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By SONNY AFRICA
Amid the unfounded hype about a global economic recovery, the challenge for Philippine development remains to be in the direction of defying the imperialist globalization offensive and genuinely building the domestic economy.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
“The general public, in a more sustained manner, now demands concrete economic platforms of governance from these candidate. Past elections have been about personality, machinery, and other non-issues.”
By ARNOLD PADILLA
There’s good news for its close to five million customers to start the New Year, said utility giant Manila Electric Power Co. (Meralco). It claimed that its January billing will go down by 30.5 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) due to lower generation and transmission charges. But Meralco did not say that the said reduction is just one side of the story.
By MARYA SALAMAT
The year 2009 began, ended and paved the way to 2010 with the festering problem of joblessness for millions of Filipinos. The global financial crisis only revealed the stark reality of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s inherently flawed job-generation strategies. The Arroyo regime fell short of its employment target. Worse, thousands of jobs, especially in the export industry, were "massacred" in 2009 even as unionists faced violence, intimidation and murder.
A former chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), who is also one of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's most trusted men, is one of the directors of a big mining company that operates in a number of provinces, among them Bukidnon, which is one of the provinces where several indigenous-peoples' communities are suffering under a reign of terror perpetrated by the military and paramilitary groups.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
Underneath the never-ending and intensifying political conflict is the permanent and worsening crisis of the economy. The raging economic crisis feeds the growing dispute among the various factions of the political elite contending for control of political power and monopoly of economic spoils – a conflict that has become more pronounced and increasingly vicious under the nine-year old Arroyo administration.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
As foreign mining investments continue to encroach into Lumad lands in Northern Mindanao, the military, through its Oplan Bantay Laya, intensifies its campaign to stifle local opposition to these companies. A fact-finding mission found that so far this year, 13 Lumads have been summarily executed while more were tortured and harassed by soldiers and fellow Lumads co-opted by the military.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Unlike other post-martial law administrations that used assumption of jurisdictions (AJ) mostly to quell already ongoing strikes, the Arroyo regime has used these orders not only to quell ongoing strikes but also to make sure workers cannot strike at all. As a result, fewer strikes have been recorded, allowing Arroyo to claim that “industrial peace” is improving. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
Malacañang is threatening to reimpose an oil price control if oil companies will not follow the conditions outlined by Mrs. Arroyo. Government, however, has given up the high ground with its lifting of EO 839 and continued adherence to the discredited deregulation policy.
By XANDRA BISENIO
Through the stock distribution option such as the one in Hacienda Luisita, the essence of land reform has been distorted to benefit landowners, denying the farmers of actual land redistribution.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Through the generations, many of the Filipinos in Hawaii attained their dreams of greener pastures, and other Filipinos continue to go there in search of more decent opportunities. Their dreams, however, have been crumbling in the face of the financial crisis, which hit the US in 2008. They have not been spared from the effects of the crisis.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Despite its limitations, the oil-price caps have irked Big Business and their think tanks and they have been lobbying to have it lifted. Fearing EO 839 could set a dangerous precedent to its business, Shell even filed a case in court against Arroyo’s order. But consumers and critics say that if Arroyo is really sincere in protecting consumers, she should use her power to have the Oil Deregulation Law repealed.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
To a certain degree, Executive Order 839 questioned the lies long peddled by the oil companies and staunch defenders of neoliberalism about neoliberal free market economics. If left unchallenged, EO 839 could become a precedent in policy making: that the government, in the name of public good and welfare, could take decisive action against abusive corporations.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Metro Manila drivers’ associations welcomed the freeze or control in oil prices mandated by Executive Order 839. “It gives people immediate relief,” said Piston's Steve Ranjo. And relief is exactly what the Filipino people have been needing for who knows how long.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
While it is supposed to be based on the Oil Deregulation Law, the executive order mandating the recent price rollback in effect puts into question the wisdom of oil deregulation. Moreover, the oil companies have found a way to offset whatever “losses” they would incur in Luzon due to the EO: by overpricing in the Visayas and Mindanao.
By MARYA SALAMAT
A high-level team of the UN’s International Labor Organization has proposed, among others, trainings and "continuing education" for the Philippine police, military, the judiciary and the labor department on how to respect union rights and uphold labor laws.
Sidebar: Responses to ILO High-Level Mission
By MARYA SALAMAT
While the government bears down on small businesses and producers, warning them against profiteering in the wake of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, it has allowed Shell, Caltex and Petron to increase oil prices at will.
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