almost universally despised across the South—and nearly broke. So, the next heir to the international debt and development management throne was anointed: the World Bank, which (with U.S. government blessing) chose structural adjustment of the Philippine
variety as its cure-all.
***
The model, Philippines, having been opened up to the world
economy in new and expanded ways in the early 1980s through
the structural adjustment process, fared among the worst of
the debtor nations. Internal corruption and cronyism combined
with collapsing export earnings to plunge the country into
deep economic and then political crisis. Only those Filipinos
who managed to salt dollars away abroad through secret and
often illegal capital flight seemed able to avoid the worst of
this all-encompassing crisis.
***
Indeed, in many respects, the one relic of value that a
fleeing Ferdinand Marcos left his successor was a negative
example: a two-decade blueprint for guaranteed economic
disaster. There was much to learn from studying Marcos's
mistakes. For in the failure of Marcos, the World Bank, and
the IMF lay important lessons that might be applied to another
approach to development—one placing people before the market.
(Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, Unequal Alliance, University
of California Press, 1987; emphasis mine)
Reply:
I cannot agree more the opinion of Robin Broad and her husband
than to say that she, her husband and Walden Bello are not
economist in the real sense but they engaged themselves in
economic politics and as critic of the IMF and the WB. Since
she and her husband's opinion are in harmony with Walden Bello
who is a known leftist professor at UP I can say clearly they
are spinning a leftist bias opinion. Her aim is not for
scholastic records but to destabilize and to put down
conservative governments. Which is why if there is any
scholastic study she had for the Philippines I think it is not
acceptable from the point of view of the Makati Business Club.
Her opinion that; "Ferdinand Marcos left his successor was a
negative example: a two-decade blueprint for guaranteed
economic disaster"... is contradictory to her first statement.
She admits that; "the Philippines is WB/IMF model having been
opened up to the world economy in new and expanded ways in the
early 1980s".... but "fared among the worst of the debtor
nations." Where are her proof?
Islander:
Is.: the 1976 sixth amendment to the 1973 constitution
authorized the chief executive to legislate, as follows:
“Whenever in the judgment of the President there exists a
grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof, or whenever
the Interim Batasang Pambansa or the regular National Assembly
fails or is unable to act adequately on any matter for any
reason that in his judgment requires immediate action, he may,
in order to meet the exigency, issue the necessary decrees,
orders or letters of instructions, which shall form part of
the law of the land.â€
i’m curious as to what’s french and british about it. (n.b.:
the british government is not authoritarian.)
Reply:
The Philippine government during Marcos copied the French
model which has a strong president, like Marcos himself who
can legislate. So he is a strong president. While Amendment
no. 6 is similar to the British law that gives Reserve Power
to the monarch of England. In case of instability in the
British parliament the monarch can this Reserve Power. It is
like the declaration of Martial Law in the US. The British
system came from or it originated from an authoritarian
regime.
Islander:
Is. someone who shouts ‘fire’ in a movie house even if
there’s no fire invites the penalty of arresto menor for
public disturbance and, depending on the damage of his act,
risks charges ranging from misdemeanor to felony, which means
no one is free to shout a false alarm.
Reply:
Correct... that person who shouted "fire" committed a crime.
You got the literal interpretation. But when a journalist is
shouting in the newspaper that his government is on fire, and
politicians are thieves without any supporting evidence he is
free in our system. But in Australia, Britain and Singapore he
will go to jail.
Island:
any journalist worth his salt will tell us that he only
reports what is there. journalists are news
reporters/broadcasters/writers, not newsmakers. whether the
record of killed journalists proves that freedom of the press
is exercised in our country or not depends on one’s
perspective. the “killers†kill because they believe they’re
justified to silence journalists forever; journalists believe
they’re exercising responsible reporting (what journalist
would say he isn’t?) in their risky profession in which their
lives may just be sacrificed. that’s perspective.
those unfortunate journalists in the ampatuan massacre were
killed not because they were primarily journalists, i suppose,
but because they were in the line of fire in a deadly
political rivalry where witnesses to the crime were considered
a bane and had to be silenced forever. as a parallel, most of
the women in that massacre were wives. there are no
statistics for wives killed; there are for journalists.
