IMF-WORLD BANK MERGER’S A HIDEOUS MONSTROSITY!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Plans are now afoot at merging the World Bank and the IMF, the two economic pillars of the post-war alliance of nations to foster cooperation and development. They came straight out of the Breton Woods agreement, and were rightly called the ‘Breton Woods Agencies’ then.

The merger is among the responses of the technocratic-financier-political elites of the North to the crashing global economy. The ‘virtual economy’ based on financier speculation and worthless bubbles, or otherwise ‘casino economy’ of the wealthy, had burst so badly. The implosion of the financial system had seen the closure of big banks and the alarming loses of others most specially those that had enormous exposures to the subprime realty market in the USA.

The question is whether this merger is really the appropriate response to a system problem. Many experts and quarters the world over have been clamoring, since way back 1990s yet, for the convening of a ‘new Breton Woods’ and the institution of a new global financial architecture. I was among these experts on the Philippine side, and many of us are inside government as executives and legislators.

However, an IMF-World Bank merger is farthest from our mind. The IMF particularly has this notoriety for prescribing shock treatment on economies in crisis, particularly the developing countries or DCs, that do not at all mitigate the long term impact of structural problems. On the contrary, the austerity pills of the IMF were shown to have caused further contraction, depression, and deterioration of once thriving emerging markets.

Let’s face it, the IMF and World Bank are largely the institutional agents of the global financial cartels. They do not represent the true interest of sovereign nation states, do not exercise any accountability at all except to the financier sponsors behind the backs of the IMF-World Bank boards and leadership, and are instruments to encumber nations into perpetual debt peonage. The IMF-World Bank group represents the forces aimed at destroying sovereign nation-states and no less.

The North does not have a monopoly of wisdom in salving the ailments of the global economy, and so we peoples of the south  may just have to push for actions that would see how the catastrophic impact of the global economic implosion will be mitigated. Let the OECD propel their own oligarchs’ self-aggrandizing actions, while we patriots of the South move on to save our people, nations, environments and institutions from further predatory onslaughts by the greedy global oligarchs.

The IMF-World Bank merger is a hideous monstrosity. Be forewarned!

[Writ 26 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

PHILIPPINE ECONOMICS: BOP SURPLUS, INVESTMENT-HEALTHY

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

The Philippine macro-economic fundamentals remain alright, bright and positive.  So says the official report from the central bank. I myself opine in the affirmative regarding RP’s economic health.

 

The Philippines has been hit lately by inflationary waves in rice and petrol. These alone were sufficient to slow down growth a bit. But the factors behind these problems in grains and oil go beyond the domestic, they’re global and have to do more with the manipulations of financial speculators in the overseas markets. As a result, the overall inflation rate moved up.

 

The exact figures released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas are: US $499 million for the month of April (08), and a total of $2.13 billion for the first four months of the year. Hefty sums! Not bad!

 

The fiscal situation is the one that is now being threatened by the volatilities in the rice and oil prices, or should we say spot markets overseas. The news about rice price being subsidized should the crisis worsen is surely a bad one, as it will crash down the ‘balanced budget’ target supposedly achievable at the end of the year.

 

Yet even that seemingly shaky fiscal situation isn’t sufficient a force to dampen the overall macro-economic health. The BOP surplus indicates the positive compass of the economy for the rest of the year, rendering this country a lucrative haven for investments from both domestic and overseas investors.

 

So, fellows out there, the Philippines is much in tune with the Asian growth trend amid the latest rounds of inflation and the problems in oil and grains. The prophets of gloom & doom better find something else to do, such as to bash the corrupt oligarchs, as the economy is within the right compass of growth.

 

[19 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

FILIPINOS COMPRISE 1/3 OF FRIENDSTER END-USERS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

I just came from the gym at this moment, and surfed a bit before my lunch break. Among the first news that greeted me was this one about Filipinos comprising 1/3 of Friendster users.

Let me quote the news below:

“Filipinos still make up big chunk of Friendster users,” Erwin Oliva, INQUIRER.net, First Posted 09:39:00 05/22/2008

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — A third of the traffic going to social networking site Friendster are contributed by Filipinos or at least the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are from the Philippines, an executive told INQUIRER.net.

Of the 39 million unique visitors recorded in March 2008, about 13.2 million unique users are from the Philippines, said David Jones, vice president for global marketing of Friendster, in an interview.

Jones said that if there are 14 million Internet users in the Philippines as of 2007, about 98 percent are going to Friendster.

