Dr. John's Commentary on Corruption Practices in the Local Government

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Foreign Debt ? ?

When the food and energy crisis came out in the open, a raging debate involving public institutions, big business, and key government officials, including President Arroyo exploded. Hitherto, while the exchanges were intense and sometimes dramatic, the substance of the discussions was rather superficial, if not one-dimensional. Fault-finding, mudslinging and populist posturing dominated the supposedly joint pondering for concrete proposals and solutions. I believe, at the very least, all parties wanted to wash their guilty hands of any responsibility regarding the current mess. At best, everybody wants to rake in huge profits, politically and economically, out of the predicament by cutting each other’s throats. Nowhere in the picture was any truthful search for the derivation of all these crises and economic maladies in order to arrive at sound proposals. Except for the social movements, cause-oriented groups and Ill-meaning economists, almost all were contented in throwing all sorts of prescriptions, proposals and recommendations without the benefit of a clear and thorough diagnosis of the problem.

People are asking, What caused this problem? Certainly, there are many legitimate causes and all must be dealt with decisively. But, truth be told, if I really want to seriously answer the question why I am in this mess in the first place, I assert that one just needs to look at the Philippines’ enduring debt problem in order to find out.

Due to the failure of succeeding post-Marcos administrations to concretely solve the compounding debt problem—an elemental social-justice issue before and after the fall of the dictatorship—today’s generation of Filipino citizens are paying for that historical disappointment with such tremendous consequences.

In the agriculture sector alone, succeeding administrations from the time of President Corazon Aquino had used borrowings as a major source of financing, heavily depending on debt to implement its programs and projects. The agricultural agencies themselves facilitated this by calling on lenders to finance domestic projects, labeled as foreign-assisted projects, usually through official development assistance and other forms of “concessional” financing, many of which were challenged as fraudulent or anomalous, if not illegitimate.

Why? Because a large part of the people’s resources are being allocated to debt payments instead of to social and economic services. Proof of this, the combined real national government expenditure for agriculture, agrarian reform and natural resources per capita dropped from a meager P 121.24 during the end of the Marcos years to an insulting P 194.91 under Mrs. Arroyo.

Moreover, the sector became increasingly vulnerable to the predicaments attached to many loans such as liberalization, deregulation and privatization. For example, in the Grain Sector Development Project of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) contracted in 1998, and which calls for the privatization of the National Food Authority. The government’s rice-procurement agency, which sets the prices for Palay, The Filipinos are still paying an average of $4 million a year until 2024. This is regardless of the fact that the project was already canceled. Due to these predicaments, foreign competitors came rushing in to the domestic rice market, thereby wiping out local producers whose value cannot compete with their cheap prices. Candidly put, I along with my family became dependent on imported rice.

Agricultural production is increasing; from 7.65 million metric tons in 1980, it jumped to 16.24 million metric tons in 2007. The policy predicaments simply pushed us to import more and more, from 192,020 metric tons in 1984 to 2.1 million metric tons in 2008. Accurately speaking, when international markets collapse, so does our food security. The same goes with the power sector. I remind the public, the eight- to 10-hour power outages during the early 1990s were caused by Marcos’s legacy of debt, exacerbated by Aquino’s “honor all debts” dictum which drained the national coffers of money to invest in added power-generating capacity.

Ramos’s own solution had been simple yet very damaging: rely on more debt. Using the build-operate-transfer law, he proceeded to dangle lopsided contracts to attract investments on the power sector. He issued sovereign guarantees for private loans and changes in exchange-rate and oil prices, and even promised, via take-or-pay schemes, to buy a stipulated amount of electricity from those who will generate, whether or not the electricity had been generated or used. With risk-free capitalism in place, independent power producers (IPPs) rushed in to take advantage.

As a result, the National Power Corp. (Napocor) ended up at the losing end of the contracts with IPPs, running on billion-peso deficits, which the government ended up assuming. Indebted, the government had no choice but to rely on multilateral lenders like the ADB and the World Bank, dangling loans with privatization of the power industry as primary predicament. In the end, Napocor is bailed out, and I as a taxpayers is paying for its debts.

Talk about full circle! Oppressive debt was the culprit of our power-generating incapacity, which was allegedly solved by additional indebtedness, and yet, today, I as a Filipino is not only indebted but I also have the second-highest electricity rates in Asia and one of the highest in the world.

Due to this stupefying somersault of debts and predicaments, the country’s power industry evolved into one of the most complex and esoteric cases of an enduring dilemma which have mutated into a multiple problem of corruption, mismanagement, endemic rent-seeking elite and a fundamentally flawed framework.

