Winds of democracy in the Philippines

December 25, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

By Sonny Africa

Delivered at the International People’s Research Network (IPRN) Webinar on “Building People’s Democracy” held on November 27, 2020

What struggles to build a democratic society truly fulfill the aspirations of the people? IBON will briefly share our experience in the Philippine context and look forward to discussions to enrich this from different perspectives. The winds of democracy are blowing strong here.

We can start by affirming the essential character of the Philippine state. It remains as it has always been – political and economic elites inextricably intertwined and using the powers of government to advance their narrow interests. But it may be useful to look at some major developments over the last four decades of neoliberal globalization. This may help clarify authoritarian trends seen today and also point to areas needing particular attention.

Globalization and democracy

The 1980s saw hype about the “end of history” and the supposed triumph of Western liberal democracy with its distinct blend of free markets and private property, civil liberties and human rights, and supposed political freedoms. (Even then, giant China was of course a conveniently disregarded outlier.) Since then, there has been an increase in pluralist electoral democracies enshrining the popular vote for choosing leaders – as in the Philippines upon the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. (Even Russia started choosing its president by popular vote in 1991.) There has also been a huge expansion in mass media and then the internet which, it was argued, strengthened liberal democracies by democratizing information.

In economic systems, free market policies of neoliberal globalization were promised to unleash economic potential, develop backward economies, and bring prosperity to all. In reality, we’re all familiar with how neoliberal globalization has resulted in greater exploitation, greater destruction of natural resources and the environment, and greater wealth and economic power in the hands of a few. Hundreds of millions or even billions of people exploited, abused and left behind made the rumble underfoot grow stronger as economic crises erupted and deepened.

Elites however twisted this dissatisfaction, went on an all-out disinformation offensive in mass media and the internet, and manipulated elections to rise to power as today’s populist authoritarianisms – the Philippines’ own Pres. Duterte is a case in point. In too many places around the world, demagogues of different degrees are elected and have risen to the top of falsely democratic political systems.

They mostly keep the forms of liberal democratic institutions in place – free elections, the branches of government, mass media, even civil society. But these are wielded self-interestedly, subverted in practice, and any portions particularly inconvenient are carved out. But they are fundamentally authoritarians and we see everywhere the growing use of state violence, against any and all opposition, to protect elite economic interests and to retain political power.

These processes have played out in the Philippines as elsewhere. In our specific circumstances, how do we build a democratic society?

People, most of all

The most critical foundation remains people’s organizations with a vision of a democratic society. The Philippines is fortunate to have a long-standing core of this in the mass movement built up over decades. These include the country’s largest organizations of politicized peasants, formal and informal workers, youth and students, women, indigenous people, teachers and academics, and more.

The mass movement combines concrete struggles on immediate concerns with constant education work on systemic issues. Concrete struggles and constant education are both essential to build solid core constituencies for genuinely transformative change for the better.

These organizations are at the forefront of challenging anti-people social and economic policies and countering neoliberal globalization. They are also an army that reaches out not just to their direct constituencies and networks but also communicates to the widest number of people through mass media, social media, and other internet platforms.

They are supplemented by tactical formations and alliances on urgent issues to more immediately reach out to and mobilize the wider public. For instance, the steady assault of the regime on accustomed liberal democratic institutions creates wide opportunity for this. The attacks on senators, congressional representatives, the Supreme Court chief justice, the Ombudsman, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), major broadcast and internet media outfits, civil society, activists and others have stirred wide outrage. This scattered dissent needs to be brought together.

Progressives in government

At the same time, people’s organizations have enough strength and flexibility to also directly engage in traditional elite-dominated governance through elected parliamentarians such as via the party-list system in Congress. Progressive party-list groups have always been among the frontrunners in Congressional elections and already form a solid pro-people bloc in the House of Representatives.

While fully part of the traditional institutionalized political system, progressive parliamentarians remain solidly grounded in people’s organizations and are relentless in challenging the boundaries of the country’s so-called democracy. As real representatives of and from the people, their legislative measures and political work are consistently biased for the people. They seek to deliver concrete benefits while consistently seeking to weaken the economic power and fight the political abuses of self-serving elites.

Through their visible public service, they enable the general public to see that more democratic economic and political policies are possible. But they are also the beachhead of democracy in the authoritarian Duterte government for launching attacks from within. They are valuable for reaching out to other progressives and potential allies within the government, and for organizing efforts to push for democratic changes in the centers of reactionary politics.

Research matters

The superstructures of power are defended not just by sheer violence but by the hegemony of self-serving and reactionary knowledge. We of course give special attention to the invisible power of ideas, values and beliefs in reproducing capitalism and today’s worsening authoritarianism. Among the most important ways to challenge this is with solid research from the perspective of and upholding the aspirations of the people for social justice, equity, and a decent life for all.

The struggle of ideas is one of the most urgent realms of political struggle. Solid research and tenacious advocacy are vital to overcome the dominance of ruling class ideas and values. More and more people must unlearn that oppression is just to be accepted and that the only improvement in our material conditions is what ruling elites will allow.

Solid research is vital to support the campaigns of people’s organizations and of progressives in government. For instance, research on economic issues reveals what changes decades of imperialist globalization have wrought as well as confirms what remains the same. And we know that ideas are meaningless if not transformed into a political force so these need to be formed with or by the mass movement and then taken up by it.

Solid research is vital to credibly challenge anti-people policies and to articulate our new ideas and visions for a more just and democratic society. We challenge capitalism not just because it is exploitative and oppressive but also because it isn’t immutable, can be replaced, and should be replaced. We look to the socialist alternative not just because we imagine it as just, humane and liberating, but also because it is possible and can already start to be built. Research makes our critique potent and also makes our alternative real.