These figures indicate that Filipinos make up the biggest population of Friendster users in the world, even surpassing the United States, where the service was originally launched.

Such numbers have prompted the social networking site to consider the Philippines as a major market for its services, including its mobile service, Jones said.

Typically, Filipino Friendster users are in the age range of 16 to 30 years old, with 55 percent of them being female. {End of quote)

Whether the news is good or bad is something to reflect on. For someone like me, who’s among the 13.2 million users from the Philippine end (there are also Filipinos overseas, remember?), the news is worth noting.

It means, first of all, that millions of fellow Filipinos now surf the internet, whether they their own DSL or wireless at home, or access cyberspace through commercial internet shops. This is already good news.

The 2^nd point to observe is that Filipinos do love to connect to people. We are a relationship-conscious people. And so our social networking is indicative of our contribution to make a high-tech world into one that is ‘high-touch’ at the same time.

I just hope that the Friendster company will provide some dividends to Filipino end-users for this meritorious behavior (as far as the company is concerned). Some other sites provide dividends based on the traffic of any user’s site alone, so why can’t the Friendster do the same.

Failing to do so, there would be reason later for the smarter newcomers (young ones) to skirt off Friendster altogether and proceed to the more reward-oriented sites. It’s already happening.  May the tribe of these smarter ones increase.

[Writ 22 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

BURMA’S LEADERS? CALLOUS!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Callous! Mad and utterly callous up to the end!

This is what I can say of the praetorian leaders of Burma. The country has been clearly devastated by the powerful typhoon that razed through the Irrawady area recently, killing past the 100,000 death mark as of a couple of days ago. Humanitarian work had almost halted as the praetorians have focused their efforts more on preparing the electorate for the democratization process and forthcoming polls.

Sure, there is no lack of merit for democratizing Burma and widen the political stream to include state players from among the other competing political parties and interest groups. But to over-focus on  vote-gaining democratization issues at a time of catastrophe, contingency and national mourning for the dead escapes our comprehension and will only lead to a cul de sac of greater catastrophe. For sure the great men U Thant and Aung San must be squirming in their graves right now.   

By ‘more catastrophe’ we don’t only mean deaths on the victims. We mean that, after the typhoon relief tasks are over, and the country indeed moves on to that phase of public choice of new political forces and leaders, the military will be crashed by its own callousness in the relief operations days. Then, unwilling to admit the results of the polls, the praetorians would again move on to crash legitimate efforts to replace the military in power.

Sad! How tragic and sad are the affairs of life in Burma. This once citadel of growth right after Britain left the country in cognition of its full sovereignty, turned into a developmental nightmare of unfathomable poverty when the praetorians took over power through the might of the gun.

“Political power comes from the barrel of the gun,” Mao once declared. Following such a dictum, we may add that “perpetual violence from the barrel of the gun causes more vicious cycles of misery.” That’s my line, fellows, and I’m citing the dictum based on experiences in my own country and elsewhere wherever ceaseless violence happens: more misery and economic collapse.

Meantime, we can only hope that the international pressures on the Burmese praetorians to open up the gates for humanitarian work by international players will be heeded. Strategically, in the long run, the ASEAN may have to equip itself with a regional armed force that can serve as equalizer against any tyrannically abusive political group—topped by the Burmese praetorians and the Khmer Rouge—that only knows how to bring down their respective country to graveyard status after centuries of glorious High Culture and greatness.   

[Writ 19 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

OLIGARCHIC CRIMES UNPUNISHED: LUCIO TAN

Erle Frayne  Argonza

The politico-economic structure of Philippine reality never seems to change at all. It’s still the oligarchic system that lingers here, as it is anywhere in the planet. Oligarchs are simply in control of every strategic sector of life, both economic and political.

That’s why they are above the Law, that they can pay anything worth their pockets to meet their objectives, bribe their way to continuing hoarding and accumulation way beyond their daily needs. The Law adjusts to them, not them to the Law.

Take the case of the long-time Marcos crony Lucio Tan. Tan is almost everywhere in Philippine business life, name it and he’s there. The once state champion Philippine National Bank is in his control now, and so the former state champion Philippine Airlines. And his business concerns continue to expand, both here and overseas.

But one thing glaring about his behavior is his non-payment of taxes that date back to the 80s yet or maybe even earlier. The consummate tax evader, he is the exemplar in this regard here in Manila.

As of last year, estimates put his back tax arrears at P26 Billion. If all we know, this could be an underestimation. This could just be but the top of the iceberg, the real back taxes running probably in the hundreds of billions of pesos. We can’t say anymore. That is because documents can be doctored, and there are always ‘doctor of forgery’ everywhere including the state bureaucracy.

