CHARTER CHANGE IN THE US

CHARTER CHANGE IN THE US

by Erick San Juan

Filipinos do not seem to own the monopoly of resistance to any attempt at amending their fundamental law. Even the Americans do. They - the political activists, at least - are generally furious about the idea of mangling their charter. In fact, it is a big deal for them, because they have not had this since 1787.

Just like in the Philippines, the Americans are upset about the talks to introduce innovation into their charter, to accommodate provisions that could formalize their status – or reputation – of being the world’s policeman endowed with an air of braggadocio being the biggest superpower.

Even the American Policy Center (APC) had to apologize profusely because it got caught with its pants down. It claims that “this malignancy most foul remained undetected by our radars until a good friend brought it to our attention” only last Wednesday. This triggered swift action!!!

A “snow-balling effect” is what they fear most.

One of the most important action alerts ever issued by the APC is one entitled: “Extremely urgent: US only two States Away from Constitutional Convention. Whether true or not, many of them fear that if the proposition for a Cha-Cha gets approved by the Ohio legislature, it would need only another State to pass a similar action and similar actions are expected to come after another. This could induce the US Congress to have no choice but to call for a convention, thus throwing their Charter up for grabs. To them, the threat posed by the vote in Ohio is grave enough to merit a call for immediate action – to call their respective congressmen.

To the APC, It does not matter where you live. Ohio's vote today endangers everyone in every state in the Union, so we must pressure Ohio lawmakers to discard this disastrous legislative effort thirty-two (32) other states have already called for a Con Con (allegedly to add a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution). 34 states are all that is required, and then Congress MUST call for Convention.

Similar to the Philippines , the U.S. Constitution places no restriction on the purposes for which the states can call for a Convention. If Ohio votes to call a Con Con, for whatever purpose, “the United States will be only one state away from total destruction.” And it's a safe bet that those who hate America and all that she stands for, are merely waiting to pounce upon this chance to re-write the US charter.

Certainly all loyal Americans want government to have a balanced budget. But they believe that calling a Con Con is taking risks about facing some revolutionary changes in their form of government. They are almost sure that its ultimate outcome will likely be a new constitution; one that would possibly eliminate the restriction to the coinage of real money or even eliminate gun or property rights. “So what may look like a good idea to the legislators driving this effort - all Republicans - will certainly make them prey to the law of unintended consequences - at the very least insuring the U.S. will never have a balanced budget - while destroying what vestiges of liberty the government still allows?”

While it may be true that some of those 32 states have voted to rescind their calls but under Article V of the US Constitution, “Congress must call a Constitutional Convention whenever 2/3 (or 34) of the states apply.”

The US Charter has no provision on a state of rescission. Advocates of the convention are said to be waiting to capture just two more states - Ohio , and one other. Then, they may start challenging the other states' rescissions in the courts “while going ahead with the Convention.” Given this, Congress alone then decides whether state legislatures or state conventions ratify proposed amendments.

Certainly, like in the Philippines , the individual States in the USA can control the subject of any convention. Truth to tell, no restrictive language can limit the scope or outcome of a ConCon! Once a Convention is called, Congress’s role is only to determine how the delegates are chosen. Once chosen, those delegates acquire more powers than do Congress itself!

The Convention of 1787 was called to introduce minor revisions in the Articles of Confederation. That was the only ConCon Americans can remember. In fact, several states first passed resolutions requiring their delegates to discuss only, amendments to the Charter, forbidding even discussion of foundational changes.

After the delegates' first agreement that their meetings be in secret however, their second act was to agree to debate those state restrictions and to nullify the Articles of Confederation. They also changed the ratification process, reducing the required states' approval from 100% to 75%. We can’t see enough reason to believe that a contemporary Con Con wouldn't tamper with Article V restrictions to suit its purpose.

Quoting a letter former Chief Justice Warren Burger sent to Phyllis Schlafly, President of Eagle Forum he said that there is no sure-fire way to limit or, muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The convention, a sovereign body, has its own agenda. Congress may pass a law limiting to just one the articles to be amended, but the Convention can vote later to do as it pleases. It would be too late to stop the convention from doing what it likes.

Americans were blessed that the delegates to the1787 Con Con were the leaders of a freedom movement that had just cleansed the US of tyranny. Today's corrupt politicians and judges would like nothing better than the ability to legally ignore the Constitution - to modify its "problematic" provisions to reflect the philosophical and socials mores of our contemporary society.

It would be such a crazy scheme to amend the US Charter at this time, because the US has just voted a dedicated progressive as its President and that the Republicans are seen at its weakest right now.

