Martial Law, US imperialism and the Marcos dictatorship

(Ferdinand Marcos with US President Richard Nixon in a motorcade during the latter’s Philippine visit in 1969 | Photo from filipiknow.net)

We mark the 45th year of the Martial Law declaration by highlighting the numerous atrocities and massive corruption of Marcos. Amid the rising fascism of the Duterte regime and systematic bid to revise history, reminding the people of the crimes of Marcos and evils of tyranny is more relevant than ever.

But we should not forget as well the role of the US as the country’s foremost colonial patron in the Marcos dictatorship. This is important to better understand why in today’s global/regional context (e.g. China’s rise and weakened US hegemony) and Philippine context the US, to advance its agenda, would also support the Duterte regime in its consolidation of political power through tyranny and fascism.

Marcos, his family and cronies would not had been able to plunder and repress the country the way they did without the support of the US. Martial Law and the Marcos dictatorship were useful for American economic and military interests in the Philippines and the region. Marcos lasted for as long as he did because he was backed by an imperialist superpower. Until of course when the political and economic crisis and social unrest intensified to a point that it was no longer beneficial for US interests to sustain Marcos’s tyrannical and corrupt rule.

The years before Marcos declared Martial Law were characterized by a surge in people’s protests – the First Quarter Storm (FQS) – against the exploitative and oppressive social order represented by the corrupt Marcos regime amid a worsening global and national economic crisis (soaring prices, massive unemployment and landlessness, ballooning public debt, etc.). The political instability threatened not only Marcos’s survival but US political, military and economic interests in the Philippines. To restore “stability”, the Marcos regime imposed Martial Law.

What were the US interests that Marcos and his dictatorship served?

At that time, the US was embroiled in the costly Vietnam War, a Cold War-era proxy war between the US and the former USSR. The Philippines under Marcos served the American war by deploying thousands of Filipino troops to help the US forces. Note that before he became President, Marcos was opposed to the sending of our troops to Vietnam. But once in Malacañang, Marcos changed his stand due to US pressure and because he knew that he would need US patronage to remain in power.

But beyond the deployment of Filipino troops, far more strategic for the US were the Subic Naval Base that their naval forces (US Seventh Fleet) used for repair and replenishment throughout the Vietnam War as well as the Clark Air Base that served as their key logistics hub. After the US’s disastrous defeat in the Vietnam War, Subic and Clark became even more important for the US in order to maintain its military presence and operations in Asia.

The US backed the fascist regime in exchange for the dictator’s assurance that the Philippines will continue to allow the stay of US military bases. Days before he publicly announced Proclamation 1081 that placed the entire country under Martial Law, it was reported that Marcos phoned then US President Richard Nixon to get his commitment of support. When Marcos imposed Martial Law on September 21, 1972, the US reportedly stationed 40,000 troops at its Subic Naval Base to “meet any contingency” arising from the dictator’s declaration.

Aside from its military agenda, the US also used the Marcos dictatorship to retain its privileged position in the Philippine economy and the exploitation of our natural resources. The Laurel-Langley Agreement of 1955 which gave full parity rights to American citizens and businesses or equal access like Filipinos to domestic agriculture, timber, mineral, public utilities, and land expired in 1974. But with his Martial Law powers, Marcos issued decrees that effectively maintained the neocolonial economic privileges of the US such as reversing court decisions that disallowed American ownership of landholdings in the country.

Indeed, as a 1973 press report read: “The most encouraging aspect of President Marcos’s assertion of one‐man rule has been the disappearance of the anti‐foreign feeling that had been mounting in the press and the Constitutional Convention in the year preceding the proclamation of martial law.” Prior to Martial Law, the 1970 Constitutional Convention was formed to rewrite the then prevailing 1935 Constitution. The US was concerned that the new charter would affect its military bases and economic interests in the country. Under Martial Law, Marcos arrested some members of the Convention and reconvened it to write the 1973 Constitution that favored Marcos’s and the US’s agenda.

On top of ensuring that the policy environment under Martial Law remained favorable to US interests, American businesses and politicians were also actually in cahoots with Marcos and his cronies in plundering the economy and public coffers. American banks provided odious debts that funded Marcos’s projects riddled with corruption.

Perhaps nothing is more notorious than the hugely overpriced white elephant US$2.3-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) that the US Export-Import Bank and American Express bankrolled together with the Bank of Tokyo. Through payoffs worth US$18 million to Marcos via his crony Herminio Disini, American firms Westinghouse and Burns and Roe bagged the lucrative contract to design and build the BNPP. Built on an earthquake zone, the BNPP was never operated for public health and safety while billions of dollars in payments went to American banks and firms at the great expense of the Filipino people.

Finally, the US also undermined the Filipino people’s quest for justice to make the Marcoses accountable for their crimes. This as real justice would mean making the colonial masters of the Marcos regime liable as well. According to a May 2016 report by The Guardian, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew that Marcos stole US$10 billion but refused to tell the Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) what they knew because apparently, American businesses such as those involved in the BNPP and political figures would be implicated as well.