Research is about ideas and we are today facing a deluge. What does it take to be dynamic in the digital age with its endless tsunami of trivialities and information? It isn’t enough that our analysis is correct and that we are credible – to communicate today we have to be real-time, interactive, and nimble with text, photos, graphics, audio, video and animation. And while we will continue to distribute our research, we also have to be ever more accessible not just conceptually but also literally. More than ever, people constantly seek information with a mere click of their finger or a swipe of their thumb.

Democracy in progress

Finally, we all know the value of seeing that oppressive structures can be changed and that what is accepted as ‘normal’ can be replaced. In the Philippines, the most radical flank and most direct challenge to the oppressive status quo are the scattered but growing sites of democratic governance in the countryside. In many rural areas across the country, communities are undertaking examples of how local political and economic democracy can be interlinked to benefit the majority people and not a few elites. These are areas where landlords, agri-business, and mining corporations do not dominate and where people’s organizations have taken control of their communities and their lives. They push the envelope of our democratic struggles.

On a historical scale, there’s no doubt that the world is changing for the better. There’s too much creativity, energy and bravery committed to that for it to be otherwise. Perhaps in fits and starts, or with setbacks big and small – but, still, we’re inexorably moving forward on the back of millions of steps and struggles every day around the world. #

Surviving surgery in the middle of COVID-19

December 18, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

by Jose Lorenzo Lim

COVID-19 has struck the country’s healthcare system in a major way. The system became too overloaded that healthcare workers in August sought a two-week return to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ). Government has since been touting that the country’s active COVID cases are going down and that the healthcare system is unloading. But what was it like having a family member who needed minor life-changing surgery amid this pandemic?

Hospital 1

The night that we decided to take my grandmother to the hospital was when she nearly fainted, was feeling weak, and had a low heartbeat. It was already the second time that this happened. It was a night filled with questions – where do we take her? Is it COVID-19 free? Are they going to accept us? These were the things running through our heads when we decided to take her to our trusted family hospital (Hospital 1). There, even with the growing number of patients, there was an available slot in the intensive care unit (ICU) where they stabilized her.

My grandmother’s cardiologist said that she needed a pacemaker to stabilize her heartbeat and bring it back to a normal level from 40 beats per minute to around 60 beats per minute. Pacemaker surgery would cost around Php250,000 for a single-chamber pacemaker alone. This does not yet include the professional fees of the doctors that would operate on my grandmother. Prices vary depending on the type of pacemaker – if it’s dual or single chamber, and if it can pass through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. Additionally, payment would only be on a cash basis for the pacemaker.

My grandmother decided not to have the surgery and to just go home. She believed that the surgery was costly and not worth it given that she was already old.

Hospital 2

Just a few days after, she had another episode and nearly fainted again. This fell on the month of August when Metro Manila was put back on MECQ. We went back to Hospital 1, luckily was able to get another private room, and planned to have my grandmother get her surgery. Financially, it would cost around Php350,000 for the whole pacemaker operation which would have to be done at another hospital since Hospital 1 doesn’t have the facilities for this type of surgery. Before a surgery could take place, my grandmother had to get an RT-PCR swab test. Since she had to be operated on quickly, we had no choice but to avail of a Php12,000 test at the big hospital nearby (Hospital 2) that would show a result in 24 hours.

Hospital 3

My grandmother tested negative for COVID-19 with Hospital 2’s swab test. A negative result is said to have a validity period of only one week. On the day of her transfer to a medical center and hospital (Hospital 3) for the surgery, we paid Hospital 1 around Php100,000 for the doctor’s fee, private room, and medicines. We decided it was best that she have her surgery since the cost of her one-week hospitalization was like getting a pacemaker already. When we reached Hospital 3, they looked at her charts and found a problem. First, her doctor wasn’t really an affiliate at Hospital 3, and second, her chest x-ray showed some white particulates which is said to be an indication of COVID-19. Hospital 3 gave us two choices, either go home and treat the particulates or have a Php12,000 CT-Scan to check if it really is liquid in the lungs.

We took a gamble and went for the Php12,000 CT-Scan that does not have a senior citizen discount. They confirmed it was liquid in her lungs which could be indicative of COVID-19. We were stunned since she had already tested negative. We had no choice but to get her home, isolate her, find other options and rest.

The next day, we called her former cardiologist from Hospital 1 again. He just apologized and advised us to take her back to Hospital 1 because at her age she needed medical attention. My grandmother returned to Hospital 1 but was told that all COVID-19 isolation rooms were full. The accounting department told my dad that her only choice was to go to a tent that would cost around Php100,000 for a three-day stay inclusive of doctors’ fees. Of course, my grandmother chose to come home and continued her isolation.

Hospital 4

Luckily, we knew someone from another medical center (Hospital 4), a public hospital. Through connections, we were put in the emergency room. The plan was to get my grandmother to test negative for COVID-19 and find her a new cardiologist so she could be operated on. If she tested positive for COVID-19, then she would be admitted to the COVID-19 ward of Hospital 4. It was like going through a limbo of uncertainty. While waiting for the result, my grandmother and father stayed at the emergency room and were transferred two days later to the COVID-19 isolation ward once a room was available. Eventually, my grandmother tested negative for COVID-19.

Of course, Hospital 4 did not have any private rooms so she had no choice but to go to the ICU where she met her new cardiologist who was affiliated with yet another medical center (Hospital 5). They quoted around Php500,000 for the whole operation with a single-chamber pacemaker. We immediately agreed and scheduled the operation with the doctor. We left Hospital 4 with a total bill of around P10,000 which was reduced due to PhilHealth and a senior citizen discount.

Hospital 5

The transfer from Hospital 4 to Hospital 5 was smooth since there was proper coordination between the two hospitals. Of course, before being operated on, my grandmother had to undergo her third and hopefully last swab test. After getting her swab test, she was transferred to the COVID-19 isolation room and got her result in 24 hours. The test cost around Php2,500, which was way less than at Hospital 2.