Whether in the US or the Philippines, if a ConCon is done now, can anybody guaranty that the debates can be controlled and that civil liberties will not be revised into a government-controlled privileges; replace the policy of collective right to self defense; abolish the Bill of Rights; include the non-existent principle of Separation of the Church and the State; population control, abortion and euthanasia and other issues.

Peoples’ unique concept of individual rights, endowed by God, would be quickly banish as an anachronistic relic of the past; replaced by new "collective" rights, awarded and enforced by government for the "common good". The problems our nation faces are not a result of deficiencies in our Constitution; rather, they are the direct result of our disregard for that Bill of Rights.

There is no challenge faced by this nation that cannot be solved by enforcing existing law.

With a Charter patterned after the US , we can safely say that mango trees never yield tomatoes! Think it over.

A TOTALITARIAN WORLD

A TOTALITARIAN WORLD

by Erick San Juan

Hints have been dropped that we can soon wake up one fine morning to find that the entire humanity is already under a system of governance that is based on some kind of autocratic if not entirely totalitarian principles. In fact, the Financial Times, one of the most respected and widely read newspapers on the planet, featured last Tuesday an editorial that openly admits the agenda to create a world government based on anti-democratic principles and concedes that the term “global governance” is merely a euphemism for the move towards a centralized global government.

Throughout the 1990s, people who have been warning us about the elite’s plans to centralize global power and destroy American sovereignty have been called by popular culture and the media as “right-wing lunatics for sounding the alarm bells.

Now their agenda has been unmasked. And these hawks are left with no more spears to shoot at people trying to put them under check.

An unexpected editorial written by the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman entitled ‘And now for a world government’ spells out the plan for global government and the manner it is being pushed with deceptive language and euphemisms in order to avoid steering the so-called hornets’ nest.

“For the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible,” writes Rachman. By citing the financial crisis, “global warming” and the “global war on terror” would most likely be the three major pretexts through which it is being introduced by advocates of globalism.

Sounding the alarm bells much louder than we had done before, Rachman writes that “global governance” could be introduced much sooner than many expect and that President-elect Barack Obama has already expressed his desire to achieve that goal, making reference to Obama’s circle of advisors which includes Strobe Talbott. It will be recalled that in 1992 Talbott stated that “in the next century, nations as we know, it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

In his editorial, Rachman then agrees that the more abstract term “global governance,” which is commonly used by David Rockefeller and other advocates of a single world government as a shroud to hide their real desire of establishing a centralized global government, is merely a ploy used to prevent “people reaching for their rifles in America ’s talk-radio heartland”.

But some learned European of what is really going on around them, says Rachman. He points to Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France , as one who argues that: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.” As far as Attali is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. He believes that the “core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law”.

Rachman also outlined how an official world government would evolve, which would feature the creation of “a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force”.

He insisted that a “world government” would involve much more than just the co-operation between nations, but it would also be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws.

These globalists are likely to pattern their world government after the continental government for 27 nations which the European Union has set up as a model.

The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.”

Acknowledging that the path to global government will be “slow and painful,” Rachman concludes that everything is in place considering that for the first time since man learned to write on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to achieve a world government.”

Citing the continual rejection of EU expansion when the question is put to a vote, Rachman concedes that international governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.

“In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters,” Rachman wrote.

So there you have it – to be able to achieve a world government, dictatorial measures will have to be employed because majority of the people are openly against losing their sovereignty says one of the world’s top newspapers.

In view of the admission by the world’s most influential newspapers on the pursuit of the globalists’ self-interested, centralized, unrepresentative and dictatorial world government as their real agenda, would the advocates of globalism and their propagandists still persist in labeling us as paranoid conspiracy theorists for warning that a system of dictatorial world government is being set up? Wake up guys!!

MUMBAI: A CON GAME?

MUMBAI: A CON GAME?

by Erick San Juan

If the claim made by some Mumbai-based group of activists and intellectuals are true, then, it will require a very influential and determined world leader to show the way into nipping the security menace at it’s bud.

For sure, the cure to this world problem will depend so much upon the demeanor that President-elect Barrack Obama of the United States will display as soon as his watch begins. If Obama leans towards one way or the other, it will be towards that direction that the series of conflicts in various parts of the world will head to.

A move favoring the power elite, the compradors and their domestic subalterns is seen to aggravate the prevailing exploitative situation. This can ignite more protest actions – some may be violent.

On the other hand, favoring the less empowered and the working class could be taken by the king-makers as an affront upon them and could result in an assassination in a manner they had done to President Abraham Lincoln when he planted the seeds that eventually eradicated slavery in the US and to the late President John F. Kennedy, who exerted much efforts at reforming the banking industry of the US and its Federal Reserves. But if Obama behaves the way Pontius Pilate did during the public trial of Jesus Christ, the status quo will prevail and bloodshed could also escalate beyond what we all can imagine.