Perhaps we may have discovered, in the criminal behavior of oligarchs, a new universal law, the “law of the bending of the Law.” It’s like the pattern about the ‘bending of light’, this time we substitute Law for light.

Which means that Law is relative, or is of no value to oligarchs save that they serve oligarchic interests. This is true everywhere, and it won’t be long when even those colonies to be installed in other planets and the moon will face the same reality: the ‘bending of the Law’ to make oligarchs happy.

TESTING NEW EARTHQUAKE-CAUSING WMD ON CHINA

Erle Frayne  Argonza

As I was browsing through the pages of the newspapers this morning, my eyes immediately caught the item about the China earthquake update. The latest quake flattened many towns to ground level, killing over 22,000 folks, and destroyed infrastructures thus cutting off the affected areas from outside relief operations. The quake registered 7.9 magnitude on Reichster.

That quake was 2000 times more powerful than the Big One that struck Luzon in the early 1990s and caused extensive damages across couples of regions and cities. Obviously much bigger, the China quake must be expected to wreak greater destruction than Luzon’s (Philippine’s) big tremor.

The difference between the Luzon and Sichuan (China) quakes is not just magnitude and damages however. The Luzon quake was natural, as it had got to do with tectonic plate movements. Past the Luzon quake came those secret innovations on building a new weapon of mass destruction or WMD, the leading one being the Tesla Earthquake Machine or Tesla-EM (my own term for it). China’s quake has got to do more with the latter, though its own authorities may keep mum about their findings.

Remember the big quakes that struck Japan and Indonesia lately, killing thousands and flattening towns and cities? The Indonesia quake even ignited tsunamis that devastated coastal towns and establishments across many countries? These two Asian countries were the first to taste the Tesla-EM, and Establishment media did what it can to deodorize and cover up the story, the byline being that it is ‘natural’ (sic!).

The great mind Tesla, world-class physicist and inventor-wiz, left behind so many of his innovations and R&D materials without formal publication. That is because he feared the implications of his findings, and so he rather chose to shut his mouth about them. The documents were then secured in the archives of the US Library of Congress (X1) and elsewhere (X2), leaving them largely unnoticed, until some techie-savvy   ‘Indiana Jones’ would appear to immerse in them and find out for themselves the practical uses of those innovation designs.

One such design innovation has got to do with inducing earthquakes so powerful that even in areas without histories of quakes or located far away from quake fault lines, high magnitude quakes will be generated. Certain countries silently conducted their R&D about the matter, and must have been horrified about their outcomes that they kept the results (and the product prototypes) highly secretly guarded.

It was obviously the most promising WMD (in the perspective of madmen), as it pathetically downgraded the thermonuclear devices into kids’ toys. This is the real one, and the “beauty” of it all is that a prototype machine is so small it can be loaded entirely in a mere passenger luggage.

Aware of such a possibility, the leaders of the Aum cult of Japan did their own surreptitious networking and found some contacts (possibly yakuza and overseas mafia) to procure the new WMD. They then sent their guys to Australia  that became their initial lab. Possibly realizing the unquestioned efficacy of the machine (after doing a micro-test down south), they reported the results to their central bosses in Japan… Onwards till the leadership was captured, allegedly for poison gas attacks in a railways area that killed thousands. The gas attack was possibly a mere cover up, to mask a possibly heavier onslaught—the big quake that struck Kobe.     

After the Japan quake came the Indonesia quake & tsunami. Remember the 300,000+ dead and millions left without homes by this incident? The sinking of the affected island too? ….Then here’s the China quake, which came right after (1) the Tibetan fiasco and (2) the US discovery of an underground submarine base in the southeast (along sea lanes).

Just exactly what group unleashed this WMD on China? Was it the same group that struck both Indonesia and Japan? Were they the intelligence agents of certain powers that possess the WMD? Or is it a terrorist group, such as the Aum cult in Japan that may have been the culprit behind the big quake there?

Meantime, let us watch for more frequent big quakes to come whose magnitude and damage scales will boggle our minds. Every interest group will use the event for their own filthy propaganda for sure. But let us please watch and record, and do our research homework. My own country could be next.

[Writ 15 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

ANY OLIGARCH JAILED AFTER SUBPRIME BUBBLE BURST?

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Hail the financial cartels! Hail the Grand Oligarchs of the North! Thus spoke Zarathustra.