Ergo, if the Arroyo government is serious in structurally addressing the food, education, social services and energy crisis, then it must understand that photo-ops, selective reforms, political operations, cover-ups and “saintly” populist posturing will never in essence solve the problem. The Filipino people have paid for these debts many times over. To let our people and their children continue paying for debts they didn’t benefit from, have only caused them further poverty or which they don’t even owe in the first place is righteously and without disbelief the greatest sin of all.

My Mindset thru my Mindscape

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Are you accomplishing the goals you have set for yourself or are you giving in to your environment. Nobody thought in my family, neighbor and childhood friends that I will be I am now. I was a very shy, no confidence typical boy in my childhood days. I could still remember my first day in pre-school in 1976, when I was full of reluctance in study. What I know on my mind then was I like to play, play and play? I never value the essence of education, even when I was in grade one I was just a child that never knows the cause and effect of studying and not studying. Often times I developed alibis during those days so that my I could skip classes, from diarrhea, headache, stomach pain and others. My parents were so irritated by these scenarios forcing them from transferring me from one school to another. I really do not like to study then, I don’t know the reason but as for me, I was looking for something that I do not know, searching answer to questions that has no question mark. So, during my last three years in elementary my parents and sisters decided to enroll me in a public school. It’s a big turn-around shift for me on matters pertaining to such environment. I was then in an expensive private school then suddenly I was in a public school. A very different environment, I became acquainted to pupils who live in squatter areas, the attitudes and way of living was so different, they even do not have money to purchased shoes and school uniforms. I had so many things to query then on myself by I can’t find answer. Thus, this causes a lot of discouragement on my part, I often absent in my class for the reason that I have so many classmates who did a lot of bullying and extortion activities. I was so afraid that I was always the subject of teased and jokes. I want to fight back, but I can’t, they were strong build kids whose street brawling experience was evident in their face and body scars. But, I have no choice, just to endure the environment and finished my elementary course as an ordinary pupil.

In high school, it was a different story my sister insisted to my parents that I should be enroll in an exclusive catholic school for boys. I never thought then that I could pass the entrance exam with flying colors and series of interviews with good comments to me. My first day in high school was very memorable it was happy moment me. As, if I was free from poor, bad looking environment of a public school not to mentioned the bullying, and offending attitude of the pupil. That time and on and on, my drive to study inspires my consciousness to aspire for the best. I was a consistent honor student, and some sort of an achiever, I won numerous debate, oratorical and declamation contest. Maybe, these achievements gave me inspiration to be involved in politics and public service today. But, still, I have insecurities and little confidence on certain things such as wealth, material things, money, attention and popularity. Studying in an exclusive expensive school where most of the student belongs to rich and wealthy families, where some students were celebrities and movie stars plus those students whose parents were politicians and government officials. It was very hard to set a mindset that we were all equal. The fact they belong to an upper strata of the society, gave me more negative attitude on enhancing my confidence level. But even if such attitude crossed the penumbra of my mind, I continued to study hard in order for me to climb and reach an undefined goal. Well these high school days were really unforgettable. My mother died when I was in high school and has very difficult time getting along with my father who is a full blooded military officer, being a retired general in the defunct Philippine Constabulary. I would have easily given into the stereotypes of children raised in family environment of fear and distance. Being the youngest in a family of six children and my age gap to my sister that I follow is nine years.

I have a very difficult time getting along with my four sisters and my only brother, whose age is enough to be my father. Think about it, there are a lot of people who think and even say that being alone and not supported by a family will not amount to anything or be able to finish college. Thank God, I had a high school Priest teacher in religion that has a strong in his relationship with God and wanted more for us his students than he had. He encouraged my classmates and I have to finish my education and do more than he had done.

Knowing what my environment was in my hometown of San Mateo Rizal, prior to graduating high school from Aquinas School, San Juan, my sister decided for me to enroll in dentistry, while my mind and heart is shouting within that I must enroll in Journalism. Little did I know what challenges faced me. So, being very dependent on my dominant sisters, I tried to appreciate dentistry in University of the East, but my mind is on journalism and politics. That is why at that time even if I became a staff writer of our school organization paper then later on I run as student council officer and won. Maybe, this is really my calling to be an activist and a public servant. But I don’t know where in the family line I inherited this line. My grandfather was a military officer as well as my father, brother and other relatives. Coming to my attention then that my family will not support me of my education, I decided to shift my course from dentistry to Accountancy. I took Accountancy not because I like it but rather that is the only course which offers a scholarship.