On December 4, 2008, the India Daily quoted the group of activists and intellectuals at a press conference in the business capital of Mumbai , India , that "there is enough evidence that the Al-Qaeda is a front organization of the CIA and MOSSAD. The Bush junta has used the bogey of terror and of Al Qaeda to justify his unending and ever expanding Global War on Terror, which is only a means of capturing the resources of the world and of establishing the sole hegemony of Israel in West Asia ." To the “birds of prey,” selling their war machines before and during any war and the ensuing post-war reconstruction phase are opportunities that they must be able to corner.

It is a well known fact that no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq even after Saddam Hussein was ousted, tried and executed. The same is true with what was once Taliban-dominated Afghanistan whose people the world’s power elite “is punishing” for cuddling Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi intellectual whose undercover activities the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used to bank-roll.

The propagandists of these syndicate of power-hungry "globalists" has repeatedly and consistently hammered on the necessity to hunt down and neutralize personalities who they refuse to acknowledge as their own operation accomplices of the 9/11 attack (on the WTC).

As a result, the spokesman of the Mumbai-based activists said that the exploiters’ propaganda has been widely written about in USA and Europe itself. In fact, more than 50% of the American people and far more Europeans now believe and are convinced about the lies they have been passing on.

In fact, sections of the ruling political and military elite of India have been lured into importing the same Bush-Olmert formula. "The increasing terror attacks only serve the cause of the Indian elite and divide the masses along communal lines. It is only the ordinary Indians who are the victims of terror either in temples, mosques, buses or trains," he said adding that practically no political leader suffers a similar fate, where the terrorists are apprehended and killed in cold-blood, that are passed off as “encounters.”

"Every terror attack is meant to push and drag the Indian masses further into the waiting arms of Uncle Sam and the Israeli Goliath. Every terror attack spreads further hatred for the adherents of Islam and weakens the Indian Muslim community," said the Indian intellectuals.

To the descendants of the "globalists", What sin have the people of the world done to the power elite that they have to be treated in this kind of a con game? Just asking?

THE WORLD NEVER LEARN

THE WORLD NEVER LEARN

by Erick San Juan

Here we go again!!!



The recent carnage allegedly pulled by Pakistanis and their Indian cohorts in the business capital of Mumbai could very well be part of a well oiled plan to create havoc and more divisions among two brother Asian nations - India and Pakistan. No doubt, the unfortunate incident can kindle more fire and complicate their efforts at nurturing peace in that area, given that the issue of Kashmir , a very nice resort straddling on their common borders has yet to set aside.

But who do you think stands to benefit from that dastardly act, where hundreds were slain and hundreds more got injured and with businesses affected? This adventurism sowed terror not only to Indian big businesses, but also among expatriates. Mumbai is the business center of India .



It is a pity that a synagogue, in the heart of Mumbai's financial district was badly shaken by the terrorist attack. However, it could also be a plot using the siege of the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue as collateral damage to anger not only the Indian Jews, but the global Jewish communities as well.

Strategic analyst friends of mine are wondering why it happened only now? Prior to this, anti-semitism never existed throughout India’s colorful history. Different religious congregations co-existed in India for so long.

As reported, the "soldiers of fortune" who disguised themselves as Pakistani terrorists were good in symbolisms, according to H.D.S. Greenway of Boston Globe. The Mumbai attack, as hyped, was the equivalent of striking New York with Hollywood thrown in. A thorough background check must be done as to the real identity of the culprits and whoever trained them for that mission, a move considered as an imperative if we are to link or connect the dots.



To do this, India and Pakistan need to set aside the blame-game. They should analyze carefully if possible and without any intervention from other nations to get to the bottom of the problem. Both of them need to learn how nation-states wage wars that are masterminded by a "third force". These intricacies will surely be fanned and could trigger not only word wars but could likely evolve into real shooting wars. Both governments should offer cooperation and no finger pointing at the moment.



Both Pakistan and India need to learn from the experiences of warring nations in the region i.e., the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraq-Kuwait War, etc.



Look at the aftermath of each war? Again, who benefits from such wars? Who sells the arms and the equipment used in killing the enemies? Who corners the contracts in the ensuing reconstruction phase? What do they say about the likes of Bechtel and Halliburton? Who are their beneficial owners?



And here is the danger. Incoming U.S. President Barack Obama could be lured into stomping his feet, if only to avert the escalation of wars. Perhaps, he could, over a portable US military base set up in the conflicted boundary or, he could ask the United Nations to send over a peacekeeping contingent.



Then, people will start asking: When will the world ever learn????