Marcos also allegedly bribed high ranking US politicians and helped illegally fund the presidential bid of US presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, said the same Guardian report. The US systematically covered up its link with the corruption of and plunder by the dictator. For instance, the documents that the American authorities seized from Marcos when he fled to Hawaii in February 1986 have been allegedly redacted to hide transactions involving US organizations when they were turned over to the Philippines.

Today, the Duterte regime has been playing a leading role in revising the history of Martial Law and in the political rehabilitation of the Marcoses. This serves his own fascist agenda of establishing a Duterte dictatorship. He has already imposed Martial Law in Mindanao in what could be a dress rehearsal for a nationwide Martial Law.

Would the US support Duterte and connive with his regime in plundering and repressing the people the way it propped up the Marcos dictatorship? For all the President’s anti-US rhetoric (or more precisely, anti-Obama rants) and moves to deepen ties with US rival China, the Duterte regime has continued to foster ties with the country’s neocolonial master.

US military presence and intervention is felt more than ever with American troops and attack and surveillance drones deployed in Mindanao as part of Duterte’s military campaigns. US military bases remain through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) while joint military trainings including urban warfare continue under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). For all its rhetoric about human rights, the US would work with any fascist dictatorship, even with someone as unpredictable as Duterte, to protect its interests and influence in the region especially amid a growing challenge from China as well as Russia.

Thus, when we protest against Martial Law, fascism and tyranny, we should protest not just for the violation of our human rights but also for the violation of our sovereignty as a people. ###

Global issues, Military & war

Trump builds ‘legitimacy’ thru bombs and war-making

Photo from trofire.com

When Donald Trump surprisingly clinched the US presidency, the legitimacy of his regime has been challenged from the onset. Rival Democratic Party, with the apparent help of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), immediately launched a campaign to delegitimize Trump.

Even within his Republican Party, there seems to be mistrust on Trump to pursue traditional US foreign policy, which since 9/11 has been largely defined by the neoconservatives (i.e., advocates of preemptive wars, among others).

The reason? Trump’s stance on Russia and his overtures of normalizing relations with the US’s longtime adversary during the campaign. Trump’s position reflects the agenda of the monopoly capitalist clique he represents such as a faction of Big Oil that is willing to cooperate more with Russia for its vast oil and gas resources.

One of them is Exxon Mobil, which has a mammoth $500-billion oil deal with Russia. President Barack Obama blocked the deal as one of the sanctions against Russia for its role in Ukraine. Improved US relations with Russia would allow Exxon Mobil to exploit oil from almost 26 million hectares of Russian land, said to be five times the size of what America’s largest oil company has in the US.

But normalized US-Russia relations aren’t as simple, of course. It requires a shift as well in US foreign policy towards Russia’s biggest allies Iran and China, something that even Trump himself is unwilling to do. A policy shift in Iran would greatly compromise the US long held agenda to remain in control of Middle East oil while it will not give up Asia Pacific and its massive market, vast resources and strategic sea-lanes to China.

De-escalating a lucrative New Cold War amid a prolonged economic crisis also doesn’t sit well with the military-industrial and security complex, which profits out of war and the threat of war that is constantly driven by the endless competition among monopoly capitalists to divide the world.

The controversies and predicament that Trump faces simply show the deepened contradiction among the competing big interests in the US and imperialism’s increasingly convoluted geopolitical agenda.

Picking up the momentum of the Democratic Party’s propaganda that Moscow hacked the US elections to benefit Trump, the billionaire President has been depicted as a Kremlin stooge by the CIA-fed corporate mass media. A leaked wiretapped conversation with a Russian diplomat of Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was since forced to resign, further fired up anti-Moscow hysteria as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several congressional bodies investigate the alleged Trump-Russia collusion. Trump knew that the campaign to destabilize his fledgling regime was real; that a domestic CIA “regime change” operation is likely already ongoing.

In this regard, Washington’s swift decision to drop 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian airbase is more about Trump trying to preserve his presidency than retaliating (in the name of “small children and beautiful babies” killed) against a supposed chemical attack by the Russia-backed Assad regime. The message that the Trump retaliatory attack (which reportedly killed nine civilians, including four children) tried to convey was clear: explicitly, the “bromance” with Vladimir Putin is no more and implicitly, the happy days for the lucrative war making business are far from over.

Trump’s self-serving intention in directly bombing Syria only serves to amplify the brutal criminality of US military intervention and war of aggression in that country and region that has already claimed thousands of innocent lives. In March alone, there were reportedly 1,472 innocent civilians killed in Syria by US-made and delivered bombs.