Reply:
Journalists worth his salt in our country are a rare specimen.
I believe they are more corrupt than the politicians because
nobody is watching them. The high record of journalists killed
in our country proved that they are too aggressive to write
opinions that are ofensive to somebody. In our country freedom
of the press is to offend. If a journalist is a hard hitter he
should have all the evidences to support all the issues he
brought up. He is not free to lie.
Islander:
i repeat, there was no freedom of the press during martial
law.
Reply:
Did I not say in my previous opinion that during Martial Law
the press was regulated just like the present system in
Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia. Most of these
countries have a press tribunal that any complain about
irresponsible reporting is investigated.
Islander:
Is.: the ouster of one president who had allegedly plundered
the country’s treasury does not constitute an absence of the
rule of law.
it seems that after marcos, accusations of plunder against
someone sitting in the highest office of the land is enough to
mobilize large crowds for a mass protest.
(mobocracy – mob rule or ochlocracy; a government by mob or a
mass of people)
unlikeable as they may seem, the administration that took over
after erap’s ouster wasn’t the mass of people. the mass of
people went home and went on with their lives.
Reply:
A government of mob is like the Mafia. They know only about
chaos and violence. If you believe in mobocracy then what can
I do.
Island:
Is.: would that our “onion skin†be shed off simply by
emulating the british system and those of other countries that
you’ve mentioned. i can’t imagine us valuing our freedom less
than the americans, though. let’s take both of us; we are
expressing our opinions and are free to do so, as we are doing
it now in tb. will we be killed?
Reply:
Who will kill us when we are not abusing our freedom?
Islander:
today’s monarchies in the countries you’ve mentioned are
ceremonial heads of state. the running of their government is
left to parliament, with the prime minister as head. their
governments remain democracies, not monarchies.
Reply:
Not in England.
Islander:
Is.: there’s no difference, really. our own right of
suffrage is also our duty, as it is in the u.s. (for every
right, we have a concomitant responsibility.) and there’s no
such law, anywhere, that only the king has the right, as you
say. as for the “people’s right to freedom of speech†being
“unabridged by law in the US and the Philippinesâ€, surely, you
must have heard of libel cases. that’s one of the ways our
laws and that of the u.s. “abridge†freedom of speech.
Reply:
That is if you are talking about our right and in the US...it
is a duty in your own interpretation but I am differentiating
suffrage as a duty in Australia and England and suffrage in
the Philippines and the US. In libel it is not abridging the
press because libel is crime again a person's reputation and
honor.
You did not get my point. England with an unwritten
constitution has no "bill of rights" in its originality. The
only person in the constitution who has the right is the king.
All other people are subjects to the king. But today in modern
times parliament legislates the right of the people. In it is
not constitutional but also legislated.
Islander:
Is.: there’s no monarch in australia. as a former colony of
great britain, it is just a member of the commonwealth of
nations (previously named the british commonwealth) whose
members total 54 sovereign states, most of which were former
british colonies or dependencies of those colonies. malaysia
is also a member. so are rwanda and zimbabwe. the latter,
currently with a runaway inflation, has dictator robert
mugabe.
everyone can criticize the monarch in england (the anti-
monarchists are alive and well and vocal), and all laws
anywhere in the civilized world remain unless otherwise
reversed or amended through a legislative process.
Reply:
In my knowledge about Australia in 1970 it was reported on TV
that the monarch of England is the monarch of Australia. In
the 90's again on the news on ABS-CBN it was reported that
Australia was having a referendum to retain the monarch of
England or become a republic. The people voted to retain the
monarch, therefore I believe that the monarch of England is
the monarch of Australia.
The anti monarchy in England can criticize the monarch but not
in the press. I think there is a difference between freedom of
speech and freedom of the press in England.
==============================================================
My opinion which says that; "The late Princess Diana's
criticism of the monarchy when she was alive is a crime of
treason punishable by beheading." This statement is taken out
of context.