A TRIGGERLESS GUN

A TRIGGERLESS GUN

By Erick A. San Juan

Filipinos, particularly the restless opposition, need to unify its ranks and find an appropriate issue which they need to equip with a triggering mechanism, if they want to succeed in deposing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on their nth attempt.

Like in Thailand, the Philippine opposition’s main issue against the current administration is graft and corruption. That is their gun. It worked in Thailand. But, does their gun have a trigger? What about their bullet, isn’t it a dud?

No doubt, the stooges who, for ages now, have been wanting to snatch the right to dwell in Malacanang Palace are startled with awe and envy over the fete achieved by their Thai counterparts, whose series of protest actions was able to snowball into a gradual occupation of the airports, which eventually triggered a supreme court ruling that equally banned for corruption, the three leading political parties of Thailand, finally ousting the Prime Minister.

Now that the reformist people of Thailand are successful in deposing what they call “a corrupt regime that replaced an equally corrupt administration,” all that their Filipino counterparts could do is to just watch and at best, try to nibble their fingers for some formulas that they hope can effectively work in giving their own corrupt leaders the boot.

The world sees the achievement of the Thais as another triumph of their own variation of the “Peoples’ Power” which the Filipinos invented.

While there seem to be some similarities of issues being raised in both countries, the realities on the ground are different. First of all, Thailand’s monarchy is real, while in the Philippines, some powers that be are just hoping they are the monarchy. They may not be claiming these and those as theirs, but they have been trying to enrich themselves in power - with some touches of legitimacy?

But many are skeptical if the use of Peoples Power could result in the ouster of President Arroyo this time. To boot her out needs a determined and charismatic leader who has a popular issue that has a trigger, a critical mass into a consistent mass action. This leader must never be another political opportunist. This is what appears to be wanting in our present crop of leaders.

Let us recall that the opposition, using as main issue the widespread fraud that attended the 1985 snap presidential elections, was able to drive the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos out of Malacanang. But as it turned out, the conquerors evolved to be more crooked than the one they fired! The next regimes accomplished only one thing. They bled our coffers dry – all of our assets have been sold out as a result of a total breakdown of the Philippine government’s revenue generation system.

Then, followed the administration of President Jose Marcelo Ejercito a.k.a. Joseph Estrada, who stayed in office for a little more than 2 years only. Amid charges of massive corruption (for which he was never convicted by the impeachment court), the impeachment proceedings was aborted by a walkout that marred the trial. This triggered the massive rallies and the eventual withdrawal of support from the military, whose leaders are now the “immortal” officials to whom President Arroyo is paying for past favors, for providing her an opportunity to sit where she is.

For the past four years there have been foiled impeachment moves against the President whose popularity has unceasingly been inching closer to the rock bottom. In some other nations, their leaders get the boot when they get this far below - not in the Philippines.

Sad to say, the recycling of issues and the repeated investigations – in aid of election and extortion at the Senate – and even the entry cum spirited participation of the discredited former Speaker Joe de Venecia into the ranks of opposition may be able to help in creating some noise, but triggering her ouster from power may just be another dream.

But Filipinos are generally stubborn. They don’t just give up. Or, shall we call that perseverance? If their formula does not work, they can always regroup and try to map out another strategy and apply it until it turns out to be a “tragedy.”

Let us not be surprised if one day, they will start dressing former President Fidel V. Ramos in a manner the Thais look up to King Bumibol of Siam. Also, now that President Ramos had left for a speaking engagement in Guam, let us not be surprised if some pivotal developments evolve before he returns.

But the question that needs to be answered quickly is: Does President Ramos have the quality and the willingness to be the catalyst for a regime of change ala King of Thailand? He's known to be a man of peace and has saved GMA during the so called "Hyatt 10 coup" to avert a possible civil war. Will he save her this time? Yesterday, in a press conference in his Makati office, PFVR was quoted saying, "GMA is lucky for herself but not for the majority of the Filipinos!". There's a move to use People power, but it will not be repeated." Read my lips?

A PALACE'S COUP IN THE SENATE?

A PALACE'S COUP IN THE SENATE?

by Erick San Juan


Some political leaders ought to learn a number of lessons from the coup that brought down rug-to-riches realtor Manny Villar from the Presidency of the Philippine Senate.

Trusting politicians may be one of them.

Like the popular adage, that goes like being able to fool some of the people some of the time and most of the people most of the time, we can be very sure, karma is bound to catch up on he who would dare pull a fast one. Like Malacanang Palace, the Senate is now considered a snake pit due to ambition and hidden agenda.