Amid the corporate media hysterics, a more reasonable action by Trump – like supporting Moscow’s call for a prompt and serious probe even as it claims that Assad’s opponents were the ones in possession of the nerve gas – could be easily interpreted as further proof that a Kremlin puppet is in the White House. Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hints that a regime change in Syria is now back on the agenda even if it aggravates the tension with Russia.

Trump is on the offensive to reverse the campaign to undermine his presidency by rallying the entire monopoly capitalist state machinery behind a campaign to reassert US global power and dominance, including through reckless saber-rattling and military adventurism that court all-out nuclear war.

He followed up his action against Syria with the much publicized bombing of an ISIS cave and bunker complex in Afghanistan with the so-called “Mother of All Bombs”, the largest non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal. It was a “shock and awe” display and ruthless projection of US firepower, which is meant to send the message that it is business as usual for US imperialism and that Syria, North Korea, China, Iran, even Russia and others that threaten US interests should take notice.

After bombing Syria and Afghanistan, Trump then deployed the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its group of battle warships off the coast of the Korean peninsula in an attempt to bully North Korea to stop its recent missile tests.

It remains to be seen how Trump’s more aggressive military posturing abroad will favorably impact on his shaken legitimacy at home. What is clear is that this will increase the stake for the US to meddle more in countries that play a key role in promoting its interests and agenda in the region and the world.

How such greater foreign intervention would translate in the Philippines is something that must be closely watched as the Duterte administration tries to negotiate a peace pact with the revolutionary groups that pose the biggest threat to US imperialism in the country – the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’ Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) –– and starts to forge closer bilateral ties with US rivals China and Russia.

Already, pro-US forces, including several of President Rodrigo Duterte’s own men, have been relentlessly undermining the peace talks with the Left while ensuring that US military presence in the country remains strong.

But the situation also presents a good opportunity for Duterte to show that his independent foreign policy is beyond mere rhetoric by asserting national sovereignty and interest over the US’s imperialist agenda. ###

Military & war

Duterte’s Defense chief, US imperialism’s reliable point man

screen-shot-2016-11-30-at-4_d601011b5b9f4881b6aeb680e3d682de

Photo from Rappler

It is fitting that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana made the first public declaration of the Duterte regime’s all-out war against the New People’s Army (NPA).

Duterte’s termination of the peace talks, after all, is the culmination of the military and security establishment’s relentless campaign to undermine the peace efforts by the NPA, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Amid the peace negotiations and indefinite unilateral ceasefire separately declared by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the NPA, the AFP under the executive supervision of the Defense Secretary, occupied some 500 barrios nationwide and pursued combat operations against the NPA.

Apparently meant to provoke the NPA, Lorenzana has actively spread the propaganda that these combat operations are anti-criminality initiatives of the police, assisted by the AFP, against supposed lawless elements.

In addition, it can also be assumed that it was the defense and military establishment headed by Lorenzana that convinced Duterte to renege on his earlier commitments to release the political prisoners.

The increasingly untenable unilateral ceasefire and issue of political prisoners proved to be the really thorny issues in the peace talks from the onset until its eventual termination by Duterte.

The role and agenda of Lorenzana in sabotaging the peace talks – which based on the last joint statement of the NDFP and government panels were moving positively overall and faster than expected despite the contentious issues – is better understood by exposing what is at stake for US imperialism and the latter’s ties with Duterte’s Defense chief.

For all the scathing remarks of Duterte against former US President Barack Obama and the independent foreign policy rhetoric, the volatile President isn’t the biggest foe of US imperialism in the Philippines. It is still the CPP-NPA-NDFP, and its revolution for national democracy and sovereignty that the US and its string of trusty puppet regimes have failed to defeat in the past 48 years.

A successful peace agreement with the revolutionary groups would seriously impair US imperialism’s strategic political, military and economic interests in the country and region. At a time of prolonged global monopoly capitalist crisis, rise of China and its strengthening alliance with Russia, and America’s own uncertainties under a Trump regime, it is crucial for US imperialism to protect its dominant position in its neo-colonies like the Philippines.

And here comes Lorenzana, a retired Philippine Army General, as US imperialism’s reliable point man.

For most part of the past two decades, Lorenzana was based in Washington DC. He was the Philippines’ defense and armed forces attaché from 2002 to 2004 and special representative for veterans’ affairs from 2004 to 2015. (Read Lorenzana’s profile on the Defense department’s website)

Among his tasks was to supervise and monitor the bilateral military relations between the Philippines and the US. It covers the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), military exercises, military aid, training, and foreign military sales.

Lorenzana was among those who developed the terms of reference (TOR) for the Balikatan exercises in 2002. That TOR was the first in Balikatan history that allowed US involvement in domestic combat operations.

The US State Department trained Lorenzana on crisis management. The US Armed Forces bestowed on him the Legion of Merit, a military honor for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements”.

It’s not only in the peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP that Lorenzana capably played his role as US imperialism’s point man. Remember how he tempered Duterte’s tirades against the US and threats of rescinding the VFA and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and stopping the military exercises with the US?

