WANTED CHILDREN ARE BLESSINGS

Population reduction as an objective of the Reproductive Health Bill I could be elusive. While dependency burdens in low income areas could influence the composition of capital, impede its growth and, thus, influence the rate of economic development. It should however be emphasized that over-population and dependency burden, taken together as a factor, are not the primary reasons for underdevelopment in Third World countries. The real problem about population in the Philippines, for instance, is how the government should be able to harness the Philippine labor sector, or that big portion of population belonging to age group between 15 and 65 who can be employed and are willing to work. This age group of population is the Philippine labor force which should be harnessed and put into use to be more productive and contributive to national economic development. A bigger labor force implies a higher per capita income. In countries with large labor force it is an economic advantage. China has the biggest population in the world, and yet it is now the second biggest economy in the planet.

The conclusion, however, that the Philippines should be a communist government  just to be able to be like a country as progressive as China, does not follow. The key to the answers on questions about population reduction is individual discipline on human procreation. This implies a requirement of a higher level of maturity that often comes after responsibility. A slower pace of population could be only a simple consequence of a fast-paced lifestyle that is similar to lifestyles of Westerners and Europeans. The Philippines have not come to that level primarily because government priorities are not focused on the human development aspect of its citizens. For instance, how could people from the low income class be more responsible when they are unemployed; how could they be employed when they are not properly educated; how could they be properly educated when they have low levels of income and/or in poor health; how could they share in the equal distribution of wealth when they are not employed? These are questions that are actually economic characteristics of underdeveloped countries. Gunnar Myrdal (Asian Drama) sees these factors as moving in a vicious circular cumulative causation, in a continuous link, the breakup of one factor does not destroy the cycle.  These questions require a multi-pronged solution that squarely answers each and every factor all at the same time. Can our government provide the necessary answers? If it can do that, there will be no need for Reproductive Health bills such as the one that is now under attack from the Church and some sectors of society.

Proponents of the Reproductive Health Bill should not be threatened by Bill Clinton’s statement that babies are a boon to the Philippines. As Edcel Lagman says, Bill may have uttered that statement thoughtlessly and in passing. The fact is, that statement of Bill’s is the truth, and Lagman may not just be aware of it. However, just like any other general statement, that also accepts of some exceptions. We refer to babies that are wanted babies as differentiated from those that are unwanted. In the latter case, the issues turn ethical and moral, which the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines should be primarily concerned about. The Church can take these issues in particular on the pulpit instead of attacking the RH Bill in any forum in general. 

SUN TZU'S ART OF PERSUASION VERSUS QE2

Just lately I have discovered that I have been posting comments on Facebook based on my readings of newspapers on the economy and economies of the world. I make these posts thinking that people concerned in the news including people like me who make comments might be able to better the situation by considering the adaption of some of my suggested alternatives. I find offering alternatives as part and parcel of my comments on problem situations. 

Of course, more often than expected, my feedbacks fall on deaf ears, giving me a feeling that this preoccupation of mine is a total waste of time, money and effort, and that there could be other better things to do, that this sense of grandiosity is egotism if not plain barbaric expressions of my suppressed libido, or just a psychological need for a long-denied recognition, the need for psychological acceptance, to be lauded by friends, peer and kin. Mentoring in the classroom was once my sideline and now it gives me unresolved idea that may be I could once again be just another docile pupil learning new lessons and better tricks to be able to hold a captive audience like that in the academe.

Which is not the case in Facebook or in any fan page in the internet. The whole world watches although it may not be listening, or it could be reading but not discerning. In whatever circumstances the world is, bloggers like me should write and express opinions that should be informative, truthful, meaningful, relevant and could serve as rallying point to inspire readers towards taking concrete action or to persuade them to share the same opinion and disseminate the same for the benefit of everyone who are or who will be placed in similar situations. In short, it must also be proactive.

As a blogger, it is my categorical imperative to craft opinions that come soothing to the senses of my recipients. These opinions may sometimes be amusing, or they could be contemptible, purposively, to further arouse interest, such as giving and outlining the finer details of how a heinous crime was carried out, or how genius was a perfidy committed. They could be soul-refreshing as when one writes a critique on the aesthetic value of an impassioned poetry, or heart-rending and life-threatening as my comments could be on The Second Quantitative Easing and its foreseen international currency war or its global economic holocaust, or as persuasive as when I suggest that the outcomes of the Group of 20 meetings in South Korea during the week should hinge on humanitarian considerations in favor of underdeveloped countries of the Third World, and not solely for the preservation of the elitist life and lifestyle of American conglomerates and their intermediaries. 