After her negative result, her new cardiologist immediately decided to push through with the operation. The operation was successful. However, there were no private wards available and she ended up at the ICU again. After two days, she was discharged from the hospital and allowed to go home.

Health neglect

The experience of going back and forth to various hospitals was hell. This is what patients who need surgery are going through. If you have symptoms of cough or colds, then you are immediately tagged as a COVID-19 suspect and would have to go through anxieties on top of being sick. If you don’t have money, you won’t be fixed. We were very fortunate enough to have my aunt, uncle, and other family members to financially support us through this.

A family of five living under minimum wage wouldn’t be able to afford getting a pacemaker. While I do understand that each hospital has its own set of protocols, the additional cost of swab tests is really hard especially if you don’t have enough money. I can’t imagine the number of patients who have to delay their life-saving surgery due to the overcrowding at hospitals and the burden of producing money for the operation itself. I would even call it criminal negligence on the government’s part for not immediately addressing the COVID-19 situation of patients who need surgery.

PhilHealth and a senior citizen discount really helped to lower my grandmother’s hospital expenses, but then again the situation at Hospital 4 was that they didn’t have the facilities to carry out pacemaker surgery. The government should invest in our public hospitals so that they are able to do these minor surgeries. Patients are forced to go to private hospitals just to get a pacemaker implanted. We were shocked at the Php10,000 bill of Hospital 4 and I think that if government invests funds in our healthcare system then more patients would be able to access and afford life-saving operations.

In the end, its priorities will still depend on government’s political will or lack of it. The government could invest in social services, especially health, instead of allotting Php19 billion to fund a deceptive and destructive National Task Force to End Local Communism and Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). The latter, which has been on a spree of terrorist-tagging activists and progressive personalities and institutions, appears to still be the government’s priority even while COVID-19, typhoon relief operations, and even the economic downturn, warrant much urgent and greater attention. #

Jose Lorenzo Lim is a researcher at IBON Foundation. His research topics include Build, Build, Build, the oil industry, and social services. Prior to IBON, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the UPLB Perspective for the academic year 2016-2017. When not in the office, Jose Lorenzo enjoys writing with his fountain pens and trying out new ink.

Duterte gov’t fails to meet its human rights obligations amid the pandemic

December 15, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

by IBON Media & Communications

The Philippine government is a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The covenant obliges the government to take measures to prevent or at least mitigate the impact of the pandemic. Its gross failure to do so is leading to unprecedented but preventable suffering for millions of Filipinos.

The country’s poorest and most marginalized are being left behind by the COVID-19 response of the Duterte administration. On the other hand, wealthy creditors are protected and large corporations including foreign investors are getting their profits boosted.

COVID-19 spreading

The Duterte administration’s inability to contain COVID-19 is the clearest sign of its failure to address the pandemic. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam and Thailand show that an effective government response is possible. Yet the Philippines, adjusting for population size, has the second most number of COVID cases next to small city-state Singapore, and the most number of deaths.

The Philippines has over 4,000 cases per million population (more than double the regional average of around 2,000), and nearly 80 deaths per million population (more than triple the regional average of 26). This is despite the longest and harshest lockdowns and quarantine measures in the region.

Emergency aid falling

The government’s refusal to give meaningful aid is causing unparalleled suffering. The latest labor force survey reported 3.8 million unemployed Filipinos and an unemployment rate of 8.7% in October. IBON however estimates the real number to be at least 5.8 million, with an unemployment rate of 12.7%, if those who were forced out of the labor force by the pandemic or discouraged by the obvious lack of work are also counted. Earlier, private opinion surveys already reported 7.6 million families going hungry.

At least 12-13 million Filipino families, or the poorest half of the population, are facing economic distress because of the pandemic and the worst economic collapse in the country’s history. The administration’s Bayanihan 2 however gives emergency aid to at most around 3.3 million families, who are even getting just half as much cash subsidies as supposedly given under Bayanihan 1.

This is because the economic managers refuse to spend on emergency aid for poor and vulnerable families and only allowed a token Php22.8 billion under Bayanihan 2. This is a far cry from the Php238 billion in aid under Bayanihan 1 which has already been used up by beneficiary households. It is even worse in the proposed 2021 national government budget where pandemic-related aid falls to just Php9.9 billion.

As it is, with only nine days left in the effectivity of Bayanihan 2, the social welfare department has only given one-time emergency subsidies to a mere 64,839 beneficiaries at an average of just Php6,720 per family. The labor department meanwhile has only given CAMP support to around 350,000 workers.

The Duterte administration’s so-called emergency assistance is so small that it is just a token measure to give the illusion of responding. Tens of millions of Filipinos are not getting any help causing millions to go hungry and sink deeper into poverty.

Corporate profits rising

The government is also making inequality worse. While millions of poor families are neglected, large corporations including foreign firms are going to get hundreds of billions of pesos in additional profits over the coming years from big corporate income tax cuts.

Disregarding the critical need for revenues to respond to the pandemic, the economic managers pushed their Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act and even dishonestly presented this as a COVID-19 stimulus. This is a willful violation of the obligation to mobilize the necessary resources for responding to serious health and economic distress from COVID-19.

Rights being violated

The proposed 2021 budget also violates human rights. The state has an obligation to devote the maximum available resources to combat COVID-19 and the economic crisis in the most equitable manner.

However, the 2021 budget fails to allocate resources in a way that prioritizes the public health crisis and the economic burdens the poor are facing. The proposed 2021 budget spends less on health and on emergency aid than in 2020. On the other hand, the budgets for infrastructure, military and police, and debt servicing all increase. Next year’s budget does not protect poor and vulnerable groups nor mitigate the impact of the pandemic on them.