Now, we ended up with the US building military facilities inside agreed locations under the EDCA as announced recently by Lorenzana, of course, as well as 258 joint exercises with the US military this year under the VFA.

But it is important to stress that Lorenzana’s key role in promoting the interests of US imperialism does not absolve President Duterte of accountability in the scuttled peace talks and the continuing US military presence and intervention. As President, the ultimate and biggest accountability still rests on him.

By Lorenzana’s own account, he and the President first became close when he was assigned in Davao in the late 1980s to lead counterinsurgency operations against the NPA. A product of that stint of Lorenzana in Davao was State sponsorship of the anti-communist vigilante group Alsa Masa, which laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU).

That all-out war obviously did not result in the decisive downfall of the NPA, only in the breakdown of human rights and rule of law. ###

Human rights, Poems

Paano linisin ang dinungisang dingding ng Embahada ng Kano?

Photo by Bullit Marquez/Associated Press

Una, palambutin ng usok ang pinturang nanigas
Maghagis ng tear gas.

Pangalawa, banlawan ng water cannon
Hanggang kumupas ang pula.

Para sa natitirang mantsa,
Manghablot ng mga katutubo
Kahit sino, kahit ilan
Pero tandaang mas marami, mas mainam.

Pagkatapos ay hambalusin
Kahit saan tamaan
Basta tandaang mas marahas, mas mainam.

Pagkatapos ay sagasaan
Tulad ng kung paanong patagin ng dambuhalang gulong
Ng mga minahan at plantasyon
Ang kanilang mga gubat at lupain,
Kultura at tradisyon.

Panghuli,
Kunin ang dugong nanikit sa truncheon at gulong
Ikuskos nang mabuti at mariin
Sa nadumihang dingding
Ng himpilan ng among dayuhan.

Huwag kalilimutang
Maghugas ng kamay.

Economy, Governance, Military & war

US aid and imperialism

Photo from The Philippine Star

For daring the US and others to withdraw their aid, President Rodrigo Duterte has been called a “psychopath”. For those whose way of thinking has been systematically warped by colonialism and neocolonialism/imperialism, it is plain madness. As a poor country, why would we shun the “altruism” of rich countries like the US?

On the contrary, the US would rather not stop its aid program here. Since our nominal independence from the US’s colonial rule 70 years ago, patronage through economic and military aid has been a key component of enduring US imperialist domination and plunder of the Philippines.

Beyond altruism

Data from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) show that from 2001 to 2014, total economic aid to the Philippines reached more than US$1.94 billion (in current prices). Total military aid during the same period reached almost US$566.11 million. That’s a combined US$2.51 billion in 14 years. Annually, the US disbursed US$138.95 million in economic aid and US$40.44 million in military aid or a combined $179.39 million every year from 2001 to 2014.

For 2015, preliminary USAID data show that the US disbursed $180.62 million in economic aid. There’s no 2015 data yet on military aid from the USAID online database. Reports, however, say that US military assistance for the Philippines was about US$50 million last year that will reportedly rise to US$79 million in 2016, on top of another US$42 million from the new US-Southeast Asia Maritime Initiative.

Further, note that US assistance to the Philippines has grown quite substantially under President Barack Obama and his declared US pivot to Asia. From 2010 to 2014, US economic aid increased by almost 15% in real terms annually. Military aid grew by almost 8% a year during the same period.

(US economic and military aid data since 1946 can be generated from USAID’s reports & data)

And we’re counting just the bilateral aid from the US. The US is also a major contributor to multilateral bodies like the World Bank and agencies of the United Nations (UN), which provide development aid to the Philippines as well.

That’s a lot of aid money that Duterte would be foregoing if the he will really spurn American patronage.

But as mentioned, there’s more to foreign aid than the simple altruism of donors. Aid, especially US aid, is used not for development cooperation but to advance the interests and agenda of the donor and deepen their patron-client relationship with the aid recipient. It is an effective neocolonial tool to foster continued dependence and subservience, and steer domestic policy making in directions that the donor wants. Lastly, aid is also a means for the US to directly create profit-making opportunities for their transnational corporations (TNCs).

Education, health, disaster relief

Remember how the US used the public education system as an integral part of their colonization campaign in the Philippines? It was far more successful in making Filipinos subservient to the colonizers than using purely military might. Colonial education was so effective that many Filipinos could not imagine life without the US. Just look at the reaction to Duterte’s stance on independent foreign policy.

