Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
A statement on GMA's State of the Nation Address (SONA) vis a vis the True State of the Filipino People
Enough of GMA rule! Enough of elite repressive, pro-imperialist rule
Come July 27, the illegitimate GMA presidency shall be delivering its 9th State of the Nation Address. It shall be speaking before a nation that refuses to believe but a nation forced to listen because such hated presidency imposes itself on it.
It is supposedly its last SONA. But again, most people do not believe it will be her last. Signs point to her maneuvering for an extended rule, by whatever means – be it through a change in the form of government through Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) or through the imposition of some form of emergency rule. Such relentless maneuvering, in fact, is one of the major features that defines the present state of the nation.
Abusive exercise of raw power, on the one hand, and the struggle to check it and GMA’s lust for extended power, on the other, have characterized Philippine politics throughout GMA’s illegitimate presidency. This abuse of power, in substance and form, exposed the bankruptcy, the fallacy, of this supposed ‘free, and longest surviving , democracy’ in Asia.
GMA policies and programs throughout her rule have been attacks on the interests of the poor majority - EPIRA, EVAT, further deregulation, further privatization, MLSA, the war in Mindanao. They were pushed against the expressed opposition of the people. GMA and her minions plundered the public coffers and stifled dissent. Protests were met with the calibrated preemptive response (CPR), with violent dispersals, with extra judicial killings, forced disappearances, trumped up charges, libels and incarceration of oppositionists. She went as far as declaration of state of national emergency in February 2007.
To kowtow to US interests, GMA allows the continued presence of US troops in the country. US troops now freely roam our land under pretext of an unending succession of Balikatan exercises since 2002. The “visitors” have settled permanently, formed a regular command (JSOTF-P) and taken over nearly half of Camp Andrews in Zamboanga.
Plundering officials, cheaters and murderers of activists remain scot-free – Garcillano and GMA despite the electoral cheating, Lorenzo despite the aviation fuel scam, Bolante and GMA’s congressional allies despite the fertilizer scam, DPWH officials despite the Diosdado Macapagal highway scam, Mike Arroyo despite the ZTE-NBN scam, GMA’s Malacanang staff despite the ” payola”, Palparan despite the extra judicial killings, and so on, and so forth. The idea of public accountability, basic to a democracy, has gone with the wind.
Processes have been trampled upon to impose not only its policies but its rule as well. Elections, legislative investigations, impeachment process, open debate, public consultations, and judicial processes – have been distorted to promote and protect the ruling clique’s interests. Railroading and the tyranny of numbers have become the rule.
GMA has mired our country deeper in debt. Every Filipino now owes Php36,000 in public debt.
What has all these led to? What is the present state of our nation?
We are now in the midst of crisis - a crisis of a severity never seen before by this generation. The crisis is felt from the plushiest villages to the most depressed squatter areas; from the most developed centers like Makati to the lowliest upland communities of indigenous peoples. Income are declining while prices of such basic commodities as rice, sugar, coffee, meat, and charges for such basic services as electricity, water, health care and education are on the rise.
Factories are either folding up or reducing production, affecting the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of working class families. The escape from the misery imposed by the system – overseas contract work - is fast constricting and average OFW remittance is decreasing. Peasant production goes bankrupt, burdened by increasing prices of farm inputs and competition from dumped imported agricultural produce. Urban poor communities are demolished to give way to malls and country clubs.
An increasing number of our youth are dropping out of school. Health care further deteriorates as nurses and doctors migrate to other countries in search of better opportunities, and as medicine prices rise. Environmentally-degraded communities are continuously threatened, if not actually devastated, by natural disasters and the war in Mindanao; people forced to evacuate languish in cramped evacuation centers - hungry, sick with only international institutions providing for their needs.
Filipinos are increasingly getting desperate.
‘Globalization’ and its concomitant policies of liberalization, privatization and deregulation, which GMA so persistently pushed from her senatorial days and further expanded during her presidency, has rendered the Philippine economy even more vulnerable to the operation and super profit extraction of global capital and to the vagaries of the global market, at the expense of the local economy’s health and of our people’s well-being.
Democratic exercise has never been this low. Exasperation over warped ”democratic processes” combined with systematic repression have rubbed on the people their powerlessness in the face of raw power exercised by the GMA clique.
Meanwhile, supposed political leaders - politicians- are so pre-occupied with their struggle for power, unmindful of the people’s misery amidst the crisis and the people’s aspiration for a better life. Social security funds for emergencies wrought by the crisis are not available. No effective crisis mitigation measures are in place. Whatever there are, are cosmetic measures.