For the deposed Senate President, it may be too late now for him to realize that paddling the same canoe on two separate rivers all at the same time, is an impossibility. In politics, one has to be either a conservative, or a liberal. Staying at the middle is never an option. In essence, one can never be at peace when he “sleeps with his enemy.”

For the tenants of Malacanang, they must now wake up to the reality that getting their pie and eat it, can prove to be very difficult. They must learn earlier on that in politics, there are no permanent allies – only personal interests. Malacanang can not just cause the yanking out of one they consider as an enemy, only to deliver his turf to one whose interest they can not be so sure about.

Certainly, the veteran strong-willed politician in newly installed Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who is in his twilight years and is not growing any younger, is expected to be more concerned about leaving behind a legacy for the next generation to emulate. It would not come as a surprise if Enrile will just remain as a statesman and a patriot. He is bound to keep the Senate as an institution independent of Malacanang – one that he will steer with only the national interest foremost in his heart and mind.

In short, by relegating Villar to the ranks of the new opposition and ruining his chances of perhaps becoming the President should Ms. Arroyo finally end her term, it does not necessarily follow that the Senate under Enrile would now be controlled by her allies.

Remember, that while Senate President Enrile admits openly that he is a staunch advocate of introducing some amendments to the Philippines Constitution of 1987, most of his colleagues who installed him to his current post are the same solons rabidly opposing all and every attempts to introduce changes to the Charter – especially those that could extend her term.

Like Senator Francis Escudero, many Filipinos are convinced that some egg-heads in Malacanang have yet to junk their obsession to continue wielding the same, if not more powers under an extended Arroyo administration. But they were simply “testing the water” and they may have “commissioned” Press Secretary Jesus G. Dureza to recite his controversial invocation at the opening of the recent Cabinet meeting in Malacanang.

However, it appears that while President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may have been kept out of the plot, but almost certainly, her band of mischievous tinkers knew all along what they were doing. They were simply trying to prolong to the hilt, the intensity of the heat that the Senate coup has generated.

It is most likely that palace propaganda tacticians are trying to regroup and need to assess their next moves, as a result of the repercussions brought about by the leadership turnover in the Upper Chamber.

While it is more likely that the palace could have in fact, given its imprimatur to the “troop movements in the Senate,” they never realized that by replacing then Senate President Manny Villar, they failed to anticipate the scenario that could evolve once Enrile assumes the Senate Presidency.

Watch out for this. In the next few days, it would not be far-fetch that new palace-sponsored spins and maneuvers will take shape. We can only hope that whatever these may be, a bloody end must always be avoided, lest the Philippines will slip to deeper woes.

PREPARE FOR HARDER TIMES

PREPARE FOR HARDER TIMES

Erick San Juan

The Philippines and nations more impoverish than her (especially those similarly indebted to the World Bank – International Monetary Fund) should now start preparing for a lot more depressing times. This grim scenario is anticipated as the end result of having already infusing into its banking system the controversial $3-trillions financial bail-out package of the United States government and yet, it is bound to aggravate worldwide poverty and possibly hunger with the new economic stimulus fund that its banking moguls are batting for.

While the economic stimulus fund was conceived as a means of priming economic activities in the US and ensuring profitability of its commerce and industry, it does not take into account the chilling effects it would deliver to economies with heavy borrowings from the WB-IMF and other banks.

In Economic 101, we were taught that inflation sets in when the supply of hard cash exceeds the normal demand. Conversely, when the demand for hard cash could no longer be satisfied or, when there is a shortage of currency, deflation is bound to set in.

In most if not all economies, it is the central bank that determines the rate of interest – and of course - inflation, since it is the entity which produces, securitize, circulate and control the volume and value of currency.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve System is controlled by a consortium of 12 privately-owned banks – the largest shareholder of which is controlled by the Rothschild of London. Other bankers in control of the banking infrastructure of the United States are the Rockefellers, the family of JP Morgan, the Warburg family of Germany, the Lazard brothers of Paris, Israel Moses Seaf, Kuhn, Loeb and company of Germany , Lehman Brothers of New York and the Goldman Sachs of New York .

Like former US Senator Aldrich, the family of Prescott Bush (paternal grandfather of President George W. Bush and of course, father of former President George Bush, belong to the so-called “tentacles” of the big “banksters” imbedded in the US government.

For ages now, it is an accepted doctrine among bankers that money begets money and (all forms of) power. Banks take in deposits (hard currency or valuables) for which they pay a minimal interest rate which they, themselves impose. It then, loans out the hard currency in its custody, at an interest rate even much higher than the rate given to the depositors. Those persons, entity or governments who incur loans from a bank gets indebted.