It continues to this day through, among others, the use of foreign assistance. Classified by purpose, the largest bilateral US aid disbursed to the Philippines in 2015 was in Primary Education at US$25.33 million. Almost half of this amount, US$12.49 million, went to the Basa Pilipinas project of the USAID. Through this project, the US develops and distributes teaching and learning materials, English books and reading materials, etc. for local teachers to use for their Grades 1-3 pupils. Another US$5.35 million in US aid was also disbursed for Higher Education in 2015. (See Chart 1)

arn-07-us-aid-and-imperialism-oct-2016-chart-1

The second biggest chunk of US aid disbursement last year went to Material Relief Assistance and Services with US$20.37 million. They also disbursed US$3.84 million for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness; US$1.92 million for Emergency Food Aid; and more than US$1 million for Relief Coordination, Protection and Support Services.

The US has been using disaster relief to justify and expand their military presence in disaster-prone countries like the Philippines. The controversial Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), for instance, was justified using the pretext of humanitarian aid and disaster relief. American troops can base in military facilities here so they can preposition not just their weapons and war machines but also “humanitarian relief supplies”. (Read for instance, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent statement on EDCA made last July 2016)

Family Planning also traditionally gets a big portion of US aid with disbursement reaching US$17.08 million in 2015. Related sectors also got significant amounts such as Reproductive Health Care (US$3.94 million) and Population Policy and Administrative Management (US$0.43 million).

Population control has long been a strategy of US imperialism in the Philippines. In 1974, the USAID and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), among others, produced the “Kissinger Report”. It said that population growth threatens US access to the natural resources of poor countries. A large population of youth must also be controlled because they are most likely to challenge US imperialism. The Philippines is one of 13 countries identified in the Kissinger Report as primary targets of US-led population control efforts.

Public health is another major sector that the US has been long supporting in the country. In 2015, the US disbursed US$16.04 million in aid for Tuberculosis Control and more than US$0.90 million for STD Control including HIV/AIDS. A productive and efficient (and, of course, cheap) labor force is one of the primary resources that US imperialism exploits for super profits. Control of infectious diseases like TB and AIDS helps ensure an efficient workforce, which poor countries with weak public health systems due to imperialist plunder and underdevelopment could not afford

Plus, big US pharmaceutical companies that have monopoly over patented drugs used in these health programs are assured of markets. In the Philippines, for instance, the anti-TB campaign is a partnership between USAID and Johnson & Johnson, an American pharmaceutical and consumer goods giant.

Aid and policymaking

But the biggest impact of US aid in the Philippines is on how national economic policies and priorities are determined. Obama, for instance, introduced the Partnership for Growth (PFG) initiative. It is an aid program participated in and coordinated by the USAID, State Department, Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) and other US agencies as well as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and various UN bodies.

Through the PFG, the US deepens its role in national policy making such as through the five-year Joint Country Action Plan (JCAP), which identified priority areas for policy reforms in the Philippines. These include trade and investment liberalization, deregulation, effective enforcement of contracts with private business (such as those engaging in public-private partnership or PPP), as well as fiscal and judicial reforms.

An example of how US steers internal policy-making is the PFG’s centerpiece program in the Philippines, which is the $433.91-million grant from the MCC. The MCC is a highly conditional aid and requires the Philippines to, among others, maintain so-called “economic freedom” to continue receiving the grant.

One of the indicators of economic freedom, as designed by the MCC, is the Trade Policy Indicator. It measures the country’s openness to international trade based on average tariff rates and non-tariff barriers (e.g. trade quotas, production subsidies, government procurement procedures, anti-dumping, local content requirements, etc.) to trade. The “Compact” or agreement between the Philippine government (as represented then by the Aquino administration) and MCC is that the latter may suspend or terminate the grant if the country fails to reverse its policies that are inconsistent with the Trade Policy Indicator and other indicators designed by the MCC.

Also part of the implementation of the PFG is The Arangkada Philippines Project (TAPP) of the USAID and the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). Through the USAID-funded TAPP, AmCham is pushing for 471 specific recommendations that promote the interest of foreign corporations in the country through greater liberalization, deregulation, privatization and denationalization. These are contained in the comprehensive advocacy paper “Arangkada Philippines 2010: A business perspective” prepared by the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce in the Philippines (JFC), of which AmCham is a key member.

Under the TAPP, the JFC has been producing Legislation Policy Briefs that identify broad recommendations for Congress and the Executive. Among the many proposals of the JFC is the lifting of constitutional restrictions on foreign investments through Charter change (Cha-cha).

All these are in preparation for the country’s future membership in the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. The TPP is an ambitious free trade deal and the latest campaign of US imperialism to further deepen and consolidate its economic domination in Asia Pacific in the face of a rising China. Just last March 2016, the US Chamber of Commerce, with funding from USAID under the PFG’s five-year US$12.84-million Trade-Related Assistance for Development (TRADE) project, released its “readiness assessment” of Philippine membership in the TPP.

The said report examined the “consistency of the country’s existing policy framework with the agreement’s requirements, and the implied changes that may be necessary if the Philippines is to meet these requirements”. As expected, one of the “implied changes” is liberalization through Cha-cha. (The full report may be downloaded here)

Military patronage

Lastly, the US employs military aid not to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) but to maintain its influence and control over our military. US military aid mostly comes in the form of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Under the FMF, the US provides grants and loans to help the Philippines buy US-made weapons and defense equipment as well as acquiring defense services and military training.