They came, they saw, they looted…and got unpunished. This is the fact of all facts, the ‘praxiological core’ (to use a philosopher’s thesis here in Manila), of the oligarchy’s gargantuan looting of the public purse everywhere. “We are children of Zeus, reside in Olympus, and are beyond the Law,” said they.

Let’s go back to the subprime bubble in the USA, and the post-bubble burst stage. As soon as the housing bubble began in the aftermath of the recession in the USA (2001-02), I was among those analysts who were alarmed at the flawed strategy that the US state officialdom to shore up an ailing economy.

The strategy was no different from the dot.com speculation of the previous years. So much propaganda hype was done to intensify the tenor of the dot.com revolution, which led to massive financier speculation in this sector. Result: the bubble burst, almost bringing the entire US economy down with it in 2001.

Seemingly unmindful of the bad economics that took place, the fed and monetary authorities permitted the bubbling of another sector, housing this time, to ‘prime up’ the ailing economy, coupled with ‘tax cuts’. I’m sure if Franklin Delano Roosevelt were alive yet, he will be squirming at the terribly flawed strategy and would prefer to just die pronto rather than see voodoo economics destroy his nation in the short run.

Bubbles burst in due time, and so the oligarchic game is that before the burst happens, fatten your purse in as rapid a manner as possible. The derivatives market is the best purse fattener, all other instruments being secondary.

Soon enough, the bubble did burst, and banks across the Atlantic (USA, EU) squirmed the most over the bankruptcy-inducing crash from the burst. Horror of all horrors, once mighty financier groups such as Bear & Stearns got badly bankrupt overnight, was sold for cheap dirt price, and simply evaporated.

And to add horror to the horrors, no oligarch or exec was ever jailed for that crime of massive looting of the consumer purse. Holy Maria!

My God! Oligarchs are the Holiest of all Hollies! We ordinary consumers are the filthy pariahs, the Damned Outcastes who are treated as mere members of an amorphous ‘Eater class’ by the Holiest. Hail the Oligarchy!

[Writ 13 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

OLIGARCHIC CRIMES GO UNPUNISHED: LOPEZES OF MANILA

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Oligarchic crimes go unpunished. This is the true, said, Dostoevskian situation of the ‘morality grid’ of the planet. The oligarchs who may possess a ‘bleeding- heart’ psyche, if ever, are too few in numbers.  

Moral philosophies including the new-hype Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR are only mere ideological trappings in the oligarchic games. Take off these trappings and you have the real score: demonic greed, manipulative control of humans, conceit, and every corporate Machiavellianism one can think of. Those genuine Light-centered, Spirit-filled CSR philantrophists are still undergoing construction or breeding.

Take the case of Manila’s Lopez family that owns the MERALCO, the gigantic utility firm that is into both power generation and distribution. As found out by fact-finding investigations, the MERALCO has been looting the consumers by passing on to them the costs of both power generation and distribution, through price increases in monthly bills.

The Supreme Court later took such facts as basis for arriving at a decision that ordered the MERALCO to return to the consumers the unjust price increases imposed on the bills. Public interest groups took the cudgels for the consumers, thanks to a dynamic civil society here that includes lawyers’ and consumers’ groups.

True, MERALCO obliged, and gradually returned the funds stolen from the people’s pockets. But the question is, was there any member of the Lopez family or the MERALCO executives who was ever jailed at all for the crime? None!

Now the MERALCO looting is coming out in the open, and there’s the reportage of the gentleman, Mr. Garcia, chair of the state pension fund GSIS (which partly owns MERALCO), about an amount of P500 Million in power generation costs that were supposedly passed on by the Lopez firm to the consumers. The issue is now raging here.

What I forecast is that the divestment of Lopezes from MERALCO and the full entry of GSIS as new majority stocks owners will be ensued. That just the same no one among the Lopezes or MERALCO executives will go to jail. That the Lopezes will even gain money from the ‘sweetheart deal’ (worth $1.25 Billion) that is being negotiated with the GSIS for the MERALCO purchase.

This same narrative goes on everywhere in the planet, everywhere! Save for the Enron scandal that ended with certain oligarchic execs going to jail, criminal oligarchs go unpunished.

Oligarchs are above the Law. They are Olympians, sons and daughters of Zeus, beyond litigation and punishment.  