Since 1776, the US dollar was backed by gold until April 5, 1933, when US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued what many Americans called a “treasonous” Executive Order No. 6102, ordering all US citizens to hand in all their gold and gold certificates to the private Federal Reserve Bank. Since then, it became illegal for anyone to keep a large amount of gold whether in the form of bullions or gold certificate.

The late US President Abraham Lincoln once said that those who get indebted eventually become virtual slaves. In fact, he had expressed fear that there can come a time when the children of Americans who are heavily indebted to the banks might wake up one day to find that they no longer own anything but the shirts on their backs.

The Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), unlike the Federal Reserve Bank of the US, is owned by the government. In fact, through the BSP, the government may also borrow money from domestic and foreign banks each time the need arises.

The BSP is controlled by a Monetary Board (MB) composed of private persons appointed by the President of the Philippines. They are handsomely compensated, although not one of them own stocks in the BSP. But they wield enormous powers. Because of that, some of them behave like they also own the economy. Some analysts believe that they are also in the payroll of international banks.

Similarly, the MB determines the interest rates that private banks may impose upon their respective borrowers and depositors. It is also the entity that determines the volume of currency it will circulate in the economy.

Since Filipinos can remember, the domestic currency was also backed by gold bullions stored in the CB vaults, until President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and eventually issued a fiat similar to the FDR’s EO 6102. As a rule, the government can only print as much currency as it can secure with gold. Each time the government incur budget deficits, it borrows money from the CB, which prints the hard currency. When the CB prints a volume of cash that is more than what can be secured with gold, the value of the peso gets depreciated and inflation becomes bigger.

With that act by FM, the Philippine peso’s security shifted from gold to only by the volume of US dollars that the BSP is keeping in its vault.

Since the 1950s, the Philippine government has already been incurring foreign loans – principally from US banks. In fact, much of the Philippine government’s loans have been retired and yet, the Philippines’ outstanding foreign borrowings still stands at about US$56-Billion, a currency that has, by itself depreciated so much and on several times. Necessarily, the purchasing power of the domestic currency also gets depreciated each time the US dollar losses some of its value. But the reverse is never true, especially when former Central Bank governor Joey Cuisia (during Cory's time) almost converted our Central Bank into a private foreign controlled system through a Central Monetary Authority.

So, with the inflationary effects posed by the US$3-Trillion financial bail-out package and the new round of economic stimulus funds being pushed by pro-banks US solons to jump start their attempt to recover from the economic collapse of the US – which was of their own making, Filipinos should better be wary. It is not the ordinary Filipinos’ fault, but our policy makers doing. Surely, hard times are here to come.

THE CROSS AND THE SWORD

THE CROSS AND THE SWORD

Erick San Juan

Like legions of concerned Filipinos, the scene we witnessed on television a few days ago gave many of us the impression that some “men of the cloth” are out to replay the episodes in the aftermath of the colonization of the Philippine archipelago by Fernando Magallanes in 1521.

Surely, every Filipino is morally obliged to resist corruption and to correct any societal situation that may be detrimental to the national interest.

But the existence of a Constitutional principle of separation of the church and state should be enough to remind the descendants of Padre Damaso that they should not dip their dirty fingers into the broth of governance. They should allow everybody who would want to do it, but the clergy. Beside, these prelates are not united in their advocacy which could divide more our beleaguered nation.

Because of what they do, it makes me throw up each time I hear clerics (whose political loyalty is towards the Vatican ) virtually calling upon every Filipino to rise in open defiance to civil authority and to topple the government.

I also nearly choked when, recently, 5 catholic bishops started talking about “replacing” the government and naming some public personalities with whom they want to replace the current tenants of Malacanang. Although they are right in some of their chosen one.

Certainly, the casts in that recent press conference of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) had an agenda. In fact, some of my friends are tempted to say that the Bishops are - in the guise of advocating moral theology - actually out to supplant people in government with those who they perceive would lick their behind. We should learn from the mistakes of the late Cardinal Sin.

As if what the Filipinos experienced at the hands of the clergy for three centuries before the Americans took over the role played by the Crown of Spain over the “Pearl of the Orient Seas” was not enough, the firing-line scene recently portrayed by the so-called “politicians in white apparel” led by archbishops especially Socrates Villegas of Bataan, a known protege of Sin could be the demonstration of their quest for clerical dominance.

The Church has been given a chance to show its wares. But they blew it.

With that at the back draft, we should not be surprised if one day, we will all wake up to find that the likes of Pampanga Governor Among Panlilio, himself a member of the clergy, is already issuing presidential fiats. Panlilio is a subject of a recall petition for gross incompetence.

