| Subject: | [socialcredit] IMF-WB TRICKS & PRIVATIZATIONS AND SALES OF ASSETS IN THE PHILIPPINES | | Date: | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 21:45:25 (-0700) | | From: | Eric Encina <ericencina @.....com>
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IMF-WB TRICKS AND FLATTERY TO PHILIPPINE ECONOMY 2007 By Eric V. Encina “To supplement tax collections, we will aggressively pursue
the privatizations of government-owned and controlled corporations and the sale
of government assets.” – Philippine Government. The quoted
statement above under the present financial-economic system and tax collection
policies is blatantly a contradiction or a hostile to Article II, Sec. 19 of the
1986 Constitution that states: “ THE STATE SHALL DEVELOP A SELF-RELIANT AND
INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ECONOMY EFFECTIVELY CONTROLLED BY THE FILIPINOS”.
Therefore, this is an outright treason and a savage cruelty to the
Filipino people in the process and in conflict with the charter so far as the
public wealth or people's money is concerned. The IMF Managing
Director Rodrigo de Rato has made a very flattering remarks about the
Philippine economy, hailing the RP financial progress under debt-fuelled
economy through the implementations of tough tax measures. In an exclusive
interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer Newspaper, he praised the
Philippine economic strengths through the interest of foreign investors in the
stages of the government privatization program. He added that the presence of
strong foreign interests in the recent successful sales of GOVERNMENT ASSETS
is
an evidence of the remarkable turnaround to Philippine economy over the last
few years. The sales and privatizations of the Philippine
national assets are blatantly in contradiction to Philippine Constitution.
However, to other economists, bankers and politicians —usually with vested
interests and juicy commissions, the sale or the privatization of
government assets is a matter of economic contingency or exigency or simply a
matter of economic pragmatism and practicality albeit of the expense of the
greater numbers of Filipino people. The system itself and its strong inclination to totally
privatize and sell the Philippine national assets which are likewise Filipino
people’s wealth is so bitterly preposterous that the mind of the poor masses
is repelled or confused. The major problem in the privatizations and sales of
the government assets is that it is a tricky device for paying off horrendous
government debts—which is, by the way, impossible to pay off as a whole until the
end of the world under the debt money
system schemes. We have to bear in mind that such assets belong to the
Filipino people, and therefore should not be put up for auction, where market
forces of globalization of finance and economics as evidences show can consign
them into foreign ownerships. The experience of most countries in the world shows
that privatization is only a temporary expedient to reduce the national debt.
However, in truth, debt is not actually reducing but increasing. Once the
national assets are privatized or sold off to foreigners and to multinational
corporations, they are gone forever but the vicious cycle of debt and borrowing
continues to choke up the inhabitants through tax measures and increasing of
prices of basic needs. What an irony to Filipino people under the debt-fuelled
money system only for the benefit of the bankers and the powerful few! The IMF chief has also hailed that 12% Expanded Value Added
(E-VAT) as the “government’s central achievement” since it was put into law and
come into forcible implementation, and now being vigorously
implemented by force and by all means as imposed by the US foreign
economic policies through IMF and WB debt money system scheme and as a
form of imposition or condition
to collect more taxes to pay off the debts. On the other hand, he also made
a comment that the recent shortfall of Government tax collection or revenue of
P73.67 Billion target illustrates a particular need to step up more tax
efforts. The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Value Added Tax Collection in the first
five months of 2007 has reached to P56.6 Billion but still lacking to shore up
the budget deficits. The government’s tax collection agency of Department
of Finance is directed by law to implement aggressive tax efforts to shore
up satisfactory collection and recover from the shortfall. For 2007, it has the
target of collecting P765 Billion in taxes to help meet the government’s goal of
limiting the budget deficit to only P63 Billion and thus to reach the goal of
posting a balance budget by 2008 which is likely impossible under the present
debt money system. The IMF chief has also stressed the NEED for MORE
TAX MEASURES, that means, to legislate more tax laws and aggressive policies
or simply to collect more taxes. The point of the IMF chief is to comply with
the conditions of the multilateral funding agencies for more loans and financial
assistance under the debt scheme policies. While the IMF chief
is trying to economically
and financially bamboozle the Filipino people and control the Philippine
government, the WB and the International Financial Corporation are also
adroitly putting us further into the dungeon of debts in the process that is also
so subtle than ever. They are planning to issue the peso-denominated bonds to the
domestic capital market and use the proceeds to fund their interest-bearing
programs for the Philippines . This is about to be done with the consent of
the Philippine Government with the gesture of flattery that issuance of
peso-denominated bonds is an indication of bankers’ confidence to Philippine
peso. The question is: Who
do actually benefit? The Filipino people or the bankers? If the issuance of Philippine peso denominated bonds is possible, why it
is that debt free money creation is not possible? Why it is the issuance or
creation of money is being done or entrusted solely by the charted, private,
foreign and international banks and not by the Philippine government? And the
government will borrow its own money from these bankers – which is a silly act
or to say it as infinitely silly. The report that the proceeds of the issuance of peso denominated
bonds by the WB and the International Finance Corporation to support the
Philippine development programs is a trick and prevarication of the debt
money system. To get the government into debt through the issuance of peso
dominated bonds is not going to help the Philippine government and the poor
people in the process. The profits and proceeds will certainly go to the
banks and to those corporations involved in the multi-billion transactions.
