Globalization - The Road to Socioeconomic and Political Perdition Of Native Filipinos in Our Homeland

Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society" - Ayn Rand, 1961

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Hi All,

To comprehend the perennial socioeconomic and political predicaments of our homeland and fellow native Filipinos, we need to know and understand our history, here specifically  focusing on the political and economic decisions made by our past and current rulers (they do not deserve to be called leaders or statesmen). 

There are definitely other critical and persistent factors, i.e. cultural characteristics such as our patterns of attitudes and behavior, value system, and social institutions (hacienda mentality, aristocratic lifestyle, elitism, nepotism, aversion to manual labor/trades, etc. -- some native to us and others as colonial heritage -- that contribute to our  being apparently in sustained backwardness since we native Filipinos proclaimed our First Republic in Malolos. So how far into our past do we go? 

We can look back as far as we want: to pre-Spanish times, Spanish colonization, American intervention and colonization, Japanese occupation, post-WW2, etc. The  But in terms of greater relevance and causation, the greater and precipitous downfall of our national economy together with its resultant societal decline came about with the Marcos Dictatorship and its imposition of IMF/WB-dictated economic policies. 

These policies were then continued by his successor regimes (Cora Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Arroyo, and currently Noynoy Aquino).  All of course, with the enthusiastic and uncaring support of foreign businessmen, multinational companies, local taipans, native oligarchs and technocrats.

We continue to hear and read praises about globalization (aka neocolonialism or neoliberalism)  from some of our fellow Filipinos/opinion makers and those who directly or indirectly profit from it; despite the greatest misery and impoverishment economic globalization has bestowed on the native Filipino majority (and assuredly the next generations of natives). 

We continue to hear and read that we are poor because we did not go into export industrialization -where were they all these years or are they just mouthpieces of the rulers and foreigners playing that old tune? We hear and read that we native Filipinos just breed like rabbits, that we are lazy, etc., ad nauseam. Anyway, we'll touch on these other matters in later posts.

Our successive presidents, supposedly apolitical technocrats, and bicameral congresses yielded to external.foreign  pressures, specifically those programs imposed by the IMF and WB, nowadays through their World Trade Organization (WTO) which only brought and continually bring the impoverishing consequences to our fellow natives in terms of: peso devaluation, inflation, loss of job opportunities, factory closures, emasculation of labor unions and spread of job insecurities, and diaspora/escape to "modern slavery" abroad (by being contract workers or OFWs), etc. to name a few. 

Plus the political/social repression and violence committed with impunity to support such economic policies, that is, through military and paramilitary actions/methods -- first implemented during the Marcos Dictatorship-- such as disappearances, assassinations, incarcerations and tortures, etc. All these rationalized by name-calling all peasants, farmers, laborers, students, social workers, priests who speak and practice democratic dissent as "communists."

Below article is about 13 years old, but it provides us an outline of the direction/path our past (and religiously repeated by present) rulers who, without any nationalism in their hearts, minds and spirits, took on their own the easy way out for themselves to selfishly stay in power, at the long-run expense of their fellow native, Malay Filipinos and our future generations. 

I find it at best amusing that all our past and present rulers, their families and minions, have become or are more wealthy, if not rich; are located in those exclusive, well-guarded residential enclaves while the native majority remain impoverished, thanks to these our rulers. 

And our Department of Tourism (DOT) and the minority of monied fellow Filipinos loudly proclaim to the world: " It's more fun in the Philippines!!"

- Bert

ADDENDUM: The millstone on the necks of present and future generations of native (Malay) Filipino majority in the Philippines

Philippine External/Foreign Debt:

1. $ 61 billion as of Sept 2012 BSP Statistical Data), $51 billion in 2000, $26 billion when Marcos fled, $2 billion in 1972 or start of the Marcos Dictatorship and $600 million when Marcos came to the presidency in 1965. Throughout the years since, the ruling regimes never paid or unable to pay beyond the required interest payments on the loans.
2. Compared with the South Koreans who were devastated by the 1998 financial crisis and had to be bailed out by borrowing $50 billion from the IMF, the South Koreans completely paid off their IMF debt by August 2001, almost two years ahead of schedule!  As Yoon Dae-hee, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance and Economy. "We've retaken our economic sovereignty," Yoon said."From now on, we no longer need prior consultations with the IMF in planning and executing our economic policies."
3. The present Aquino regime claims we have more foreign reserves than foreign debt (and mainly due to OFW remittances at $21 billion (2012), else the Philippines would be in the red all these years). It's time we pay off the foreign debts in significant amount towards the loan principal and not just the accumulating interests and be done with IMF/WB dictates on our national economy. Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) totaled only $1.25 billion for 2012. -  BSP Statistical Data). 
4. With the minimal FDI compared to OFW remittances each year, we should find it suspicious why our rulers and those who call themselves (economic) reformers, under the foreign-influenced and local Chinese-led coRRECT Movement insist in dismantling the already watered-down nationalist provisions in our 1987 Philippine Constitution "to attract foreign investments " We should therefore instead defy the IMF/WB/WTO and revert to a more truly nationalistic Filipino First Policy in our homeland (which can be realized only by a more informed and nationalistic native citizenry).