[Writ 13 May 2008, Quezon City, Manila]

OLIGARCHISM AND WHY RP REBELLIONS ARE UNSTOPPABLE

Bro. Erle Frayne  Argonza

[Writ 11 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Rebellions and wars serve greed, the greed of oligarchs and moneybags who make money out of conflicts everywhere. Research findings have clearly indicated that during the 2^nd World War, the industrial-financier elites of the West served both the Nazi-Fascists and Allied camps, precisely by arming and financing both. It doesn’t matter really what side wins, for in the end the oligarchs win the game.

When the navy officer Trillanes & company waged their failed mutiny a couple of years back, and repeated the fiasco last year, they stated clearly a fact that startled them. Per the accounts of some junior military officers, in some campaign sorties they were ordered by their higher officials to drop arms to the road area that was declared Muslim rebel zone or friendly to rebels. What was this game all about? Why should they drop arms to enemy zones?

The military rebels concluded that their superiors, who go all the way up to defense headquarters, were selling arms to the rebels. Likewise did they conclude that, with such evils going on (selling arms to rebels), it was impossible for the rebellions (Muslims, Maoist, jihadist terrorist) to ever cease at all. Both rebel and state officials have been raking profits from the war, the rebels need not find mainstream jobs as war provides them the bread and adventures, while state official fatten their purses with ordnance sales to their erstwhile enemies.

But the more startling find by the military rebels was that the network thread of the Philippine state officials led directly to Pentagon. Which aroused suspicion that the command for making hotspot troubles in the Philippines was directly coming from rouge forces in the USA, notably the neo-conservatives (Ramsfeld & company). Seeing this evil thread of conceit and greed, the Magdalo soldiers then made a call to arms to save the republic from snakes and demonic forces out to destroy the nation.

The astounding findings of the Magdalo forces leads us to ask to ask: does it really pay to stamp off rebellions through mediations by 3^rd party peace-makers, when the real roots of conflicts remain unaddressed? Will rebellions and wars across the globe really cease at all when the oligarchic forces that fund, arm and profit from wars go unchecked in their greed and madness? Is it not the true case that all rebel forces for that matter were in fact constituted through the auspices of the same global oligarchy that has been manipulating food stocks and prices lately, acts that added flames to the already volatile peace situation everywhere?

All major ideological forces for that matter in this country as it is elsewhere have the hands of the global oligarchy  in their formation. Take the Maoist group (CPP-NPA) which was formed as the armed NPA met the new Communists (Jose Maria Sison-led) under the graces of a CIA agent, Ninoy Aquino. In the mid-1970s, as the Bangsamoro separatist rebellion was raging in Mindanao, its leader Nur Misuari was secretly brought to a house in a gated Makati village, where he talked to American agents, was promised support provided that, if the MNLF wins, Mindanao will be a major basing area for US military facilities. Even the MILF, which continues the armed Bangsamoro separatist war, cannot escape that observation of Americans getting involved somewhere in their campaigns, both in terms of arms support and information.

Worst of all, inside the CPP itself were operatives of the US CIA, a truism that eventually the Maoist hierarchy itself recognized. This led to the split in the Left and the bloody purging of ex-CPP cadres who were suspected of CIA connections. I myself received a confidential note from a former top-policy state advisor and international consultant, about the involvement of the Tabara & company CPP officials in receiving arms straight from US defense agents when Tabara was still with the CPP.

Last question that comes to mind is: why are Jose Maria Sison and his sub-alterns sitting prettily in Ultrecth (Netherlands), when they should be in the Philippine boondocks where their comrades are? Aren’t the Maoists being protected by unseen agents representing the interests of the Anglo-Dutch oligarchs, waiting in the wings for whatever the greedy elites have in mind for RP and the Reds?    

Unless oligarchism itself is stamped out, we’re going to have more rebel wars here in RP and elsewhere. Oligarchic madness is the root of global conflagrations, and stamping it out is not an easy thing to do. It will take the efforts of audacious, courageous patriots representing the interests of nation-states or entities whose creations began first of all with stamping out oligarchism in Europe from Westphalian time (1648) onwards. And that collective effort will be a protracted one.

RP’S CESSATION OF ARMED REBELLION HIGHLY VIABLE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

[Writ 07 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Peace be with you!

On the year of my birth in 1958, my country (Philippines) raged with fiery caldrons of armed hostilities in all islands. The Old Left rebellion was already petering out though, and local millenarian rebellions in other islands were also being check-mated. My father was a young soldier then, and bringing along his experience in Korea plus his scout ranger training, he went about running after rebels and winning accolades. Mind you, my father was even absent on my natality day (July 6), as he was busy running after some armed millenarians in the south.