Like IMF, WB is one of the Philippine Government’s biggest
multilateral creditors, also along with the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and in addition to
other bilateral creditors that have a much greater compulsion to lend than their
prospective clients to borrow. International Finance Corporation is an arm of the
World Bank that provides interest-bearing loans to private
sectors. They control the private sectors through debt money system.
IMF and International Financial Corporation’s trick: These multilateral agencies do not usually issue peso-denominated
bonds. There must be something fishy behind this financial-economic
engineering gimmick. The Filipino
people must closely keep watch for another bamboozlement to our economy.
Why? It is because under the present fiscal program for 2007, the
government is set to borrow at interest US$2.466 Billion from foreign creditors
or bankers, and in addition, another P260 Billion from domestic sources, they
are, the commercial and private bankers TO PLUG its ballooning budget deficits
and PAY OFF the debts that will fall due this year. Hence, of the
foreign-borrowing scheme program, $1.466 Billion would come in the form of the
official development assistance (ODA’s) (this is not a grant but also a debt at
interest) from bilateral and multilateral agencies like World
Bank. Loans in the form of ODAs are interest-bearing though lower than
the commercial bank rates. In 2006, the World Bank has granted a huge loan
of $250 Billion under “Development Policy Loan” to the Philippine Government with
the protocol of yearly provision of interest-bearing loan to the country, on top
of other financial assistance. WB’s Financial assistance is not a grant or a gift
but an interest-bearing loan which is served as a form of budgetary support for
the government. But why it is that the Philippine government still lacks of
money? Most of the foreign loans and taxes do not feed down to the people but
only to the
foreign, international bankers in the form of interest payments and to
voracious government officials and politicians in the form of graft and
corruptions. No matter how it is claimed that the Development
Policy Loan from the WB is substantially cheaper than commercial banks, it is
still not reasonable to get the country in huge debts. Official
Development Assistance or ODA’s is a futile loan at interest, claimed to be for
the provision of public health and environmental services
when poor Filipinos are suffering diseases in the countryside, in particular to
impoverished villages, without any substantial help from the government agencies,
and when our Philippine environment is continually deteriorating because of
economic and monetary pressures. And the bitter of all is that ODA’s
fraction of loan is being used as a budget for the enhancement of tax
collection by the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue. What a tomfoolery!
To recapitulate the
issues, the Philippine is hugely in debt to commercial, foreign, bilateral and
multilateral financial institutions with the total debt of US$300 Billion or more
or less P4 Trillion with the interest rate of $400 per second,
or $1 Million per minute or $7 to $10 Billion annual interest payments. And to
fulfill the obligations, the government has to allow the foreign and
multinational corporations to take over the public’s wealth and government
assets through privatization program or policy or simply by selling off to
foreign ownerships as economic expediency, hence, to continue large foreign
borrowings at interest to commercial, foreign, bilateral and multilateral
financial institutions and of course lastly to impose more taxes to pay off the
debts, curb budget deficit and run the government. We are now
in the most disastrous financial pressures. Filipino people are suffering
poverty,
hunger, malnutrition, diseases, unemployment and homelessness in the
countryside. THE COUNTRY IS SEDUCED TO AN EVER INCREASING BURDEN OF ASTRONOMIC
DEBT WITH SKYROCKETING INTEREST PAYMENTS. We are in the state of savage cruelty
of debt and povety? Where is the money? The problems can be addressed if there
will be a complete rectification of the present financial-economic system through
the monetary reform policy that will entirely overhaul the system and put an
equilibrium between the money supply and the consumption demands. The proper,
equitable and just distribution of wealth is not possible under the present
system of finance. Therefore, it can only be possible when there is
debt-free money creation that will build a debt-free and prosperous nation,
establish an inflation-free economy, devaluation-free Philippine currency, and
will provide
financial-economic security in the form of supplementary basic income to every
citizen from the cradle to the grave as a right of citizenships. ALL MEN, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, HAVE THE RIGHT IN STRICT JUSTICE, TO BE GIVEN AT
LEAST THE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF MONEY EQUALLY AS NEEDED FOR THEIR SHARE OF EARTHLY
GOODS TO LIVE AS HUMAN PERSONS WITH DIGNITY CREATED IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF
GOD AND HIS CHILDREN. Thank you for reading. I welcome comments, suggestions and
correction. Eric V. Encina
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IMF-WB TRICKS & PR
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