In 2014, US$50 million in FMF was disbursed by the US to the Philippines out of the total US$57 million in military aid that year. The Philippines is traditionally one of the largest recipients of FMF among all US allies. It ranked fifth in 2014 in terms of FMF behind Egypt, Israel, Pakistan and Jordan. The country also accounted for 64% of US FMF in East Asia and the Pacific. (Data here)

However, military items that the country gets under the FMF and other US military aid programs are either surplus or second-hand and antiquated military articles. They are also not actually given for free but are sold at a discount (with a portion of the amount shouldered or waived by the US through the FMF).

Examples include the five-decade old US Coast Guard vessels (“Hamilton-class cutters”) that the US Navy has retired and sold to the Philippines. Since 2012, the Philippines has already bought two of these decommissioned ships for about US$25 million – and a third one is expected soon – through the FMF, Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Excess Defense Article (EDA) programs.

The weapons systems of the ships have also been removed by the US prior to their turnover to the Philippine Navy. The country had to separately purchase from the US the vessels’ weapons and guns as well as additional technology including radar system, anti-ship missile system, etc. US military aid thus also means more business for the US military industrial complex.

Aside from FMF, other US military aid programs in the Philippines include counter-narcotics, military education and training, cooperative threat reduction, and counter-terrorism fellowship program. (See Chart 2)

arn-07-us-aid-and-imperialism-oct-2016-chart-2

Along with annual military exercises under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), military aid fosters complete dependence of the AFP on US military technology, hardware and expertise. It also helps justify the continued presence of American troops in the country. But despite decades of US military patronage, the AFP remains one of the weakest and least modernized in the region. The Abu Sayyaf that the US has long been using to legitimize their military presence in the country persists and continues to terrorize the people.

Mutual respect, sovereignty

Foreign aid is not necessarily bad. It is, in fact, an important element of cooperation among countries to promote development. But as the case of US aid in the Philippines illustrates, aid could also be used to perpetuate the skewed relationship between the donor and recipient, between the colonial master and colony.

Such unequal, oppressive and exploitative relation between the US and the Philippines is the real reason why the country is underdeveloped and Filipinos are starving. If the Duterte administration rejects US aid to pursue a truly independent foreign policy and nurture development cooperation with other countries based on mutual respect and sovereignty, then we are already taking the initial steps to address the underlying causes of our poverty and hunger. ###

Charter change, Global issues, Governance

US-PH “Partnership for Growth”: Greater economic intervention

Despite US President Barack Obama’s absence, State Secretary John Kerry’s visit still underlines the increased bilateral engagement between the Philippines and the US. It comes at a time when US foreign policy is increasingly focused on the region under its so-called pivot to Asia Pacific. The visit, which follows a series of high-profile exchange of visits between top Filipino and American Executive and Defense officials since 2010, is controversial amid ongoing talks between Manila and Washington to increase rotational presence of American troops in the country or basing privileges and the still ongoing territorial spat with China.

While much of the discussion about the pivot and renewed PH-US relations centers on the military aspect, there is also the equally crucial, if not even more far-reaching, economic dimension of the pivot. Under the Obama and Aquino presidencies, mechanisms to facilitate further reforms in the economy that promotes US economic interests are steadily being set up through US foreign assistance programs such as the comprehensive, multi-donor Partnership for Growth (PFG) initiative. Silently, the PFG and other US efforts are setting the stage for an even more wide-ranging and systematic US intervention in the country’s internal policy making.

PH dependence on US economy

The US has been able to perpetuate Philippine dependence on the US economy. American investors remain the biggest source of net foreign direct investments (FDI) in the Philippines. From 1999 to 2012, net FDI from the US reached $4.52 billion, accounting for 19.8% of the total during the said period. Last year, US net FDI was pegged at $784.74 billion or 38.6% of the total, and 248.9% higher than the figure in 2011, at a time when investments from Japan, the European Union (EU), Asean and others have sharply declined.

Similarly, the US continues to be the number one buyer of Philippine exports and biggest supplier of its imports. Direct Philippine-US trade for the period 1999-2012 was $218.64 billion or 17.5% of the total. During the same period, the US accounted for 19.4% of Philippine exports and 15.8% of imports. Certainly, the figures are much higher when one considers that a portion of Philippine trade with Asean and East Asia actually ends up with the US.