==============================================================
Islander:
Is.: a big mass of people cannot be fooled; the filipino
people are no fools, unless you and i would presume that we
can speak for them as we speak for ourselves. yes, you and i
could be fools, but those numbers who went to the streets?
that calls for disbelief.
Reply:
It was easy for the anti Erap to fool the people. The fact
that almost all media outlets in Manila demonized Erap the
more the people were fooled.
Islander:
yes, erap was democratically elected, but when he was
perceived (please note that in politics, perception is
everything) to have abused his powers, the masses spoke.
that’s democracy of the streets, whether we like it or not.
Reply:
Not perceived by the people but perceived by media. The media
will always say that their opinion is the opinion of the
people. It is not true. The people spoke in an election. But
some power hungry politicians perceived that the election is
still 4 years long wait. For Filipino politicians one week is
already a long wait for the next election. That is how greedy
they are.
Islander:
Is.: granting that marcos was responsible for such miracles,
what happens then to the other two factors, the law of supply
and demand and the vagaries of weather? the best of policies
would be useless in this case if there’s no rice to export
because there are more mouths to feed now or that production
is damaged because of some force majeure. by the way,
smuggling exists at all times in any country, martial law or
not, by different smugglers, and will continue to exist for as
long as people give vent to their greed.
currently, the term had also come to mean kleptocratic
governments (i.e. those in positions of power use it to
maximize their own gains) and the legislature is a mere rubber
stamp. in short, a failed state.
Reply:
You granted that Marcos was able to export rice was a miracle.
So the two other factors that were favorable to Marcos were
also miracles. Kleptocracy... to mean that the Marcos regime
depends also in your perspective viewpoint. Cory and her
kamag-anak Inc. are not keptocrats because you believe them
better than Marcos. With only 6 years in power, with so many
disruption of coupd'etats her kamag-anak were able to build
houses in Green Valley and Antipolo, Rizal. Those who were
attached to the Sumulongs who have no business of any kind
before Cory's term in office, became bigtime instant
businessmen during the Cory administration. I should know
because I am living in Antipolo.
Islander:
2007 - In September the Transparency International estimate of
the amount embezzled by Marcos is quoted in a report by the
Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative, a joint venture of the
World Bank and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
According to the report, “The channels whereby the money was
allegedly stolen were diverse, including the takeover of
private companies; creation of monopolies for sugar, coconuts,
shipping, construction, and the media; fraudulent government
loans; bribes from companies; and skimming off foreign loans
and raiding the public treasury. â€
Reply:
Did they prove that Marcos stole the money. He was already
charged of corruption together with Westinghouse Inc. but they
were acquited. Imelda was charged in NY with the RICO case but
was acquited. She was charged in the Philippines of graft but
the SC found her innocent. Everything had been thrown to them
including the kitchen sink. If they are guilty they should be
jailed. And now Bongbong is fast approaching to become another
Marcos in government. Imelda will be singing "Happy Days are
Again".
Islander:
Is.: and marcos was not a usurper? Please note:
1971 - At a constitutional convention opposition delegates
introduce a provision to prevent Marcos from remaining as head
of state or government once his second term as president has
expired. Marcos succeeds in having the ban overturned the
following year.
1972 - Using the excuse of an alleged assassination attempt
against Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Marcos declares
martial law on 21 September, promising to eliminate poverty
and injustice and create a "new society." It is later
revealed that the assassination attempt had been staged by the
military.
Reply:
Marcos was not an usurper because what he did was through the
workings of the law. Martial Law is legal. It's in the
constitution.
The 1971 concon is irrelevant because it was overtaken by the
declaration of Martial Law. Just imagine the whole concon
delegates were convinced by Marcos to sign the new charter
believing that they will become interim members of the new
parliament.
Enrile's alibi that the attempt on his life was staged as a prelude to Martial Law is unbelievable. He said this during
his rebellion against Marcos when he was looking for allies in
Cory and Cardinal Sin, because his life again is in danger. He
branded Imelda a "kaskasera" and he did look into himself who is also a "kaskasero".
WN
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