bizzovercoffee

environmental, social, political commentaries and clairvoyantiques

confronting crisis

it's almost sona time once more.  after the fanfare, the question is how does one really sustain a stable environment for governance in crisis?

in the u.s., economics in the form of the new deal, the new whatnot, solved the problem or a major part of it.

right now, we don't really know what "new-something" the bush administration has to offer its people during a gripping recession that threatens to blow the citizenry apart into serious polarities, or what manner of inventions and innovations such hardship will become mother to.

and then there is what carnegie or a similar exemplary orator, i think, cites as: the "theory of disaster and opportunity" as twin occurrences.  wealth creation, supposedly occurs simultaneous with disaster, for the nimble minded.  of course that is simple opportunism.  in other cases, in the worst case scenario, fooling people and taking their wealth illegally happens during disaster.  including looting, robbery, theft, even murder.  hence the rcbc robbery massacre artificial portrayal of anarchy during national disaster in the Philippines.

however, indeed the new deal form of plan or program, the marshall plan, etc. could have a positive effect.  this has been done countless times in the country:  pump-priming the economy.  keynesian economics.

what are some of the positive steps?  here are some age-old suggestions:

1992-1999 ---- build a strong national safety sector and generate new partnerships with aid and funding agencies for the new sector, generate new kinds of users' charges such as for flyovers (aircraft not the ortigas flyover, stupid!), etc.

1992-1993 ---- satellite research - development - coordination agency.  raise funds for satellite dependent activities and projects, programs.  in the past, the government kept paying foreign satellite organizations hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars just to digitize microscopic satellite imagery for our mapping purposes, land registration services, etc.  this could have been enhanced and the expenses not necessarily charged to the country's budgets were there more efforts to coordinate with existing and available funds for satellite related projects.

1994-1995 ---- build the office of international projects (cooperation and coordination for local and regional development).  the knowing ones, according to sec. jose almonte during the early phase of the ramos administration, were able to make a business out of discounting treasury bills in the u.s. at a low rate, buying them back and reselling at a profitable cost.  or something to that effect.  at the time, the secretary of finance was del rosario.  white haired albino mr. cuisia and other colleagues of his were together with del rosario at the helm of cory aquino's economic team.  how fortunate for them!

  the positive step to take in this direction is to engage in bank-supported short term currency trading, not hedging on our treasury bills.  unless the fools of the cory administration actually engaged in currency trading but pretended to be merely hedging on t-bills.

1994-1995 ---- infusion, US$7-Billion or more for education infra and software in the country

1999 ---- utilize available us, german, swiss, lichtenstein, et al funds for philippine housing, over and above utilization of dormant world bank and international aided housing programs now worth several billions of dollars.  the money from the donor agencies as of 1999-2000 were supposed to be reverted to sender due to the failure of the government to utilize them and yet the country keeps paying the funding agencies the prescription fees for blocking the accounts to which those funds belong.  our economic managers are extremely stupid!

1999-2000 ---- let funders come in and completely release the project development proposals from "ownership" of little employees who act as if they are the actual country negotiators for the country and collect money from the representatives of funders who may or may not ask for certain fundable project development plans or master plans to be blocked from the public.  one of the classic examples of these in 1999 is one ms. addi santos, who said that the master plan for airports in the country are her "personal property" and that no one! absolutely no one! is allowed to take a peek at them without her express personal permission.  one belgium banker's representative was banned from the dotc (ms. santos' agency) for making a photocopy of one airport development plan.  the general in charge of security was "ordered" by this little functionary at dotc to sign the ban order.  some little person!  could push and shove a retired general around like that!!!  it's such a shame for the country!

1999-2000 ---- proposal for subway, patterned after the model of singapore, with belgian or other similar funding.

1950s or earlier-present ---- instilling of nationalism and patriotism proposals.  a classic example is the staff of the project monitoring staff (pms) of the dotc who say: 

whatever the japanese say about our development projects, we follow.  it's because wala tayong pera.  taga-tanggap lang naman tayo, pulubi tayo.  kung yayain nila tayo kumain, sasama talaga tayo!!!  kasi sila, nagpapakain!!!  busog kami lagi!!!  pag sinabi ng mga japanese sa amin, ito na ang final na gagawin, gagawin talaga na namin iyun!!! even if the japanese says, titihaya na kayo tapos tutuwad, then they say:  "aba! OO!!!"  [god in heavens!!!]

1992 ---- eradication of the usurero and erasing the middle men that form cartels in the primary commodity markets.

fairly recent to recent ---- comprehensive campaign vs. crime, drugs, violent protests.

certainly, there are so many other pump-priming projects.  but katas ng vat is hardly an answer to all our woes!  training and sending more and more ofws is a meager solution to our about-to-explode-social-volcano.  specially since the foreign affairs and labor attache business is not well-managed and attended to.  and now it is infested with worms from within trying to subvert the country's foreign relations!

the government should start with allocation of funds in better places. really better places.

the abovementioned are only glimpses and there are certainly so many bright minds inside the public and even the private sector that could be tapped to help in identifying the places where government could focus its positive fund allocations into.

finally, stop corruption so that all the funds will go to their right destinations.

kill greed.

balance trade.

stop media from pulling the country down.

unify the people. promote solidarity.

encourage dissent but radically stop the violent revolts.

encourage reformists.  specially inside government.

mind the poor, mind the hungry and disenfranchised of society.

posted by: ezky at 23:57 | link | comments |
politics, corazon aquino, cory, state of the nation address, sona, corazon cory aquino, governance, trading, economic pump priming, foreign relations, rcbc robbery-massacre, aviation flyovers, satellite, bank currency trading, stop corruption, trade balance, katas ng vat, gma solutions, sona 2008

Referral to Blogs

one would like to refer the following posts in other blogs:

-- the President GMA SONA of 2008

-- the Beijing Olympics of 2008

-- the Bush-Obama-McCain-Arroyo Conference

happy weekend!!! happy reading!!!  and more power to all of you bloggers!!!

posted by: ezky at 23:04 | link | comments |
president arroyo, state of the nation address, sona, batasan, congress joint session, 2008-2009 programs, opening session congress