The Duterte administration’s contempt for human rights is complete. It violates civil and political rights with its systematic political repression and killings of activists and alleged drug offenders. With its neglectful pandemic response, it also violates the social and economic rights of tens of millions of Filipinos. The country is even further away from the full and equal enjoyment of the social and economic rights enshrined in the ICESCR and even in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

PH labor market rebounding but not recovering – IBON

December 5, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

In reaction to the statement of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) upon the release of the recent labor force survey, research group IBON said that the labor market rebounding as lockdown restrictions are eased should not be mistaken as ‘recovery’. More than people returning to work, the term should mean returning to the same levels of employment as before. Recovery can only happen with substantial economic stimulus including sufficient government financial assistance or emergency subsidies to workers affected by the pandemic, IBON said.

The official unemployment rate according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is 8.7% or about 3.8 million unemployed in October 2020. NEDA compares the October unemployment figure with those of previous quarters (10% in July and 17.6% in April) to show as a sign of recovery.

But IBON noted that the number of employed fell by 2.7 million to 39.8 million in October 2020 from 42.6 million in October last year. The group also noted that labor force participation rate (LFPR) has fallen to a remarkably small 58.7% in October 2020, causing the labor force to shrink by 933,000.

IBON estimated a different unemployment figure.According to the group, if LFPR in October 2020 stayed at its 61.4% level in October 2019, the labor force would be around 45.6 million, which is 1.98 million more than officially reported.

IBON added this 1.98 million, which it referred to as invisibly unemployed, to the officially reported 3.81 million, bringing the real number of unemployed to 5.79 million and the real unemployment rate at 12.7 percent.

The group also said that though underemployment rate fell to 14.4%, this does not indicate that the quality of work has improved. This is most likely, IBON said, because many of the employed have stopped searching for work due to pandemic conditions and lack of job prospects with many small businesses closing down.

The group pointed out that the inability of the economy to recover thus affecting job creation is hugely due to the lack of a substantial economic stimulus. This pertains to government spending that can arrest economic decline through increased or revitalized economic production and strengthened consumers’ purchasing power.

But government’s response is too little for such a huge economic decline, IBON said. The Php165.5-billion Bayanihan 2 is niggardly for urgent attention areas such as health system recovery, financial aid to vulnerable sectors and support for agriculture and small businesses. IBON also hit the 2021 proposed national budget, that except for tokenistic allocations, is no longer providing socioeconomic relief to workers and financial assistance to agriculture and MSMEs.

Meanwhile, government’s economic managers are determined to retain the huge Php1.1 trillion budget allocation for infrastructure development as their main stimulus program and to propose corporate income tax cuts through the passage of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) bill.

Recovery cannot happen with such government neglect of labor and the economy, IBON said. Scrimping on meaningful economic stimulus prevents the health system to cope with the pandemic and the workers to return to work. It also leaves behind the more basic economic sectors of agriculture and domestic manufacturing in creating more meaningful jobs, IBON added.

The economy may indeed recover from its collapse. But like such ‘recoveries’ of the past when no meaningful government intervention took place, it would take a while, if at all, for jobs and incomes to be fully recovered and improved, said the group. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Gov’t priorities enrich a few and destroy the environment–IBON

December 3, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

Instead of just going after local politicians, the Duterte administration should take responsibility for pushing anti-environment policies that contributed to the recent massive flooding and destruction of communities during typhoon Ulysses, research group IBON said.

The National Irrigation Administration and Malacañang recently called out local officials involved in logging and mining. But this will be hypocritical, said the group, if the government does not reverse policies that degrade the environment while benefiting just a few.

The forest cover has fallen to only 7 million hectares as of 2015 according to the Forest Management Bureau. This is equivalent to only 23.3% of the country’s total land area, considered an environmentally critical level. The figure has even continued to diminish from 11 million in the 1970s when forest destruction peaked due to government-sponsored unbridled logging. Data from the Bureau of Soil and Water Management show that 70.5% of the country’s land area is categorized as severely degraded and 16.6% as moderately degraded.

IBON pointed to priorities such as Build Build Build and the National Land Use Plan that continue to encroach into the public domain and degrade land.

The group said that the Duterte government continues to promote large-scale mining, corporate and chemical plantations and land use conversion as well as reclamation for real estate and infrastructure. The government prioritizes the building of large dams, megaports, ecotourism complexes and export enclaves.

Government policies and programs enrich a few at the expense of the nation, the people and environment, IBON said. The group pointed to the businesses of Sy, Villar, Gokongwei, Razon, Ayala, Tan, Caktiong, Ang, and Ty as the biggest gainers from government priorities.

The corporations of these richest Filipinos, according to the latest Forbes’ list, dominate the real estate, construction, ports development, power, energy, water, oil, mining, and agriculture sectors. IBON said that the government should own up to upholding environmentally destructive policies that drive corporate profits instead of pointing fingers at others.

The Philippine government’s bias for profit-seeking interests even at the expense of the environment are the root cause of the logging, quarrying and land conversion in Rizal and Cagayan provinces that have caused such devastating floods. Deforestation, flooding and the sufferings of communities will continue unless these are stopped and corrective measures are taken, said the group. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Govt stinginess worsens Filipinos’ suffering and PH economic collapse

November 24, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

by IBON Media & Communications

The -11.5% growth, or contraction, in gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter, confirms that the Philippines is on its way to becoming the worst performing economy in Southeast Asia in 2020. The economy is saddled by the Duterte administration’s refusal to spend on aid for Filipino families and support for small businesses so needed amid the pandemic.

A fiscal response commensurate to the crisis at hand is critical but the economic managers are tying the government’s hands. The government package’s demand-side effort is grossly insufficient and even undermines its supply-side measures.