The US Federal Reserve should reel in the Second Quantitative Easing (QE2) before it should even cast it out. A currency war is in the offing and as Sun Tzu would have it for all wars, persuasion is the primordial step to undertake. Sun Tzu's proposal is of course based on the assumption that there are only two protagonists, which is not really the case in the present tussle--- the interests of the whole world are at stake. All over the planet, countries involved in international trade will be affected. The QE2 involves printing new money worth 600 billion dollars, spontaneously creating paper mills for money bills that are supposed to be legal tender but are in fact worthless pieces of paper if not ludicrous print-outs of Dead Presidents like Monopoly play money bills when the indoor game has totally become outmoded. 


If the US thinks it can spread its dollar wide and thin, China could also do the same or perhaps even better, and so can Japan, India, Thailand  and the rest of the countries of the emerging markets. Instead of printing more money, all peoples of the world should be planting more trees and preempt disaster and man-made catastrophes that could be brought about by global warming and climate change, and the people of America should stretch some more muscles like when obese, flatulent or figure-conscious enthusiasts do their daily jog, or could use some manual and menial labor just like the rest of the demure or brawny Asians do. Unless it gallivants to be silly, the US has no viable reason to raise or foment another world war. 

ON WHO THE BUDGETS TOLL

The Philippine national budget for the year 2011 is the most articulate instrument of the Aquino administration relative to its plans in the next coming years. The budget document that hopes to be approved before the year ends, further states the continuing trend of government spending, this time in the tune of P1.62 trillion. The greater bulk of this amount, or 78%, is earmarked for foreign and domestic debt interest payments. As in the past, debt servicing has become the primary reason for the enactment of the national budget.

The proposed-to-be-approved 2011 Philippine National Budget is only a virtual reality. Budget estimates are things and imaginings that Congress hopes to see in the nitty-gritty reality. Where will the real money come from? The total amount that must be amassed for actual happy expenditure is only on paper and does not have the color of money, and even so depends so much on the capability of the hallowed Bureaus (Bureau of Internal Revenue, Bureau of Customs, the Bureau of the Treasury, the Bureau of Local Government Finance, and the revenue-raising government agencies) to collect what is expected of them from all taxpayers and other revenue sources.

Aside from being arithmetically systematized, the national budget is also geometric in growth. So much of the budgetary estimates are based on percentage increases on previous years’ actual tax collection and revenue collections vis-à-vis allowances for service and commodity price increases, plus allowances for overhead expenses, plus allowances for bad-debts, plus allowances for natural calamities, plus allowances for over-spending-- a nicer term for graft and corruption in government, plus others.

The realization of the national budget depends largely on the capability of the Chief Executive for look around for funds in the form of aids, grants, financial assistance and dole outs from the IMF-WB, from the US of A, from Asian neighbors, from interested investors, and from all other benevolent financiers.  It is an executive prerogative laden with pitfalls and lures that could make or unmake a President as a true leader, as what happened to ex-President Arroyo and the allegedly anomalous NBN-ZTE deal. Aids, grants, and financial assistance, for one, are misnomers—they are the cosmeticized carrot-and-stick of the national economy, with very tough strings tied behind. These are actually loans and loan advances that come in batches with very stringent terms and conditions sine qua non that often serve as built-in compounders, and pro forma conditionalities. Getting into the availability of these loans is the easiest part, while coming out of them is almost next to impossible.

Just as we read this piece, the World Bank has extended a $300,000 grant to the Philippines to be used purposively for assessment of the country’s national roads. Well, sometimes, the President doesn’t really have to go around looking for those funds, they just fall when they are least expected. Aside from the aforementioned assistance, Mr. Aquino was also able to corner a considerable amount from Vietnam during his state visit there. Earlier than that, the Millinneum Challenge Corporation headed by the no less than the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also granted the Aquino government $434 million purposively for BIR streamlining and Samar Road construction projects. It should be noted that the MCC grant is ‘gratis et amore’ which needs no pay-back. A closer scrutiny of the grant, however, would reveal that it is part of the US counter-insurgency program in the Philippines, a form of aggression and intervention in Philippine domestic affairs. In short, MCC grant is actually an advance payment for any US bungle that may probably ensue.