Worse, politicians are conspiring on further attacks on democracy and on national patrimony and sovereignty. This Damocles sword, which hangs over the head of the nation, comes in the form of proposed charter changes.
Charter change proponents, GMA the most rabid among them, seek to attune the 1987 Constitution to the tenets of neo-liberalism or ‘globalization’. This despite the widespread worsened poverty ‘globalization’ has generated worldwide and despite the crisis it has engendered in the world economy. Simultaneously, they propose further restrictions on democratic rights and civil liberties.
Through the proposed insertion of the word ‘responsible’ as qualifier to basic rights defined in the Constitution, the proponents in fact seek to restrict the exercise of such rights. “(Ir)responsible exercise of press freedom” was invoked for the raid and padlocking of Manila Tribune in February 2007. “(Ir)responsible exercise of right to assembly” was the justification then for violently dispersing mass protests.
Proponents seek to further expand land monopoly by altering, thus liberalizing, restrictions on private access to ownership/control of erstwhile public land. Landlordism will further be expanded. Worse, foreign ownership of land and other natural resources in the Philippines is being promoted. This, in the midst of widespread clamor for land among landless Filipino peasants and urban dwellers.
Restrictions on foreign operations in media and education, both vital to the development of the national culture, are being dropped.
For GMA, charter change is also the vehicle by which she hopes to extend her rule, plunder the public coffers further and retain immunity from suits. Thus, the indecent haste and shameless maneuverings for Con-Ass. By whatever means, the GMA camp will push for charter changes, not only to please the big interests - foreign and local - that dominate Philippine society, but more so to protect their own necks. The spectre of accounting for the various crimes committed against the people haunts and impels the GMA clique to use all resources and power at their command to effect the proposed charter changes.
Defending democratic rights and civil liberties, and safeguarding and asserting national patrimony and national sovereignty now rest on the masses of the Filipino people. We call on all Filipinos to stand up to respond to this social responsibility.
Frustrate GMA’s maneuver to extend her repressive, corrupt, anti-national rule!
Assert our rights amidst the crisis!
No to charter changes under elite rule!
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD) – Cebu
July 2009
Come July 27, the illegitimate GMA presidency shall be delivering its 9th State of the Nation Address. It shall be speaking before a nation that refuses to believe but a nation forced to listen because such hated presidency imposes itself on it.
It is supposedly its last SONA. But again, most people do not believe it will be her last. Signs point to her maneuvering for an extended rule, by whatever means – be it through a change in the form of government through Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) or through the imposition of some form of emergency rule. Such relentless maneuvering, in fact, is one of the major features that defines the present state of the nation.
Abusive exercise of raw power, on the one hand, and the struggle to check it and GMA’s lust for extended power, on the other, have characterized Philippine politics throughout GMA’s illegitimate presidency. This abuse of power, in substance and form, exposed the bankruptcy, the fallacy, of this supposed ‘free, and longest surviving , democracy’ in Asia.
GMA policies and programs throughout her rule have been attacks on the interests of the poor majority - EPIRA, EVAT, further deregulation, further privatization, MLSA, the war in Mindanao. They were pushed against the expressed opposition of the people. GMA and her minions plundered the public coffers and stifled dissent. Protests were met with the calibrated preemptive response (CPR), with violent dispersals, with extra judicial killings, forced disappearances, trumped up charges, libels and incarceration of oppositionists. She went as far as declaration of state of national emergency in February 2007.
To kowtow to US interests, GMA allows the continued presence of US troops in the country. US troops now freely roam our land under pretext of an unending succession of Balikatan exercises since 2002. The “visitors” have settled permanently, formed a regular command (JSOTF-P) and taken over nearly half of Camp Andrews in Zamboanga.
Plundering officials, cheaters and murderers of activists remain scot-free – Garcillano and GMA despite the electoral cheating, Lorenzo despite the aviation fuel scam, Bolante and GMA’s congressional allies despite the fertilizer scam, DPWH officials despite the Diosdado Macapagal highway scam, Mike Arroyo despite the ZTE-NBN scam, GMA’s Malacanang staff despite the ” payola”, Palparan despite the extra judicial killings, and so on, and so forth. The idea of public accountability, basic to a democracy, has gone with the wind.
Processes have been trampled upon to impose not only its policies but its rule as well. Elections, legislative investigations, impeachment process, open debate, public consultations, and judicial processes – have been distorted to promote and protect the ruling clique’s interests. Railroading and the tyranny of numbers have become the rule.
GMA has mired our country deeper in debt. Every Filipino now owes Php36,000 in public debt.
