Friday, October 29, 2004
Administration Finds AFP Corruption?!?!
In case you haven’t heard already, there MAY BE graft and corruption in the military.
Believe me, I am just as shocked, absolutely shocked and bewildered at this revelation as you are. It is almost the same kind of amazement that Magellan probably felt when he suddenly realized King Lapulapu was not going to greet him like some kind of a returning balikbayan. How could this possibly be happening?
And then to top things off, there are allegations that members of the military top brass actually may have protected each other and covered up the misappropriation of public funds. What, pray tell, could possibly be next? Maybe that the world is not really flat or, better yet, the crazy idea that the earth travels around the sun?
Of course, this must come as a real blow and disappointment to Malacanañg. Sure, it is acceptable to welcome if not actually encourage the military to break the chain of command and throw away the Constitutional provision of supreme civilian authority over the military if your assent to power is a stake. But I can still remember the words of the President’s 2001 SONA when she said, "To ensure that our gains are not dissipated through corruption, we must improve [moral standards]”.
I am sure that she assumed the military was also listening to her words and would have done everything possible to be the first to stop corruption. In fact, I think the President thought so too. Her Presidential Anti-Graft Commission was conspicuously focusing a lot more attention on almost all other government agencies rather than the military. When you consider the size of the AFP budget compared the funds controlled by someone like Press Undersecretary Ching Suva, who was given a thorough and public “lifestyle check”, one can only assume that everybody figured the AFP was clean. How sad and distressing to now learn that the last bastion of Filipino leadership and moral authority, as displayed during our EDSA II movement, may need some improvement.
And from the headlines in the last the last two days, the administration and its
Senators like Santiago intend to devote their fullest attention to this newly discovered and previously unthought-of AFP corruption.
It is also nice to see the media and the rest of the Congress dedicate so much blood, sweat, and tears to this scandal. You might even think that the fate of the republic hangs in balance. In fact, I guess if a few of the heads in this affair are chopped off, all our problems will be solved. It must be true since little, very little, attention is being given to our problems and potential solutions.
Like this for example.
Senator Miriam was telling us about generals’ wives wearing ill-gotten diamonds while clinging to ill-gotten dance instructors, looking all made-up with their ill-gotten orange/red hair. Buried near the back of the news was just maybe the more important fact that 1) the Philippines manufacturing sector is dying, 2) the export sector is in ICU, and 3) the garment industry is dead.
Manufacturing output dropped 5% in August. This is maybe the first clear indicator of the doom and gloom I have been writing about for months concerning our potential collapse in 2005. By the middle of 2005, this economy is going to be in a recession. August is when things start gearing up for the holiday season but not this year. Further, output fell in July by a small amount (-.2%) BUT the value of the output was up by almost 8%. What that means is that we produced less but what we produced cost 8% more to make. Can you understand the concept of big time price inflation? Apparently, our Economist president and her advisers do not.
“The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the country’s exports are likely to grow no more than 10 percent yearly until the country becomes more conducive to new investments”. Grab on to this fact. The Peso is at or near historical lows, the United States economy is growing at a moderate-to-strong pace and our exports are basically flat. And the BSP says this situation will not improve until and unless we get more investments, which is honestly up double from last year. That means the investments we so desperately need are way up and still our export sector is in critical condition.
Finally, one World Trade Organization agreement will take hold at the end of the year eliminating the quota system on garments and textiles. China, India, and others have spent the last five years preparing for this. The Philippine has spent the last five years whining about this. Our garment manufacturing/export sector will begin winding up on January 1, 2005 and by 2006 should be all but gone.
This corruption investigation is important no doubt. However, our economic house is burning to the ground even as we speak. Unless the government (and our press and media) realizes the severity and the critical urgency of the economic disaster we are facing, “The Garcia Affair” will seem like a passenger on the Titanic complaining that the soup needs more salt and that there is not enough ice in the drinks. Just wait-soon there will be more than enough salt and ice.
