Making sense of it all
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Streetwise/BusinessWorld
October 1-2, 2004
Back to Alternative Reader Index
It hit me at half past midnight and sent me straight to
bed to dream about my column instead of working on it using that
indispensable writing aid called the word processor. I refer to none other
than the looming power crisis, by way of an unannounced, therefore
thoroughly unexpected "brownout."
Crisis is the
buzzword these days. Inundated by all this talk of crisis, emanating from
no less than the President, ordinary citizens like us must try to make
some sense of what is really going on.
To our political
leaders and economic policy makers, the fiscal crisis means the people
should accept the inevitability of more and higher taxes, higher prices,
wage freeze, further cuts in social services, and shouldering the debts of
government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) like Napocor and
government financial institutions (GFIs) like GSIS [Government Service
Insurance System].
We are told that the
bulk of the government budget will go to servicing our public debt because
there is no way we can get around it except to keep paying so that we can
go on borrowing or else our fiscal crisis can become a full-blown
financial crisis once our creditors decide to stop lending us the money to
cover our budget deficit.
We are advised that
external forces beyond our control are causing mayhem on the economy. The
runaway price of oil and the sharp slide of the peso versus the dollar
translate into a ballooning import bill. On the other hand, the future of
our top export commodity, Filipino labor, is uncertain in the face of
intense fighting in Iraq, Palestine
and instability elsewhere in the Middle East, stiff competition from other
similarly impoverished, labor-exporting countries and the heightened
racial discrimination and state paranoia in the labor-importing countries
generated by the so-called war against terrorism.
Finally we are
assured that this period of enforced pain and self-abnegation will lead us
out of the crisis and into a brighter future where the Arroyo government's
promises of food on every table, jobs, a roof over one's head, education
for our youth and health care for all those in need will be a reality
rather than a promise tiresomely repeated during the President's yearly
state-of-the-nation address.
Thanks, but no
thanks. Many ordinary folk are beginning to ask questions the government
will find consternating if not "destabilizing."
Instead of imposing
new taxes on the people already burdened by a regressive tax system that
taxes the poor and not the rich, why not collect the PhP100 billion lost
annually since 1995 due to drastic tariff cuts resulting from the
government's over eagerness in hewing to the trade liberalization regime
of the IMF-World Bank and the World Trade Organization.
Instead of raising
government fees including court and other legal fees, why not put a stop
to excessive fiscal incentives and tax exemptions for foreign investments
amounting to PhP179 billion lost yearly.
Rather than pass off
the burden of bailing out GOCCs to consumers and taxpayers, why not run
after the crook/s that approved onerous contracts and gave sovereign
guarantees that reward profiteering and inefficiency of IPPs.
Why not get rid of
the incompetent fat cats who run their GOCCs to the ground and enjoy hefty
salaries and perks while they're at it? (By the way, may we ask why we
continue to pay for what Senator Lorenzo Tañada called the Marcos
"monument to folly," the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant?)
How about taking
President Arroyo to account for deciding to cut the purchase power
adjustment (PPA) to 40 centavos per kilowatt hour without any clear
objective except to raise her popularity rating from an all time low.
What about the
billions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth stashed away by the US-backed
dictator Marcos and no less hefty sums of money plundered by the corrupt
Estrada regime? Will these be "negotiated" away on the altar of
reconciliation without justice?
Will government look
the other way in the face of reported losses in revenue of up to PhP120
billion yearly due to graft and corruption? Whatever happened to the hue
and cry over the scandal-ridden IMPSA IPP negotiated under the month-old
Arroyo administration with a reputed kickback of $14 million and the
billion-peso Diosdado Macapagal Avenue scam involving the Philippine
Estates Authority and the GSIS?
Belt tightening says
the government. But why not trim the fat off the President's pork as well
and not just the notoriously venal Congress. Why not get rid of unaudited
intelligence funds allocated to all sorts of agencies of government
starting with the Office of the President, including- -- you won't believe
this -- Pagcor.
Why lop off 2005
budgetary allocations for health, education and housing when total debt
servicing is projected at a whopping PhP645.8 billion or more than half
the government's total projected expenses in 2005? Put another way, why
allow debt servicing to consume 85% of government's projected revenue next
year leaving only 15% for everything else.
Why blindly continue
the debt policies of all the governments that came after Marcos including
that of not questioning, not repudiating nor renegotiating onerous debt
incurred by the dictator with the connivance of the multinational banks?
Why not a moratorium or at least a cap on debt service instead of the
automatic appropriations of scant public funds for debt payments?
A thoroughgoing and
transparent audit of the debts incurred from the Marcos time to the
present is certainly in order. In particular, the Arroyo administration
must answer some hard questions as to why the last two years of its first
term saw the highest sustained borrowing in two-and-a-half decades making
this government the most indebted in Philippine history with a total
public debt of PhP5.9 trillion by September 2004.
Certainly, there can
be no quick fix solutions to the current fiscal woes of the Arroyo
government. The long running, deeply rooted and systemic underpinnings of
the fiscal crisis in our backward, semi-feudal and pre-industrial economy
that is at the mercy of foreign monopoly, especially finance, capital and
subject to the vagaries of the international market economy, does not
auger well for any solutions in the intermediate future either.
Yes, any real
solutions will entail painful measures that will certainly be borne by
all, including the mass of toiling people who have been carrying the brunt
of sacrifice for ages.
For this reason, it
is imperative to ensure that any prescription and harsh therapy will lead
us out of the crisis of this rotting system towards a long-term cure,
rather than merely tide us over, if at all, until the next major
convulsion, the next acute exacerbation of our chronic socio-economic,
political and moral crisis.
(For reader comment and feedback please email at
carol_araullo@yahoo.com.)
Bulatlat
Past Alternative Readers
BACK TO TOP ■
COMMENT
© 2004 Bulatlat
■ Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified. |