What has all these led to? What is the present state of our nation?
We are now in the midst of crisis - a crisis of a severity never seen before by this generation. The crisis is felt from the plushiest villages to the most depressed squatter areas; from the most developed centers like Makati to the lowliest upland communities of indigenous peoples. Income are declining while prices of such basic commodities as rice, sugar, coffee, meat, and charges for such basic services as electricity, water, health care and education are on the rise.
Factories are either folding up or reducing production, affecting the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of working class families. The escape from the misery imposed by the system – overseas contract work - is fast constricting and average OFW remittance is decreasing. Peasant production goes bankrupt, burdened by increasing prices of farm inputs and competition from dumped imported agricultural produce. Urban poor communities are demolished to give way to malls and country clubs.
An increasing number of our youth are dropping out of school. Health care further deteriorates as nurses and doctors migrate to other countries in search of better opportunities, and as medicine prices rise. Environmentally-degraded communities are continuously threatened, if not actually devastated, by natural disasters and the war in Mindanao; people forced to evacuate languish in cramped evacuation centers - hungry, sick with only international institutions providing for their needs.
Filipinos are increasingly getting desperate.
‘Globalization’ and its concomitant policies of liberalization, privatization and deregulation, which GMA so persistently pushed from her senatorial days and further expanded during her presidency, has rendered the Philippine economy even more vulnerable to the operation and super profit extraction of global capital and to the vagaries of the global market, at the expense of the local economy’s health and of our people’s well-being.
Democratic exercise has never been this low. Exasperation over warped ”democratic processes” combined with systematic repression have rubbed on the people their powerlessness in the face of raw power exercised by the GMA clique.
Meanwhile, supposed political leaders - politicians- are so pre-occupied with their struggle for power, unmindful of the people’s misery amidst the crisis and the people’s aspiration for a better life. Social security funds for emergencies wrought by the crisis are not available. No effective crisis mitigation measures are in place. Whatever there are, are cosmetic measures.
Worse, politicians are conspiring on further attacks on democracy and on national patrimony and sovereignty. This Damocles sword, which hangs over the head of the nation, comes in the form of proposed charter changes.
Charter change proponents, GMA the most rabid among them, seek to attune the 1987 Constitution to the tenets of neo-liberalism or ‘globalization’. This despite the widespread worsened poverty ‘globalization’ has generated worldwide and despite the crisis it has engendered in the world economy. Simultaneously, they propose further restrictions on democratic rights and civil liberties.
Through the proposed insertion of the word ‘responsible’ as qualifier to basic rights defined in the Constitution, the proponents in fact seek to restrict the exercise of such rights. “(Ir)responsible exercise of press freedom” was invoked for the raid and padlocking of Manila Tribune in February 2007. “(Ir)responsible exercise of right to assembly” was the justification then for violently dispersing mass protests.
Proponents seek to further expand land monopoly by altering, thus liberalizing, restrictions on private access to ownership/control of erstwhile public land. Landlordism will further be expanded. Worse, foreign ownership of land and other natural resources in the Philippines is being promoted. This, in the midst of widespread clamor for land among landless Filipino peasants and urban dwellers.
Restrictions on foreign operations in media and education, both vital to the development of the national culture, are being dropped.
For GMA, charter change is also the vehicle by which she hopes to extend her rule, plunder the public coffers further and retain immunity from suits. Thus, the indecent haste and shameless maneuverings for Con-Ass. By whatever means, the GMA camp will push for charter changes, not only to please the big interests - foreign and local - that dominate Philippine society, but more so to protect their own necks. The spectre of accounting for the various crimes committed against the people haunts and impels the GMA clique to use all resources and power at their command to effect the proposed charter changes.
Defending democratic rights and civil liberties, and safeguarding and asserting national patrimony and national sovereignty now rest on the masses of the Filipino people. We call on all Filipinos to stand up to respond to this social responsibility.
Frustrate GMA’s maneuver to extend her repressive, corrupt, anti-national rule!
Assert our rights amidst the crisis!
No to charter changes under elite rule!
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD) – Cebu
July 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
A Primer Statement on the Current Move of Congress on Charter Change
Prepared by Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya- Cebu
Education and Prop Committee
Before the 14th session of Congress ended last June 3, 2009, the House of Representatives has done it again and has deliberately affirmed doubts from the people that indeed they are not the bearer of the Filipino people’s interests in the passage of H.R. 1109 (Convening Congress into a Constituent Assembly through Joint Voting). This means that time will not be a question to call the Constituent Assembly or Con-Ass to get the Charter Change train rolling.