Normally, as in the past, the estimated budgetary expenditure is never realized, at most it only served as benchmarks for a blue print of a program of government—a program that should not be implied, rather than that, it must be charted in black and white. Fiscal administration in the Philippine setting serves only as a fund raising program in support of the realization of the proposed national budget, reason enough why calendar years are called fiscal years—an unending process of searching for that elusive pot of gold.

But the buck should have stopped dead right here, when we began to realize that we have already lost our capacity to pay those totality of debts that have ballooned and still continues to grow  because of foreign and domestic debt interest payments. The national budget has become a scapegoat of fiscal and budget policy makers in favor only of incumbent political leaders. The republican government of the Filipino people through their chosen representatives could not scissor-cut a collect-and-spend plan that is at least realistic, at most we have been spending money before we can even collect them. How? We borrow and take out loans from all sources for the purpose of paying those ever-compounding interests on capital loans. Meanwhile, our OFWs are sweating it out there just to keep the capital inflows coming.

On who budgets toll? They toll on thee.

The Information Age

        Also known as the Computer Age, or Computer Era, the Information Age is the present stage of the different eras of world history and human development that began with the Ice Age. The present era is an outflow of the contemporary Space Age that was preceded by the Jet Age, the historical period starting in the middle 70s when turbo-jet planes were introduced to mankind by way of the Super-Sonic Transport (SST).

In the present state, cybernetics and the internet have made information available anywhere from the four corners of the globe. As this essay is written, information and data continue pouring in millions by a minute. Decisions of world leaders and policy makers contribute to the bulk of knowledge shared in the web. Statistics from the stock market and foreign exchange could prove an unending challenge to businessmen and global investors. News comes from all over the world—floods in Thailand, a potentially explosive device found in England, a new song from Lady Gaga, Clint Eastwood’s last movie, a new Chanel show, the latest top-selling local liquor, a new friend in Facebook, plastic-eating bacteria off the coast off Mogadishu, a destructive virus in the internet, etc.

Information grows in every aspect of the arts and sciences. The reading ability of man and his capacity to take in information and his capability with which he can handle all the information have become a daunting challenge of “catch-me-if-you-can.” We elude this discomfort by reading only those data and information that we think we need, mostly those that are in the news, lest we be spending the rest of our lives reading everything that there is to read.

        Photos and pictures, movies and trailers also add to the information overload. Accessing your Google account is not an easy as it may seem. Often we are lost in the morass of notifications, advertisements and sexy lingerie before we can begin to do what we primarily intended to be doing in the computer. Then there are pop-ups, like when your Messenger tells you your brother or kin or friend is on the line. Be discreet with “How are you?” It could mean forever.

Scientific and practical research is a continuing process in the internet. Often we have to fill out lengthy questionnaires out of humanitarian considerations and personal belief that we could be of help in the continuing development of some products and or services in the world market. We may not notice it, but news of successful laboratory experiments come exploding in the web like a bang of the atom collider. The failed ones of course end up in a hushed whimper.

The world knows when its leaders are leading its populations astray, and despite the information that we could scoop free from the internet.com, common sense in making humanitarian decisions remain a big challenge. Countries like China, for instance, do not want to open a wider gate for competition in the world market. Fomenting wars remains to be the pastime of Pentagon. While fashion trends keep on going and coming back better, as history really repeats itself, the Ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana remain to be the bugging problems of sane societies of the world. Hijacking and kidnapping are some of the easiest avenues towards gold and riches. Out of this information maze we often realize that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a blog to be read, unless, perhaps, if you pass it around with flowers.

Winged Beauty

      Has anybody seen anything like this? Please try to help me. I haven't identified this animal which I think is a moth if not a butterfly-- a regular nocturnal visitor of forget-me-not flowers in our garden. That has been so until tonight, when one of our cats, Goldie, caught the buzzer and held it in its mouth and played with it for quite a time until it got tired with the insect. Luckily, Goldie released it but was guarding it, waiting for the winged beauty to take flight and catch it again. I took the rare opportunity and picked the poor thing up from the well-lighted doorway. It was still alive but was barely surviving. It sustained a torn left wing, but excepting that it was almost intact. Before I released it back to the wild, I held it to my mobile phone camera and took these shots, and there I have it forever. 

      I have been trying, surfing the web and hoping to find a similar-looking photo of it for its common and scientific names, but I just couldn't identify the  creature that has proboscis-like tongue about three to four inches long, perhaps it hasn't been cataloged  yet in the list of members of Zoology. I hope somebody could help me.