Believe me, I am just as shocked, absolutely shocked and bewildered at this revelation as you are. It is almost the same kind of amazement that Magellan probably felt when he suddenly realized King Lapulapu was not going to greet him like some kind of a returning balikbayan. How could this possibly be happening?
And then to top things off, there are allegations that members of the military top brass actually may have protected each other and covered up the misappropriation of public funds. What, pray tell, could possibly be next? Maybe that the world is not really flat or, better yet, the crazy idea that the earth travels around the sun?
Of course, this must come as a real blow and disappointment to Malacanañg. Sure, it is acceptable to welcome if not actually encourage the military to break the chain of command and throw away the Constitutional provision of supreme civilian authority over the military if your assent to power is a stake. But I can still remember the words of the President’s 2001 SONA when she said, "To ensure that our gains are not dissipated through corruption, we must improve [moral standards]”.
I am sure that she assumed the military was also listening to her words and would have done everything possible to be the first to stop corruption. In fact, I think the President thought so too. Her Presidential Anti-Graft Commission was conspicuously focusing a lot more attention on almost all other government agencies rather than the military. When you consider the size of the AFP budget compared the funds controlled by someone like Press Undersecretary Ching Suva, who was given a thorough and public “lifestyle check”, one can only assume that everybody figured the AFP was clean. How sad and distressing to now learn that the last bastion of Filipino leadership and moral authority, as displayed during our EDSA II movement, may need some improvement.
And from the headlines in the last the last two days, the administration and its
Senators like Santiago intend to devote their fullest attention to this newly discovered and previously unthought-of AFP corruption.
It is also nice to see the media and the rest of the Congress dedicate so much blood, sweat, and tears to this scandal. You might even think that the fate of the republic hangs in balance. In fact, I guess if a few of the heads in this affair are chopped off, all our problems will be solved. It must be true since little, very little, attention is being given to our problems and potential solutions.
Like this for example.
Senator Miriam was telling us about generals’ wives wearing ill-gotten diamonds while clinging to ill-gotten dance instructors, looking all made-up with their ill-gotten orange/red hair. Buried near the back of the news was just maybe the more important fact that 1) the Philippines manufacturing sector is dying, 2) the export sector is in ICU, and 3) the garment industry is dead.
Manufacturing output dropped 5% in August. This is maybe the first clear indicator of the doom and gloom I have been writing about for months concerning our potential collapse in 2005. By the middle of 2005, this economy is going to be in a recession. August is when things start gearing up for the holiday season but not this year. Further, output fell in July by a small amount (-.2%) BUT the value of the output was up by almost 8%. What that means is that we produced less but what we produced cost 8% more to make. Can you understand the concept of big time price inflation? Apparently, our Economist president and her advisers do not.
“The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the country’s exports are likely to grow no more than 10 percent yearly until the country becomes more conducive to new investments”. Grab on to this fact. The Peso is at or near historical lows, the United States economy is growing at a moderate-to-strong pace and our exports are basically flat. And the BSP says this situation will not improve until and unless we get more investments, which is honestly up double from last year. That means the investments we so desperately need are way up and still our export sector is in critical condition.
Finally, one World Trade Organization agreement will take hold at the end of the year eliminating the quota system on garments and textiles. China, India, and others have spent the last five years preparing for this. The Philippine has spent the last five years whining about this. Our garment manufacturing/export sector will begin winding up on January 1, 2005 and by 2006 should be all but gone.
This corruption investigation is important no doubt. However, our economic house is burning to the ground even as we speak. Unless the government (and our press and media) realizes the severity and the critical urgency of the economic disaster we are facing, “The Garcia Affair” will seem like a passenger on the Titanic complaining that the soup needs more salt and that there is not enough ice in the drinks. Just wait-soon there will be more than enough salt and ice.
// posted by john mangun @ Friday, October 29, 2004 