Finally, the US also accounts for the largest source of remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs), including overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). From 1989 to 2012, total OF remittances reached $205.71 billion, of which $108.30 billion or an overwhelming 52.6%, come from US-based migrant workers. Preliminary data for 2013 covering the months of January to July show that remittances from the US reached $5.54 billion or 43.9% of the total during the said period. Since the 1980s, OF remittances have become the largest source of foreign earnings for the Philippines and practically keeping the backward economy somehow afloat. The figures from the US are bloated a bit by the practice of remittance centers in various cities abroad to course remittances through correspondent banks that are mostly US-based. But consider also that based on the latest (2009) stock estimate of OFs, US-based OFs account for 2.88 million of the 8.58 million Filipinos abroad, or 33.6% of the total.

Through the decades, the US has spent substantial amounts to sustain and deepen its clout. Disbursements of bilateral official development assistance (ODA) from the US for the Philippines from 1999 to 2011 reached $1.12 billion, 20.9% of total disbursements during the said period and the second largest behind Japan. However, while ODA disbursements from Japan have been considerably falling since the 2008 global financial and economic crisis, bilateral US aid during the same period has steadily increased, growing by an annual 18.5% from 2009 to 2011. Under the Obama administration and its announced pivot to Asia Pacific, disbursements of bilateral US economic aid have substantially increased. From an annual average of $108.12 million and a yearly growth of 4.6% from 2001 to 2008, US bilateral economic aid to the Philippines jumped to an annual average of $152.23 million and a yearly expansion of more than 18% from 2009 to 2011.

More US intervention, neoliberal reforms

While already expanding, US assistance to the Philippines is anticipated to further increase with the introduction by the Obama administration of new initiatives that facilitate greater US intervention in the country. Requested US aid for the Philippines for fiscal year 2014 is pegged at $188 million, 17.1% higher than the base appropriation for fiscal year 2013.

One such new initiative is the Partnership for Growth (PFG), a signature inter-agency effort of Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, which claims to “elevate economic growth in countries committed to good governance as a core priority for US development efforts”. The PFG supposedly aligns with policy reform areas outlined by President Aquino in the Philippine Development Plan (PDP). The PFG is defined by the active participation and coordination of more than a dozen US government agencies led by the State Department, USAID and the MCC as well as multilateral donors like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations (UN) agencies and even non-government organizations (NGOs) and private corporations.

A Statement of Principles was signed by both countries during the November 2011 Manila visit of then State Secretary Hillary Clinton. The document reflects the two governments’ supposed mutual goal to place the Philippines on a path to sustained, more inclusive economic growth, and elevate it to the ranks of high-performing emerging economies. For the US, the PFG will better position the Philippines in its objective of joining the TPP in the future.

Under the PFG, the US intends to deepen its role in national policy making such as through the five-year Joint Country Action Plan (JCAP) which identified priority areas for policy reforms in the Philippines, including trade and investment liberalization, deregulation, effective enforcement of contracts with private business (such as those engaging in PPP) as well as fiscal and judicial reforms. (See Box)

An example of how US steers internal policy making is the PFG’s centerpiece program in the Philippines, which is the $433.91-million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC). The MCC is a highly conditional aid and requires the Philippines to, among others, maintain so-called “economic freedom” to continue receiving the grant. For instance, one of the indicators of economic freedom, as designed by the MCC, is the Trade Policy Indicator which measures the country’s openness to international trade based on average tariff rates and non-tariff barriers (e.g. trade quotas, production subsidies, government procurement procedures, anti-dumping, local content requirements, etc.) to trade. The “Compact” or agreement between the Philippine government and MCC is that the latter may suspend or terminate the grant if the country fails to reverse its policies that are inconsistent with the Trade Policy Indicator and other indicators designed by the MCC.

Also, the MCC grant does not only facilitate further liberalization of the economy but serves as a tool as well for US intervention in counterinsurgency. Aside from the the $214.4-million Samar Road project, which targets communities in Samar that are considered strongholds of the New People’s Army (NPA), the MCC grant also includes the $120-million Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS). Kalahi is essentially the “social development” component of the military’s counterinsurgency campaign in Mindanao and in areas considered as stronghold of the NPA. Another project funded by the MCC grant is the $54.3-million Revenue Administration Reform Project (RARP) which aims to raise tax revenues, reduce tax evasion and revenue agent-related corruption. The rest of the grant is allocated to program administration and oversight.

“Arangkada”

Early this year, USAID and the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) launched the The Arangkada Philippines Project (TAPP) as part of the implementation of the PFG. Through the USAID-funded TAPP, AmCham will push for the implementation of the policy proposals contained in the comprehensive advocacy paper “Arangkada Philippines 2010: A business perspective” prepared by the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce in the Philippines (JFC), of which AmCham is a key member.

The JFC paper listed 471 specific recommendations that promote the interest of foreign corporations in the country through greater liberalization, deregulation, privatization and denationalization while intensifying the attack to the rights and welfare of the people.