The Php3 trillion in government spending in the first three quarters of 2020 is only a 15.1% increase from the same period the year before. While this is larger than the 5.5% year-on-year increase in the same period in 2019, it is still much less than the corresponding 23.6% increase in 2018.

It remains to be seen how much more spending the administration can manage in the fourth quarter of 2020. The Bayanihan 2 law is supposedly the government’s main response to COVID in the remaining months of the year.

However, as of the president’s last report to Congress at the start of November, it appears that at most just Php28.4 billion has been spent so far. With only a little over a month left in the law’s effectivity, this is just 20.3% of Bayanihan 2’s Php140 billion in appropriations and just 17.1% of its Php165.5 billion including its standby fund. The report mentioned Php76.2 billion in allotments and releases which appears relatively large.

However, the same report did not mention any actual disbursements in major items especially for aid or support to small businesses or agriculture. These items with allotments released but not reported spent include: Php6 billion for the social amelioration program (SAP); Php13.1 billion for the COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP), Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) and Abot-Kamay ang Pagtulong (AKAP) programs; Php9.5 billion for public utility vehicle (PUV) programs; and Php12.1 billion for the agriculture stimulus package. While there is supposedly Php8.1 billion for small businesses, only Php893 million worth of loans were reported.

There is also little real stimulus in the proposed 2021 budget. The proposed Php4.51 trillion budget is a 9.9% increase from the 2020 budget. This is however smaller than the 13.6% increase in the programmed 2020 budget from the year before, and even smaller than the historical annual average 11.1% increase in the national budget over the 35 years of the post-Marcos era. The Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) actually projects an even smaller 5.3% increase in 2022 which will be less than half the historical average.

The DBCC initially projected the economy to have -5.5% growth in 2020. To achieve this, GDP will have to grow an impossible 6.6% in the last quarter of the year which is all the more impossible with the administration refusing to give meaningful aid to millions of distressed families and small businesses including in the country’s vast informal sector.

Additional direct cash assistance to households is already pitifully small under Bayanihan 2 and virtually non-existent in the proposed 2021 budget. The record joblessness and collapse in family incomes because of the government’s poor COVID response compels much larger support to alleviate wide and deep suffering.

The economic managers also keep insisting that the CREATE law’s corporate income tax cuts will most of all benefit micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This is untrue. Large taxpayers account for an overwhelming 72% of all corporate collections as of 2019 which means that large firms will be the biggest beneficiaries of CREATE. Moreover, many MSMEs are also unregistered and in the informal sector so will not really benefit from any tax cuts under CREATE.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects the economy to contract with -8.3% GDP growth in 2020. This is the worst GDP performance in the region with other countries either contracting less or even registering positive growth: Thailand (-7.1%), Malaysia (-6%), Cambodia (-2.8%), Indonesia (-1.5%), Singapore (-6%), Brunei (0.1%), Lao PDR (0.2%), Vietnam (1.6%), and Myanmar (2%).

Even the IMF’s projected 7.4% GDP growth rebound in 2021 will still not be enough to bring the economy back to its level last year in 2019. As it is, the 2020 Philippine economy is going to be as small as it was three years ago in 2017, and with GDP per capita approaching as low as it was in 2016.

The Philippines’ COVID response is the smallest among those announced by the region’s major economies, according to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) COVID policy tracker. This earlier reported the Philippines’ response as equivalent to just 5.8% of 2019 GDP which is smaller than in Singapore (26.2%), Malaysia (22.7%), Thailand (16%), Indonesia (10.9%), and Vietnam (10.1%).

Months into the worst economic collapse in the country’s history, the Duterte administration’s obsession with creditworthiness and the myth of a fundamentally strong Philippine economy is preventing it from taking the measures needed for real and rapid recovery. Its insensitivity is placing the burden of rebound and protracted recovery on millions of poor families and distressed small businesses. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Swept away – Philippine agriculture bears wrath from government neglect

November 23, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

by IBON Media & Communications

Government’s long-time neglect of the country’s agriculture sector has been disastrous to small producers. The recent series of super-typhoons – Quinta, Rolly and Ulysses – has highlighted this.

The country’s geophysical characteristics as well as geographic location make it exposed to natural hazards. What makes it extremely vulnerable to risks is government’s lack of relevant policies to strengthen the agriculture sector and the larger economy, including policies and practice of disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM).

Fresh damage

According to a combined bulletin by the Department of Agriculture-Disaster Risk Reduction Management Operations Center (DADRMMOpCen), Quinta left damages to agriculture amounting to Php2.7 billion, with a volume production loss of 149,475 metric tons (MT) in Regions I, II, III, CALABARZON, MIMAROPA, V, VI, and VIII. This affected 57,858 farmers and fisherfolk with 96,474 hectares of agricultural areas.

Still reeling from this devastation, the regions again felt Rolly’s wrath and sustained Php5.79 billion in damages and losses affecting 48,682 farmers and fisherfolk in 127,298 hectares of agricultural areas. The volume of production loss was at 177,091 MT. The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) further reported that Rolly damaged 170,773 houses and infrastructure worth some Php12.9 billion.

Then, Ulysses happened, leaving 73 dead, 24 injured, and 19 missing in Regions II, CALABARZON, V, and CAR. Damages to agriculture are estimated to be worth Php4.2 billion, to infrastructure some Php6.1 billion, with a total of 67,391 houses partially or totally destroyed. Affected were 102,500 farmers and fisherfolk in 99,660 hectares of agricultural areas. Production loss in commodities including rice, corn, high value crops, fisheries, livestock and poultry, irrigation facilities, and agricultural infrastructures was estimated by the DA to be at 167,385 metric tons (MT).