Specifically, it reminded us of the role portrayed by the likes of El Frayle, Padre Damaso. In those times, the clergy dictated upon the Spanish civilian government and made life very miserable for so many Filipinos. In the guise of providing the indios the path to eternal spiritual salvation, they sowed terror upon the townsfolk; amassed wealth; took liberties with women and sired most of the ancestors of the present day mestizos y mestizas ala Maria Clara.

The modern day Padres Damaso ought to be reminded that the role they are supposed to play in modern Filipino society is focused on saving the soul of their respective congregations, by purifying them with values from the Holy Bible, rather from their own whim and caprices. Population issues in relation to reproductive health and on taxation must, at all times, be left to the civilian authorities.

It is about time for Filipinos get rid of the culture of being placed before the carrot and stick. We must recall that if the Americans subdued us with the use of the book and the gun, the Spanish crown, earlier, conquered the Philippines with the cross on one hand and the sword on the other.

Filipinos do not deserve being placed under the gun of these disunited and politicized clergies. No, never again.

GWB’S SUMMIT AGENDA

GWB’S SUMMIT AGENDA

By Erick San Juan


Whatever is the real motive of US President George W. Bush for aggressively heading the forthcoming financial summit of the G-7 nations - an off-shoot of the global financial meltdown triggered by the sky-rocketing prices of the world market of oil, may be known only to him alone and perhaps, a chosen few.

Whatever are the intentions of the outgoing President of the world’s most powerful nation, would be highly suspect, considering that in just a few more weeks, the scion of Prescott Bush (the US banker who laundered funds to bank-roll the Nazis in World War II) shall hand over power to (all indications show it’s Democrat Senator Barack Obama of Illinois) whoever gets elected as US President in November 4, 2008.

One event that is sure to happen at the meeting of leaders of the world’s 7 most economically advanced economies, President Bush would put up a spirited employment of some modus, to shroud with some mantles of protection, hoping to prolong the life of the “goose that lays golden eggs” for the United States’ exclusive financial community, particularly the Federal Reserves Board, but over which there is a growing popular demand to end. For this, there is no doubt that he will try to convince the attending world leaders that by conniving with him would be most beneficial to the people of their respective countries.

Why? Of course, Bush has to ensure his own survival and those of his supporters in the US banking community, beyond his eight-year presidency.

But, to achieve that, President Bush must, more than just keeping the shrewd bankers of the US – mostly Anglo, Jews and Germans - at their current command strata and financial dominance over the world, America’s power elite must, first of all, survive the pressures that the new leaders of the United States can adopt as measure in trying to – at the very least - alleviate the sufferings that the bankers-inspired financial meltdown propagated worldwide in their quest for more profits at absolutely minimal, if not costless on themselves. It is imperative that the new US leaders have to mitigate the sufferings currently experienced by Americans, particularly the middle class and the homebuyers and the other world.

The new leaders (very likely led by Obama) have to alleviate the sufferings of the US , especially the homeowners, legions of whom have to either short-sell their homes, or all the banks to foreclose them, whichever means the perceived to be most beneficial to them. Any which way they did to surrender the homes the American borrowers could no longer pay for, these people have to revert to being house-renters.

As the US presidential elections draw closer, more and more people around the globe – not necessarily US citizens and owing to the strong influence of the US government wields over other nations, especially the small ones – get added to the long list of Homo sapiens who are hoping to witness the installation of the first black President at the Whitehouse in the coming new year.

In the Philippines and other third-world nations, every significant event in the US gets so much attention, principally because most of them are indebted to Washington DC . Notwithstanding the eminent denial from government spin artists, the fact remains that up until now, the culture as practiced by Filipinos continue to keep the Philippines at its status as a US colony since the mock battle of Manila bay at the turn of the 1900s. Since then, it is widely perceived that each time Washington DC sneezes, the political temperature in the Philippines naturally get fever-pitch.

In fact, as if demonstrating more enthusiasm than the people of other nations, almost every US Presidential debate and other related public affairs are aired live on Philippine television and widely covered by other media of communications. This, in effect, demonstrates how important US events of that nature are to every Filipino.

The Filipinos’ behavior is understandable because the Philippines , is heavily indebted to the US . Besides, the US still remains the Philippines ’ largest investor. And its’ investors in the Philippines are ranked as the biggest entities repatriating the huge profits they earn from their virtual monopolies here – added to the profits their mother and sibling companies earn from commodities sold to the Filipinos – to their motherland.

In so many ways, many patriotic Filipinos feel that for so long a time, the US has yet to quit treating the Philippines like it were its’ little brown brothers, if not a robot.

Candidly, many Filipinos are hoping that the advent of a new era in US politics, the Americans’ executive directions will lead to the emancipation not just of their own economy, but that freedom will trickle down to their virtual colonies like the Philippines as well.