Among others, their proposals are to: amend the Labor Code to allow subcontracting and easier termination of employees; promote IT-BPO curriculum in colleges and education reform, adopt K+12 model; lift restrictions on foreign ownership in media and advertising; promote tie-ups with foreign firms; protect PPP investors from political (i.e. regulatory) risks including TROs from courts; scrap ‘unwarranted’ taxes on foreign carriers; lift restrictions on foreign equity in power projects; privatize Agus and Pulangi dams; build more transport infrastructure through PPP; review policy disallowing “take-or-pay” and sovereign guarantees; promote PPP in the water sector; establish an export development fund to promote exports and investment; allow manufacturing industry to operate with less government interference such as price controls; liberalize importation of capital equipment; liberalize shipping industry; fully implement Mining Act; allow foreign ownership of land and retail facilities; allow relief from minimum wages; review the Foreign Investment Negative List (FINL); apply ‘creative solutions’ to the 60-40 foreign ownership restriction pending Charter change (Cha-cha); privatize or close down government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to reduce fiscal burden, among others; use advisers (amicus curiae) when Supreme Court (SC) is ruling on issues that adversely affect the investment climate; promote labor flexibilization schemes; reduce corporate income tax and raise the value-added tax (VAT) and fuel excise taxes; and expand the conditional cash transfer (CCT) and Kalahi-CIDSS programs; encourage PPP in healthcare-related services.

With assistance from the TAPP, the JCF started producing Legislation Policy Brief, which identifies broad recommendations for Congress and the Executive. Among the many proposals of the JFC is the lifting of constitutional restrictions on foreign investments, which the AmCham has long been openly advocating. Thus, while Charter change (Cha-cha) is not explicitly identified in the PFG, its implementing components such as the TAPP provides pressure on the Philippine government to liberalize the Constitution.

Meanwhile, just recently, the USAID announced a $24-million Philippine-American (Phil-Am) Fund, another component of PFG implementation in the country, intended for civil society organizations (CSOs) working on projects in the areas of entrepreneurship and promotion of new businesses, governance, fighting human trafficking, technology-driven adult literacy and biodiversity conservation.

“Powerhouse” lobby group

Complementing and reinforcing the PFG is the establishment of lobby group US-Philippine Society (USPS), a private sector initiative which claims to broaden and expand interaction and understanding between the two countries in the areas of security, trade, investments, tourism, the environment, history, education and culture. The group intends to create a new and timely mechanism to elevate the Philippines’ profile in the US by bringing its longstanding historical ties fully into the 21^st century when American policy interests are increasingly focused on East Asia. It was officially launched on 7 June 2012 during President Aquino’s official visit to Washington.

Its leadership includes John D. Negroponte, a former US Ambassador to the Philippines (1993-1996), first Director of National Intelligence (2005-2007) and former Deputy State Secretary (2007-2009), as co-chairman with Filipino business tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan. Honorary chairmen are Maurice Greenberg, former chair and CEO of insurance and financial giant American International Group (AIG), and Washington Z. Sycip, founder of the Philippines’ largest multidisciplinary professional services firm SGV & Co. Current Ambassador to the US Jose L. Cuisia, Jr. is an ex-officio Board member.

Aside from them, the Board of Directors of USPS is also comprised of the top executives from some of the largest American corporations, namely: Citigroup, General Electric, Procter and Gamble, JP Morgan, Chevron and Coca Cola, among others. Prominent Filipino businessmen like Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Ramon del Rosario and Enrique Razon are also members of the Board. The group’s current president is John F. Maisto, a former Political Officer of the US Embassy in Manila (1978-1982) and Director of Philippine Affairs at the State Department (1982-1986). The executive director, meanwhile, is Hank Hendrickson, a retired US Navy officer and former Foreign Service Officer at the US Embassy in Manila. On 21 January 2013, Negroponte led a so-called “powerhouse” delegation of the USPS in visiting the country, bringing with him officials of the American corporations belonging to the lobby group and held discussions with Aquino and top economic and defense officials as well as SC Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno to update on key economic and judicial reforms, including those under the PFG.

Defending PH sovereignty

The US pivot and Aquino’s subservience to US interests are creating conditions for increased US intervention in the country not only militarily but also in terms of economic policy making and governance. A new era in the more than a century old colonial and neocolonial relations between the Philippines and the US is indeed being ushered in by the Aquino and Obama regimes.

The serious implications on national sovereignty, human rights, regional peace and stability and even on the environment of greater US military presence and intervention are well-documented and widely discussed. However, there is a big challenge for advocates of national sovereignty and patrimony to deepen and widen the public discourse on US intervention and the Asia Pacific pivot to equally underscore how the US, in its desperate efforts to abate its latest economic crisis, is increasingly and systematically laying the groundwork to further steer the national economy towards serving its monopoly capitalist interests.

There is a need to draw and highlight how Philippine-US colonial and neocolonial ties and decades of neoliberal restructuring and reforms have stunted national development and destroyed industries and livelihood, perpetuating chronic poverty and the permanent economic crisis in the country.

A Radical's Nut

Notes on Philippine economy and politics

Tag Archives: US imperialism