Some 62,220 hectares planted to rice alone sustained damages and losses amounting to Php1.98 billion with volume of production lost at 124,437 MT. Some 14,132 hectares planted to high variety crops (HVC) areas sustained Php907.7 million worth of damages with volume of production lost at 35,487 MT. As for areas planted to corn, up to 23,308 hectares were affected, with volume of production lost at 7,461 MT amounting to Php371 million. In the fisheries, some Php712 million was lost in terms of affected fin fish, milkfish, hito, tilapia, carp, crabs, and prawns. Livestock and poultry sustained Php51.69 million in damages affecting 72,146 heads. Some Php11.9 million were damaged or lost in terms of irrigation and agriculture facilities.

Quinta and Rolly damages and losses totaled to Php8.46 billion affecting 106,540 farmers and fisherfolk in 223,772 hectares. Volume of production lost reached 326,566 MT. Combined estimates of damages and losses in the Philippine agriculture sector due to typhoons Quinta, Rolly and Ulysses are estimated to have reached some Php12.4 billion to date.

The devastation in agriculture was also grave particularly for Catanduanes province, a top producer of abaca in the country, which is second biggest world producer of the cash crop. According to the Philippine Fiber Development Authority (PhilFIDA), the province accounted for 30% of the country’s annual abaca output. But then Rolly battered Bicol and other abaca-growing regions – CALABARZON, MIMAROPA, and Eastern Visayas, resulting in Php1.2 billion worth of farm damages. The 30% decline in abaca output due to the typhoon as per the estimate of PhilFIDA would land at only 50,000 metric tons (MT) of produce, the crop’s lowest in 20 years. Using PhilFIDA estimates of Php1,000 income for every 10 kilos harvested, this decline is equivalent to a Php2.1 billion loss in farmers’ incomes.

What preparedness?

Government’s DRRM plan, actual implementation, recovery strategy, and even budget allocation of calamity funds are all telling – there is little acknowledgment of the Philippines being a calamity-prone country. It is no basis to say that the country is indeed disaster-prepared.

The Philippines ranks 9^th among countries with the highest disaster risk index according to the World Risk Report of 2019. An average of 20 tropical cyclones enter the Philippine area of responsibility annually. Yet the budget allocation for disaster risk reduction in 2020 of Php16 billion declined from the already meager Php20 billion or 0.5% share in the 2019 national budget. The NDRRMC is again set to get Php20 billion in lump sum calamity funds in the 2021 national budget. But it remains a mere 0.4% of the total budget.

Components of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan (NDRRMP) 2011-2028 are: disaster prevention and mitigation, disaster preparedness, disaster response, and disaster recovery and rehabilitation. This should mean building massive evacuation and shelter infrastructure, for instance. This should also mean making available competent education, health, and housing, and providing sufficient energy, water, communication and transport mechanisms that can withstand any weather hazard. For a largely agricultural country, it should also mean the availability of crop insurance, food stocks, production support at all times, whether or not during recovery, and other measures that ensure farmers, fisherfolk, and farmworkers’ continued sustenance when calamities strike. Neither the NDRRM Plan nor the DARRMOpCen explicitly mandate these as part of the mitigation and preparedness steps of DRRM.

The NDRRMC reported Php115 million worth of assistance provided to Ulysses victims. The DA assured Php400 million in Quick Response Funds and Php300 million worth of emergency loans with zero interest and no collateral, payable in 10 years under the Survival and Recovery (SURE) Loan Program of Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) for farmers and fishers affected by Quinta and Rolly. The agency has also assigned the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) to provide insurance protection to farmers against losses arising from various calamities. Those insured under the PCIC are set to receive Php10,000-15,000 in insurance claims for damaged farm equipment, fishing boats, and gear. But this measure is premium-dependent and ties impoverished farm producers to indebtedness.

PCIC coverage is quite limited and leaves millions of agricultural producers behind. PIDS explains that the amount of cover is based on the cost of production inputs specified in the farm plan and budget submitted by the farmer upon application of insurance. Insurance premium rates vary based on the type of insurance cover, risk classification, type of farmer, and type of insurance cover availed. Premium for high value crop insurance is solely shouldered by the farmers, ranging from 2-7% of the total sum ensured. Premium rates for fisheries are solely determined by the PCIC.

According to latest available Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and PCIC 2018 figures cited by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, only 2.2 million farmers in 1.8 million hectares are insured. This is a small number compared to the over 10.9 million farmers, farmworkers and fisherfolk in the government’s Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture or RSBSA. It was also noted that while a huge chunk or 1.1 million of listed farm parcels reported by the Census of Agriculture and Fisheries (CAF) were less than 0.5 hectare in size, the penetration rate of the PCIC in these holdings was quite low compared to parcels of bigger sizes.

Long-time neglect of agriculture

Even given the backdrop of being a natural hazard-prone nation, government action for the farming and fisheries sectors has long-been either too little or too detrimental. Weather disturbances have even gotten worse over the years due to climate change, increasing further havoc on the country’s agriculture communities.

Philippine agriculture is in crisis, growing at an average 2.1% in 2017-2019, its slowest pace after 70 years of growing at 3.5% annually on the average. In the same period the sector lost over one million jobs. In the third quarter of this year, the sector grew only by 1.2%.

In 2018, the country’s agricultural trade deficit was the largest in history, and in 2019 the Philippines began importing its staple food rice.

However, despite the sector’s decline and disaster vulnerability, the budget for agriculture and agrarian reform averaged just a measly 3.6% of the total national budget annually from 2017-2019. This has been reduced further to 1.7% in 2020 and 1.6% for 2021 under the Duterte administration.

