Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo dreams a “first world Philippines” by 2020. Does she also intend to stay in power for 10 years more?
It is free to dream. But the nation must be wary of GMA’s dream. Her formula is dragging the Philippines to the abyss. Her dreams rest on the anti-“terrorist” Human Security Act (HSA), the centerpiece law that gives the government awesome powers. Around this monstrosity are the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), the various RP-China business contracts and the RP-Australia status of forces agreement (SOFA) and intensified attraction of foreign investments. Add these to all the laws, such as the expanded value added tax (EVAT), Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) law, that were passed in the last 6 years.
The inhuman legislation HSA vests GMA with extra power to employ state structures against perceived “terrorists”. Its main feature, the super body called the “Anti-Terrorism Council”, with its complement of security agencies, is an emasculation of the courts, the system of justice and the bill of rights. HSA is practically the executive branch usurping the powers of the judiciary.
HSA vests the presidency with emergency powers in perpetuity and practically puts the country under a continuing state of national emergency. It is Martial Law in legislated form.
GMA pushed the anti-“terrorism” law with prodding from the Bush government of imperialist US, the principal global terrorist. Certainly GMA would use HSA to her benefit.
The HSA is key component of GMA’s most ambitious bid, the Philippines as “first world country” in 20 years. Her dream is more grand than Marcos’ “this nation can be great again” or the “newly industrializing country” of Ramos’ pipedream, Philippines 2000.
GMA has conjured an illusion of economic growth against the reality of hunger, deprivation and repression of the people. The make-believe state of economy is the basis of her ambition. Like her predecessors, GMA’s long-term bid is premised on opening the country wider to foreign investors and on intensified foreign borrowing. GMA increased taxes and ordered aggressive tax and non-tax revenue collection and increased export of Filipino workers and professionals at the rate of 1 million new OFW’s a year.
The HSA is needed to eliminate what GMA calls “frictions” that dampen investor interest and confidence. Removing other “frictions” would require new laws or amending present ones. Among these are: EPIRA amendment to expedite the sale of NPC; BSP charter amendment for more financial liberalization; amending the BOT law; Senate ratification of JPEPA; etc. A new but land reform-less “Agrarian Reform” plan will be pushed by GMA to justify the various RP-China agribusiness deals and to pursue the Bio-fuel Act with the large sugar estates in the lead.
The road to GMA’s fantasy is sustained 7% economic growth for 7 years. This will be keyed in the next 3 years by P1 trillion pesos worth of infrastructure projects demanded by foreign investors and creditors. Among the flagship projects are the Manila-North and Manila-South railway projects, financed mainly by loans from China. These infrastructure projects that eject thousands are projected to create temporary jobs to complement the employment created by the on rush of call centers and other business process outsourcing (BPO) investors.
GMA aims for a “balanced budget” by 2008 and another “free trade agreement (FTA)” in 2009, this time, with the USA.
The regime’s policy on foreign investment is modeled by the agreement GMA signed with Japan’s former Prime Minister Koizumi in September 2006 and the various RP-China business deals signed in her presence in her last visit to China. In exchange for the capital inflows from Japan and China is their exploitation of our resources—land, water, mineral and human.
For this latest surrender of the people’s sovereignty over the national patrimony and economy, GMA will task the Senate to be her accomplice in this high treason by ratifying JPEPA and the whole congress by justifying the deals that were signed by private Filipino and Chinese corporations.
JPEPA is practically a broader continuance of the RP-Japan Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation. JPEPA is lop-sided in favor of Japan and condemns the Philippines to backwardness. Japan, the country’s biggest creditor and biggest investor in Philippine economic zones, dictates the terms. JPEPA would confine our country to a captive market of industrial products and surplus capital of Japan and a dumping ground of its toxic wastes. Moreover, it opens to Japanese fishing fleets 220 million hectares of Philippine territorial seas. On the other hand, Philippine exports, which are mainly bananas, pineapples, mangoes and tuna, are not free from Japan’s protectionist tariffs in 10-20 years from ratification of JPEPA. Japan plans to accept 400 nurses and 600 caregivers within two years after the treaty takes effect, meaning this is not in the terms of the treaty. The nurses and caregivers, who must be proficient in Nippongo, are however not guaranteed with employment or job security.
China, now holding the biggest dollar surplus (more than $1 trillion) outside the US, is number 1 target of GMA regime’s policy of attracting foreign investments. The RP-China deals, excluding the controversial broadband network deal with ZTE, are 19 private contracts in agribusiness. These private deals amount to more than P200 billion and will put almost 2 million hectares of our lands to producing food and bio-fuel crops for China.
Using Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) and the forthcoming GMA agrarian reform plan as justification, the Philippine government acts as land broker for Chinese corporations. Threatening millions of Filipino peasants and tribal communities with alienation from the lands they till and occupy and from other means of subsistence, the deals executed by the GMA regime amount to national betrayal.
GMA’s dream reveals her ignorance of the fact that all first world countries developed and sustained their growth through protectionism and assertion of national sovereignty and patrimony. GMA’s dream is the reverse.
JPEPA, the RP-China deals, the free-trade agreement with US by 2009, the existing US-RP VFA and SOFA with Australia formalize our country’s status as a multinational neo-colony with an agrarian, non-industrial and service economy. The overwhelming majority of the Filipino people would be indentured laborers of foreign entities here and overseas.
Twenty years hence, there would be no “first world” but a more backward Philippines. Perhaps not even a country that is recognized among sovereign nations, if GMA’s state of delusion is not ended with her, now or in the soonest time.
Thrash the ‘terror law’ Human Security Act of 2007!
Junk JPEPA and the RP-China Deals!
Stop GMA’s delusion; End the GMA regime!