MY TWO LONG-TAILED NINJAS

       These are two of my three cats. They are at their best when you least expect them. As you may see, they are up there in the narra tree that I have potted for bonsai purposes but which has outgrown its pot and now serves as the hanging playground of these two long-tailed Ninjas. I was just sitting there, under that tree, when out of the blue these playful "toys" just raced up trying to dislodge each other for a better perspective of what they might hope to see around. But I saw the better of them and took a shot out of my mobile phone camera-- a 2.0-megapixel Nokia 5130 that I have with me all the time just in case something like this happens--- which provides for my instant access to the picturesque world that often passes ephemerally. Now I have captured my loved companions at home and they will be with me forever.

PHILIPPINE URBANIZATION

         Let me begin with a definition. Urbanization is the migration or natural influx of a segment of population from rural areas to urban centers. Simply put, urbanization is urban migration. In the wake of this migration is the vast area of arable lands in the countryside that remain idle and uncultivated, such as the one that we have in our picture. 

       In the Philippines, this migration pattern has been going on for the past four centuries. Rural populations migrate to urban areas primarily in search of better economic opportunities. In this sense that migration is seen as an endowed human and natural tendency.

     In the year 2010, more than 60 percent of the total population live in urban centers around the country-- a burgeoning population that is constantly growing with urbanization, increasing urban poverty, burdening problems along urban health and sanitation, and, on top of these, worsening economic inequity. Urban management and ecological systems as well the institutions that are primarily responsible are almost incapable to answer for the unabated growth in urban population that has already exerted environmental, economic and political pressure on governance. Present concerns related to urbanization include but are not limited to the following: better education, improved health and sanitation, higher income levels, housing and transportation, environmental pollution, and social and economic infrastructure requirements.

      The Philippines has more than 1,608 towns and cities with a significant number of conversion of municipalities into cities. In the year 2000, 16 new cities were created and 15 more were converted in the first half of 2001, bringing the total number of cities to 115. Just this year, more cities were proposed to be created. By the year 2020, it is estimated that the country will have more or less 600 cities and urban centers. This natural tendency is best illustrated in the virtual farms of Farmville, just in case you have the opportunity to visit.

 Urbanization of rural and agrarian sectors entail a lot of issues to be resolved, topmost of which is mitigating the costs of urbanization via good urban governance. In the light of urban trend and projections, the following current issues have become very important: poverty reduction, a wider people participation in urban governance, a more rigid line-item budget for development projects (no Congressional lump sums in the form of Priority Development Assistance Funds or "pork barrels"), stronger relationships between public-private sector partnerships, economic development-centered legislation, and an ethics-based judicial system.

One issue that we often sidestep is the intensity of rural-urban relations. For instance, the conversion of agricultural land into industrial, residential and commercial uses underly political processes that reflect particular developmental priorities and political power relations that quite often tend to circumvent bureaucratic regulations at three separate but intertwined levels: policy formulation, local implementation and regulation, and personal relations in rural areas.  Policy formulation, for instance, is easier than having those policies implemented down to the grassroots level.

On September 10, 1971, former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos signed Republic  Act 6389, otherwise known as the Code of Agrarain Reform of the Philippines, thereby turning the entire Philippine archipelago into a land reform area. The ramifications of this Act were overwhelming and sweeping and raised questions about its efficacy relative to objectives and implementation. Even so, the agrarian reform is yet to be finished with no clear accomplishments so far with its infirmities still affluent. 

A classic illustration is the 220-hectare Hacienda Tinang in Concepcion, Tarlac. The hacienda which was once owned by Benigno Aquino, Sr. was sold to the wealthy De Leon family of Pampanga. The De Leon heirs circumvented land reform by faking a voluntary offer of sale under which the land, in parcels, was sold to "farmer-beneficiaries" who were actually members of the De Leon clan composed of the country's wealthiest bankers and businessmen who were able to protect their landed interests.

I cite this case to relate it to the fact that a truthful and determined agrarian reform program is a sure fire avenue towards encouraging agricultural farmers to produce, which is the basic solution to the unrelenting urbanization of the Philippine islands. Where presently we are importing most of our rice from Vietnam, the country might as well dip its fingers deeper into rice and agricultural production by way of agrarian reform.  As of September 2010, the Philippines remains Vietnam's largest rice importer which accounts for nearly 41% of the country's total export value. 

If the Philippine government can turn the trend from labor-exportation to domestic employment and change import-dependency to local agricultural production and industrial  manufacturing, the country can begin to have a glimpse of economic development in the horizon.