Calamity-battered Bicol

An example of the vulnerability and crisis of the country’s agriculture is the Bicol region. The region is prone to natural calamities such as typhoons, volcanic eruptions, drought and flooding, almost on a yearly basis. It is among the areas whose agriculture sector was hard-hit by the recent consecutive typhoons. The several calamities that have torn through the region in recent years resulted in billions of pesos in agricultural damage.

These include, for instance, tropical depression Usman which left Php1.6 billion worth of agricultural damages in Bicol at the end of 2018. Typhoon Tisoy, which hit the country in early December 2019, resulted in over Php1.7 billion worth of agricultural damages in the region, affecting its major crops. Bicol’s agriculture has also suffered crop losses from the El Niño drought last year and its abaca sector’s battle with the Abaca Bunchy Top Disease.

The region’s agriculture sector is now reeling from damages wrought by Quinta (Php395.8 million), Rolly (Php3.6 billion), and Ulysses (Php168.5 million).

Bicol’s abaca and coconut industries have not yet recovered from the havoc wreaked by Typhoon Tisoy. In the second quarter of the year, coconut production and abaca production both registered negative growth rates of 8 and 4 percent, respectively, from the same period last year.

“Build Back Better” vs. inclusive response

The region’s disaster risk reduction bodies undertook early warning measures such as preemptive evacuation and advanced harvesting during typhoons Usman and Tisoy. In a way, mitigation was leveled-up. Yet, the Bicol Region’s agriculture sector, as with the rest of the country’s, was left vulnerable to destruction. The DADRROpCen practices the integration of DRR measures in the plans of government agencies. But like the NDRRMC plan, it is weightier on response, relief and recovery rather than building the core capacity of the agriculture sector. Making it flourish and able to stand on its own is not part of the plan.

The bottomline of the Philippines’ disaster risk reduction plan is the global-inspired “Build Back Better” which has been used in various calamities worldwide but saw big contractors and businesses taking the upper hand in rehabilitation and recovery. This is instead of focusing on really strengthening communities per se in terms of ensured rights to basic needs including food and jobs, adequate standards of living, a balanced ecology, ample services and development. These would be what will forge the capacity to withstand disasters.

In the case of agriculture, policies destroy rather than hone the sector’s own contribution to building this capacity. Decades of subscribing to global market dictates have crippled the agriculture sector and reduced it to being a supplier of cash crops, now being enhanced by the Plant, Plant Plant program. The National Land Use Act will accelerate the conversion of agricultural lands into commercial ones. Rice import liberalization meanwhile is destroying farmers’ incomes with falling palay prices and results in the shutdown of mills.

Through these policies, the government pushes Philippine agriculture off the cliff and keeps our farmers poor and vulnerable to calamities. Government lacks the sense of urgency to aid the calamity-stricken agricultural producers and only promises some farm inputs and limited financial assistance, not to mention in the form of burdensome loans. This jives with its non-interest to develop the sector other than for what the global market needs it to be.

The only way the country can really be disaster-prepared would be if risk reduction and response followed a comprehensive plan across pre-calamity and calamity scenarios. This needs to start with strengthening the heart of the economy and that is Philippine agriculture and manufacturing. Agriculture programs from the most token to those that destroy the industry and Filipino producers’ livelihoods must be stricken out especially liberalization and commercialized and profit-oriented insurance and credit-facilitation.

Land should be free for the tillers and not converted to non-agricultural use; the decision on how to make it productive theirs; give them substantial farm subsidies and direct farm facilities, machine and inputs support; and ensure their social protection. Especially during a pandemic such as the one that grips the nation and the world now, sustained financial assistance and direct support for producers is very much in order.

Governance that decides to sovereignly boost agriculture this way will be the same one that will forge policies and infrastructure for domestic industry, a healthy environment, people’s rights, and funding development, which are certain foundations of people-centered disaster preparedness. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Red Red Whine

November 21, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

by Sonny Africa

IBON staff reflect on red-tagging and its attack on the ideas of the Left

Two weeks ago, as floodwaters reached a new high to trap thousands of Filipinos on the roofs of their homes and force hundreds of thousands more to evacuate, red-tagging reached a new low.

The nation struggled to mobilize help beyond what the government was giving but the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) saw it as just another day at work to whine about Reds. It tried to dissuade donations for relief work of youth activists, took a swipe at CNN Philippines for being infiltrated, and even thought it worthwhile to meddle in a call for support among co-parents in a high school group chat.

The sad episode is a case study of the depths the Duterte government goes to in calling people Communists or terrorists and organizations as fronts or infiltrated. The hysterical claim last week is that the call for donations is “extorting money and goods to fund and support their terrorist activities”. Go figure.

But it also prompts deeper reflection on what red-tagging is and why we all lose from it. It isn’t the mere labelling that the government and its security apparatus like to pretend it is and which, they insist, even the Left does to itself. Red-tagging is labelling to attack not just people and organizations but also the very ideas and values so needed to make tomorrow better than today.

Fear of ducks

These are the coordinates of their lunacy: Communists are terrorists, Communist ideas a.k.a. Leftist ideas are passé, and anyone spouting Leftist ideas is a terrorist or a brainwashed puppet.

But the thing is, with the world and the country the way they are, it’s obvious what anyone concerned about humanity will cherish for their absence – social justice, equality, and a decent life for all. An honest grasp of history, politics and economics also points to what’s needed for these values to become real – people taking control of society and their lives.

Drilling down further shows what makes ‘Reds’ look, swim and quack like the ducks that elites fear so much – the rejection of capitalism, redistribution of wealth, and the imagining (or even building) of a socialist alternative. There’s a diversity of ducks but they all have these feathers.

Reds proudly embrace these ideas, and are famously relentless in putting these ideas into practice as conditions allow. They wear their red hearts on their sleeves and wave their red flags, literally and figuratively, because it isn’t enough for the ideas to be compelling. They have to be grasped and embraced and practiced by as many people as possible.