Regardless of such barriers I continue studying and focus hard on my course so that I could finish college and I can be free from my family. And well I do finished college with a high note of memorable moments. For the reason that even if I was a scholar, I was still considered an activist having joined numerous rallies and demonstrations against anti-student policies of the school. My grades suffer and even my scholarship was put into trashed by the so-called capitalist educators of that time. After graduation, finding a job was another story, it wasn’t just easy for me catching a work that would support my independence, and I tried real estate sales, office jobs, marketing and others. I was not satisfied of what I was doing so I hibernate. But my life, doesn’t end there, I took my Master in Business Administration and finished it this time as number one in the graduating class as Cum Laude and after it take again another Masters in Education. Later in my life, I decided to return to school for a Doctorate in Christian Leadership and Organization Development, through the help of my College professor, I got a scholarship in San Diego California. During that time of study, I encountered so many challenges, being the only Asian in the class composed of Americans and Europeans, sometimes discriminations is always an issue. With almost two years of study and hard work I graduated with honors and received my Doctorate in Christian Leadership and Organizational Development. But, I didn’t stopped my quest towards education, I enroll again in another Doctorate course when I came back in our country, this time in special field of educational management, for I like to realized my dream of owning a school someday, again after grueling study and tedious stress, I graduated this time as a Doctor of Education. My life indeed is very hard to describe for I have been in so many fields of work and experience. I have work in a private firm, which I learn the concepts and manipulations of greedy businessmen. I have been in government, where I learned the survival principle in living in their jungle that is full of animal with different corrupt predators; I have been in politics as a Municipal Councilor, where I learned the irresponsibility of our voters and constituent in their participation in the practice of democracy, not to mentioned the rampant corruption activities motivated by the power makers and political kingpins. I also studied in Hawaii, California and Washington, where I learned the different aspects of law enforcement and the use of imperial power to dominate a weak entity. And now, I am in the academe where I learned the capitalistic attitude of some educational administrators in gaining profit in exchange of substandard education. Then thought that I have a new calling, I’ve decided to continue studying, and I have earned units in Doctor of Public Administration, Doctor of Business Administration and also Bachelor of Laws. Recently, I’ve took Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Studies, where I was transformed from a multi-disciplinary educator and political analyst to a infant environmentalist that is gaining weekly environmental nutrition from my mother-like professors, whose dedication to live is protect and care for our mother planet. But, I was disappointed of the result of my semester. This is for the reason that the advocacy which I am newly awake was not properly being push by the administrators of the school. The elite attitude of some personalities of the college was hampering the real essence of promoting an environmental ideology. What is the essence of enrolling in their graduate program if the one teaching is not acting or doing their job as teachers? Their subjective attitude does not fit them to be a professor or a teacher. Sometimes, we need to start learning how to be objective inside the classroom and forget our biases when teaching.

Having a very creative and independent daughter, life to me is easy to manage, the inspiration and motivation that my family is giving just enough for me to reach the dream that I am aspiring. It was really that one day my daughter asked me a question. “Dad when will you stop studying?” I was shocked and really don’t know what to answer. I just told her that someday you will understand and know the answer. With such situation, I decided on my own that I will not anymore pursue another doctorate or any educational degree. But I don’t know, maybe God really has a plan for me, when I was surfing I saw this website offering a Doctorate in Social Development. My hungry educational addictive sub-conscious mind push me to visit the university offering the program, then presto, it a glimpsed of a moment I enrolled. Social Development as a discipline is not new to me having been an activist, politician, environmentalist and community organizer; these gave me more of interest in pursuing the course and attaining the degree. Roman 8: 28 manifest that all things work together for good according to God’s purpose. I believe that such surfing in the internet where I found the degree which I am interested was not accidental. God has a purpose on everything, and I need to search for his purpose to me and use it according to his will and plan.

Am I saying that life is easy? No. Am I saying that you will have a challenge everyday in life? No. What I am saying to you is your mindset is the key to your success, finances or your demise. According to American Heritage Dictionary mindset is “a fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations. What that means is it has already been decided how you would react to a situation based on how you handled the situation before. Let me give you an example, if you hear a sound in the car that doesn’t sound right what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Is it that it doesn’t sound good, I know it’s going to cost me a lot of money? Or is it, I have been wanting to get my car checked and any necessary repairs fixed. Remember Proverbs 23:7 says, “So as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” So if you think the car is going to cost a lot of money to repair it probably will. When we think things we tend to speak it out. Usually we speak negativity in and over our own lives. Today is a new day and through this reflection paper, you will be encouraged to renew your mindset to God’s word. A better way of thinking for success and not failure.

How many of you have heard the scripture, Philippians 4:8 which says, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Your mindset will not change overnight, but you can begin the process of renewing your mind. Begin thinking you will succeed and don’t be afraid of success. There are people who are their own hindrance to success. As you will notice in each circumstance above, I had already purposed that I was going to succeed and reach my goals.

It’s your turn; grab a hold of your promises.