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By ARNOLD PADILLA
The challenge that policy makers now face is how to raise the needed resources to fund in a sustainable manner and without placing additional burden on Filipinos the requirements of relief and rehabilitation.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Far from a counter-insurgency operation, the massive militarization and dislocation of communities in Surigao del Sur and the Caraga region had more to do with protecting business interests, primarily mining and energy investments. Although there is nothing particularly new in all this, the Arroyo regime had actually taken the extra step to ensure that the military would act as veritable security guards of these companies.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
The latest incarnation of the text tax comes in the context of an administration under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to widen its revenue base. It was the IMF that first openly pushed the text tax idea in 2002 to address the government’s burgeoning budget deficit.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
While the right of indigenous peoples to their ancestral land is recognized by international agreements and conventions, indigenous peoples in the Philippines are relentlessly being driven away by mining, tourism and other so-called development projects. In Zambales alone, more than 70 mining firms are now operating, with some preventing the Aetas from entering what used to be their land.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
No matter how oil firms deny the allegations that they are overcharging the consumers, the widespread public perception that oil companies are abusive and profit-hungry will remain. This will be the case as long as the oil industry is deregulated and oil companies are allowed to automatically increase their prices and at the same time not compelled to publicly divulge how they compute their price adjustments.
By MARYA SALAMAT
The massive layoffs in the Philippines brought about by the global financial crisis and the increasing appetite of companies for more profit have exposed yet again the Arroyo regime’s sympathy not for workers but for capitalists. And instead of ensuring that workers’ rights are protected, the Department of Labor and Employment has become an even more willing tool by companies to satisfy their greed.
Malacañang officials claimed they merely had “a simple dinner” in Le Cirque, but Nanay Evelyn Monicario cannot imagine what a lavish dinner for Arroyo and her cohorts would be, considering that she herself considers sardines a lavish meal these days.
In her recent State of the Nation Address, President Arroyo claimed to have created eight million jobs, or an average of a million jobs per year in the past eight years. But where exactly did this figure come from? A closer look at the government’s own data yields a statistical distortion.
Days before the Sona, thousands of farmers, workers, students and activists braved the heat and the rain as they marched from the provinces of Southern Tagalog to Commonwealth Avenue. The march, called Lakbayan, is their way of fighting the regime’s abuses and asserting their basic rights.
In her ninth State of the Nation Address, President Arroyo painted a rosy picture of the Philippines – a world so much different from the one most Filipinos live in, her critics say.
The regime would not veer away from the economic policies that Arroyo has implemented in the past. These are the very same policies that made the Filipino people vulnerable to the world economic crisis and to price manipulations and speculative attacks by corporations wanting to pass on the burden of the crisis to the people.
When Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivers what is supposed to be her last State of the Nation Address this Monday, she will probably claim that she has accomplished what she said she had set out to do in 2001 and 2004. To her critics, however, the past nine years have been “the reign of Gollum.”
A troubled economy, widespread joblessness, human-rights violations, corruption, and political maneuverings are whipping public discontent against Arroyo, warns Ibon Foundation.
Public-transport drivers and operators in several urban areas across the country – including, for the first time, Makati City – denounce the measly oil-price rollbacks by the Big Three oil companies, as well as their “manipulation” of the prices of oil and gas products, such as LPG, to the detriment of unorganized and ordinary consumers.
The Americans, like the Europeans, have an inventory of what they call “barriers” in the Philippine Constitution that they want the Arroyo regime to remove through constitutional amendments. Meanwhile, the Constitution will have to conform with the Jpepa, the Philippine-Japan agreement, not the other way around. (Second of two parts)
The political dimension of charter change has dominated the national agenda. But the constant driving force behind all the attempts since the last decade to modify the Constitution has been the external pressure coming mainly from the WTO, the US, the EU and Japan to create the sort of policy environment that will allow globalization to fully thrive in the Philippines. (First of two parts)
The employees at Triumph International who are about to lose their jobs are wringing their hands over what awaits them in these difficult times. They are likewise upset that the labor department, instead of helping them, has been assisting the German company in its machinations to get rid of its workers.
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