BUSH AND HIS BAIL-OUT PLAN

BUSH AND HIS BAIL-OUT PLAN

By Erick San Juan

Finance people who view with much apprehensions, the economic bail-out package that US President George W. Bush has laid out for America ’s ailing banking sector, can always justify their ambivalent behavior as a natural reaction to the series of Houdini tricks that the bankers have played on us for ages, leading to a cycle of financial meltdowns.

Besides, it is but natural for President Bush to favor rescuing the lenders over the borrowers, because he comes from a family with strong ties to the banking syndicate of the west. His grandfather – and of course, father of former President George Bush, Sr. – was a director and vice president of the US Union Bankers Corp., which kept the Nazi’s enormous war chest in its vaults and in fact provided Germany with all the money laundering facilities that it needed during the war.

The recent record-breaking performances of over 900 percentage points posted by the stock markets was largely triggered by the admission of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that, in some ways, the US government had to arm-twist some big banks into participation in the scheme whereby US$ 250 billions of government funds will be infused as rescue facility for the banks in trouble.

In effect, this record-breaking performance is seen to attract so much investments that could pump-prime the financial communities towards a speedy recovery. But let us not forget that what is being pump-primed is the same financial community that led an earlier profit-taking spree out of the enormous gains generated by the boom that preceded the bubble burst on the housing industry.

President Bush’s preference for the bankers (over the home-buyers who suffered the most due to high interest rates that characterized the onslaught of the financial crisis, which is not the only one the world experienced in recent memory) is, no doubt, the principal reason why academics in banking and finance have become so wary about the scheme.

Since the start of the American civil war in 1775, the real truth has always been that “a financial element in the large centers has owned the ( US ) government since the days of Andrew Jackson,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. In fact, he suspected that “the refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the cause of the revolution.” It is widely perceived that the Americans’ dissatisfaction was fueled by King George’s policies that forced the US to borrow money from the Bank of England at exorbitant interest rates.

In 1783, America won its independence from England . However, its battle against the central bank concept has just begun. Indeed, he who controls the central bank controls the government because the Central Bank does not simply supply hard currency, but it also loans money to the government. By increasing or decreasing the volume of hard money in circulation, the CB is able to regulate the value of its currency. With a central banking system, he who is in control can produce debt. And he who incurs debt – as the Philippines and other developing countries – is necessarily enslaved, because a CB in debt must have to increase the hard currency it circulates to be able to pay for the interest on its loans.

Former US President Thomas Jefferson once said: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies…if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency… the banks and corporations that will grow up around the world will deprive the people of their properties until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

On the other hand, Sir Josiah Stamp (1880 to 1941) once warned that “if you want to remain slaves of the bankers and pay for the cost of your slavery, let them continue to craft money and control the nation’s credit.”

In the US , bankers like JP Morgan, Baron de Rothschild, John D. Rockefeller and Paul Warburg seized early control over the US ’ central banking system. At one point, the group of JP Morgan, who at that time was considered the banking luminary, spread rumors that some prominent private banks were manipulating the currency because it was actually insolvent or bankrupt. This sent chills down the spines of the business community. At the end of the day, a bank run has already begun.

Having made enormous sums of money from that scheme, the bankers once again sought to reestablish a central bank. This was facilitated by Senator Nelson Aldrich, who had strong ties with the bankers and in fact, eventually married into the Rockefellers.

Wit the sole purpose of establishing the US Federal Reserve Service, the bankers held a top secret summit at Jekyll Island , off the coast of Georgia . All the attendees had to come clandestinely and used pseudonyms to avoid detection. There they – the bankers, not lawmakers – actually wrote the Federal Reserves Act, which Senator Aldrich, their point-man, pushed in the US Senate.

In exchange for favors, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Act into law – an act he would later regret and over which he said: “our great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and domesticated governments in the civilized world. No civilized world by free opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”

On the other hand, Senator Louis McFadden’s reaction was “a world banking system was being set up here… A super-state controlled by international bankers… acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The Fed has usurped the government.”

Significant developments in the US banking system – which eventually affected the free world – came one after the other, until smaller banks got attracted to contract loans as money supply doubled from 1914 to 1919. But with the panic triggered by the rumors spread about town by the group of JP Morgan, the banks started calling in loans, resulting in the collapse of at least 5400 smaller banks.

In allocating some $250 billions as government investment in the ailing banks, President Bush ironically made himself clear that the US government has no plans on taking over the banks – just bail them out of trouble. But what about the home buyers who sunk all their lifetime savings into the properties they tried to acquire, but got frustrated due to the collapse of the economy?Bail out for the rich and nothing for the poor episode continuous.We never learn!