There is more in the current attempt for Charter Change other than the controversial term extension; its ultimate objective is to scrap out the remaining nationalist and patriotic provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. This however is why this primer is released to shed light to the issue of Charter Change.
At this juncture, the question lies should the people dare resist again or by now, shall the proponents of the chacha train will breakthrough its rolling.
1. Why does the GMA government never give up Charter Change and thus become a yearly political issue?
The membership of the Phil. Republic to the WTO is the gateway why attempts of changing the Constitution never faded. Under the global neo-liberal paradigm , the 1987 Constitution has become obsolete. This is also why other than GMA, The former presidents also strongly pursued the CHACHA track (FVR, ERAP).
Now under GMA, it will serve more than that, it shall prop up to its self serving objective of achieving “political bearing”.
2. What are the current moves of Changing the Constitution?
Under the current 14th Congress, there had been 30 resolutions (30) all are about Charter Change – seven (7) bills, nine (9) concurrent resolutions, two (2) joint resolutions, & twelve (12) house resolutions. Twenty-one (21) of these calls upon the Constituional Convention, con-ass or people’s initiative to push through Chacha. The ff. are the ones heard in Congress
1.) House Resolution 737 na inihain ni Speaker Prospero Nograles (Lakas-CMD, Davao) na naglalayong baguhin ang ilang pang-ekonomikong probisyon na nilalaman ng Article 12 – “Proposing amendments to Sections 2 and 3, Article XII of the Constitution, allowing the acquisition by foreign corporations and associations and the transfer of conveyance thereto of alienable public lands and private lands”;
2.) House Resolution 1109 ni Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte (at presidente ng KAMPI, ang partido pulitikal ni GMA), “Convening Congress into a Constituent Assembly through joint voting”;
3.) House Resolution 739 ni Sorsogon Rep. Jose Solis (KAMPI), “Convening Congress into a Constituent Assembly for the purpose of revising the Constitution to establish a federal system of government”;
4.) House Resolution 769 ni Camiguin Rep. Pedro Romualdo (Lakas), “Providing for specific amendments and revision to the 1987 Constitution”;
5.) House Resolution 819 ni Tawi-tawi Rep. Nur G. Jaafar (Lakas-CMD), “Convening a joint session of Congress to revise the Constitution”;
6.) House Resolution 858 ni Rep. Rene Velarde (BUHAY), “Calling for a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments to, or revision of, the Constitution of the Philippines”
In the senate, the proposed resolutions all called for Concon and all is track to pursue Chacha beyond 2010 election – Senate Bill 2923 of Sen. Manuel Roxas II, SB 819 of Sen. Benigno Aquino III, and another SB proposed by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon.
3. What are the proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution?
Amidst imperfections of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, there are formal recognitions of the people’s democratic rights and civil liberties and formally recognizes the priority of Filipinos in some areas of the economy.
Article 3 (Bill of Rights) & Article 12 (National Patrimony and Economy) situates provisions prohibiting the entry of foreign military troops and nuclear weapon in the Philippine territory.
Particularly the ff are the proposed amendments:
Under Article XII
• 100% foreign ownership to corporations and intensifying private/foreign ownership including the public utilities (energy, water, education and media) mining, telecommunication.
• Foreign ownership on land
• Eliminating protection of “unfair competition and trade practices” to the Filipino entrepreneurs
• Eliminating provisions from the Labor Code and further intensifying labor-only contracting and contractualization
• Eliminating protection for local production of goods and services submitting to the unregulated inflow of foreign goods and services.
Under Art. II Declaration of State Policies, Art. III Bill of Rights
In 2007, R.A. 9372 Human Security Act had been successfully approved amidst opposition of it being unnecessary and unconstitutional; nevertheless there are other pending bills intensifying US Military Presence in the Country.
Particularly, Art. III Bill of Rights Sec. 4 is proposed to add the phrase “responsible exercise”
4. What can we, as nationalist and patriotic Filipino people do?
Every year, the people have been vigilant against any attempt to change the Constitution. And in every year the people have always proven that mandate indeed emanates from them, in fact our history amply shows. Let us then show that we don’t merely accept injustice and deception; on the contrary, we stand by the truth and justice.
5. What are other efforts against the Charter Change?
Locally, there is an alliance initiated by various civil society groups, people’s organizations including concern citizens from the church, academe: the SUPAK CHACHA (Sugbuanong Pagpakabana Kontra sa ChaCha ni Gloria) is a committed alliance against the HR 1109.
Nationally, SUPAK ChaCha coordinates with TINDIGNATION, a national, broader, anti-H.R. 1109 Coalition
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)