Which brings us back to red-tagging. Leftist ideas are the floodwaters of social change but instead of homes of the poor they wash away the structures of power. These waters are rising – maybe not like a storm surge but inexorably rising nonetheless.

Red-tagging aims to put a stop to that. Starting with activists and their organizations, including their supporters, and then really anyone daring to think differently and taking a stand. It wants to reduce radical ideas to a trickle of disembodied voices embellishing a fake democracy but threatening no one.

Progressive ideas will be tolerated if spoken from armchairs or as rhetoric in speeches and policy-making. But red flags are raised when these ideas are connected to each other and, especially, when they’re borne by the organized power of politicized Filipinos in a mass movement for change.

Capitalism and wannabe authoritarians don’t want that. They need a blind and docile public that doesn’t question why the economy leaves them behind, nor that opposes unrelenting corruption and the abuse of power.

Duck-hunting

The Duterte administration is averse to Leftist ideas but is incapable of arguing against them beyond shrill banalities. The government admits as much whenever it laments losing the “propaganda war,” as verbalized by the NTF-ELCAC, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), and even a militarist senator.

What they don’t see and can’t concede is that they’re losing because they’re on the wrong side of history – so they’ve gone duck hunting instead.

This wouldn’t be a problem if they were going after armed ducks. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-led New People’s Army (NPA) is waging armed revolution in the countryside and, for that, is prepared for an equally armed response. The state can’t seem to defeat them in the battlefield and is in a virtual stalemate. But that’s another story.

The problem is that the Duterte administration is going after anything that quacks, wherever they might be, even if they aren’t doing anything illegal in their advocacies, projects, humanitarian work, law-making, and fiscalizing. In a back-handed compliment, the state is starting with the biggest, most influential, and deepest-rooted mainstream Left forces. The calculation may be that if the powerful radical flank is broken then moderates become more manageable.

The new Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) is bringing a tactical nuke cannon to a duck hunt with the same kind of widespread and excessive damage. Red-tagging today is in cheap posters and flyers, bad PowerPoint presentations, loose media statements, and troll-like social media posts.

The ATL will make red-tagging graduate from these – bypassing courts where they’d just be a mess of inadmissible evidence – to become the first step towards thinly ‘legalized’ surveillance, freezing of assets, warrantless arrests, and indefinite detention. The brazen abductions and assassinations by shadowy state security forces before the new law will still continue.

Fantastic tales

Red-taggers won’t admit it but they know they would never win a battle of ideas. So they fight with twisted fantasies instead and bank on sheer repetition using the vast propaganda apparatus of the government.

Armed Reds and Leftist activists, or armed Leftists and Red activists, are crudely lumped together — this only exposes that it’s Red and Left ideas that they fear most of all. The NTF-ELCAC’s banal propagandists think that they’ve stumbled on irrefutable wisdom and repeat this ad nauseam.

A Philippines that would be idyllic if not for the renegade violence of NPA bandits in the countryside? As if it isn’t the government that’s been killing tens of thousands of alleged drug offenders and unarmed activists. The Duterte government’s state-sponsored and -sanctioned violence against civilians kills more than the guerrilla war does in the countryside.

Families blissfully happy if not for youth brainwashed to hate their parents? As if children, youth and students can’t see for themselves how their families and many others are exploited while a fraction have uncountable wealth and luxury. Our best and brightest love their country and their families. Their choices come from maturity and deserve respect.

Activists whose real agenda is hate, death and destruction? As if they aren’t among the most consistently compassionate, dedicated and productive defenders of human rights or enablers of oppressed and exploited folks wherever they might be. The self-sacrifice is out of a deep love for others.

Lumad communities in picturesque harmony if not for NPA recruiters? As if they don’t know that soldiers and paramilitary goons pave the way for mining, logging and energy projects that won’t benefit the Lumad communities. The government exploits the Lumad many times over when they are paraded as propaganda props.

The NPA are rapists, murderers and extortionists? As if a roving army of such deviants could survive for decades, attracting idealistic youth and getting the support of rural communities knowing them and seeing for themselves who they are.

And an economy made poor by Communist armed conflict? As if the economy wasn’t poor before the rise of rebellion, and isn’t kept poor by neoliberal policy incantations from worshipers of the Gods of Capitalism. And as if the most rapid economic growth in decades hasn’t benefited oligarchs, government functionaries, and foreign capital while leaving the majority poor and farther behind than ever.

The red pill

Part of red-tagging is the Duterte government wanting us to take the blue pill. To swallow their disinformation, stay ignorant, and live in the confines of an unjust, unequal and unchanging world. It’s a pill to make people not just clueless but ultimately helpless and hopeless.

The red pill, on the other hand, frees us from the enslaving control of thinking that there is no alternative to capitalism and the status quo. It affirms the working class coming together as the most powerful force for change for the better.

It also makes us see how everything is commodified where the presidency, elections, legislators and laws, even the judiciary can be bought. And how oligarchs, foreign investors, business cronies, and government officials have become wealthier – as well how the wealth of the president and his family has become suspiciously invisible.

At one level, the NTF-ELCAC propagandists are just indoctrinated military personnel and folks with a quasi-religious devotion to the president (or maybe just a crush). At a deeper level, the NTF-ELCAC is the spearhead of the system trying to put down dissent and the rising waters of social revolution.

A line is being drawn in the dolomite sand. But it isn’t between those for or against ‘Communist-terrorists’ – it’s between those embracing or enabling the status quo and those choosing to change this for the better. More than ever, it’s time to take sides. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Govt stinginess worsens Filipinos’ suffering and PH economic collapse

November 19, 2020/in Ibon Foundation /by Kodao Productions

Govt stinginess worsens Filipinos’ suffering and PH economic collapse

November 10, 2020