Well, I was nourished with so many tales of heroism and wars in the islands, beginning with the Americo-Japanese war (it was called ‘World War II’ hmmm), and then the rebellions. In the early ‘60s the Old Left capitulated, and only ‘lost commands’ were the remains of the army divisions and companies of the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan or HMB (People’s Liberation Army). We simply called them rebels ‘huks’, a core of which later joined the Maoists to comprise the New Peoples’ Army or NPA.

Then, with the founding of the new Communist Party (Maoist) in 1968 and its armed with New People’s Army in 1969, new rebel offensives turned many idyllic lands into howling war zones. Since then, I never knew of any year in my life when peace prevailed in the islands. There were only short episodes of ceasefires lasting for days to a few weeks at the most. I even visited a rebel camp in Quezon during a ceasefire in 1987, had some photo-ops with the NPAs. Often than not, our history in Manila (signifying the whole of RP) was one of wars.

This is not ‘rumors of wars’ here, remember. Whatever is it that is in the psyche of Filipinos which produces audacious warriors is something else worth studying. General Douglas MacArthur was so amazed at the unbelievable audacity and acumen of Filipinos in warfare that he designated Filipino troops as bridgehead storm troops in his campaigns (World War II, Korea War), much like the ‘Gurka regiment’ of the British Empire. Something in our psyche makes us natural warriors, but hey! this is the era of Information Society, so warriorship must be translated into management acumen, audacity and courage, and not manifest as gun-firing praetorian behavior that belongs to the ancient past.

But surprisingly, in the 1990s, the state was able to prove that ‘cessation of armed hostility’ or COAH was a viable one. First, there was the formal declaration by the social democratic army to cease armed struggle, even as its cadres and troops joined the Cory Aquino regime and surreptitiously comprised the ‘yellow army’.

Then, after a series of failed mutinies and coup attempts, the Reform the Armed Forces-Young Officers’ Union-Soldiers of the Filipino People or RAM-YOU-SFP, was finally settled as the coalition signed a negotiated peace settlement with the Ramos regime. Imagine this surprising development, from a rebel force that bombed Manila and the army camp to smithereens a few years back! I saw with my own eyes the barbarity and economic paralysis induced by actual wars in Manila, with my own eyes! I thought then that war was only for the rural backwoods.  I couldn’t believe the rebels would join the mainstream, but they did!

Finally, there was the negotiated settlement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and its armed wing, the Bangsamoro Army (BMA), also during the Ramos regime. Nur Misuari, head of MNLF, his cadres and troops joined the mainstream. Misuari became governor-elect of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao or ARMM, while 7,000 BMA troops were integrated into both the national police and army. To think that this group once almost won over the war in Mindanao in 1973!

Today we still have the CPP-NPA insurgency and the MILF-BiAF insurgency (Moro Islamic Liberation Front-Bangsamoro Islaic Armed Forces) to deal with. Talks get stalled every now and then. But chances are that they will be negotiated, based on a win-win formula. What more can make me and my cohorts, and now the younger generations, happier when this happens? I’m sure I’d weep so much with happiness and euphoria when this happens. Finally here we are, respecting each other as brothers and sisters, and decide to ‘communicate, cooperate and collaborate’ (3 Cs) rather than shoot down each other.

An array of methods and strategies were explored no less from many sides to finally make rebels and state sit down together. To name some: face-to-face talk between officially negotiated parties; back-channel talks to reinforce confidence-building; mediation by 3^rd parties (friendly states); peace consultants comprising of international law and development experts on both sides; civil society and church support, aside from their role in monitoring the conduct of hostilities and short ceasefires; periodic peace rallies via prayer, concerts, parades, special events by citizens, church, NGOs; peace advocacy by teachers/educators in schools; peace zones declared by all parties in specially designated towns; initiatives by local government units & players at confidence-building; and, mandating rebels sometimes to help in anti-drug and anti-Islamic terrorist campaigns (boosting mutual confidence).

Exasperated to the extremes now after four (4) decades of war, I am so impatient for peace, for a true cessation of armed hostility. I wish that at least one insurgency can be concluded soon before 2010 (presidential election). Maybe the next exec will pick up the task and conclude the remaining insurgency. The next decade can then witness the fruition of a 7-decade campaign to bring RP to developed country status, which I now opine can happen only if the two (2) insurgencies can be concluded.

For our dream of peace in RP, carpe diem! We shall overcome!

  

MANILA PEACE UPDATE: BACK-CHANNEL TALK WITH MAOIST REBELS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

[Writ 01 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. The author, a professor at the premier University of the Philippines, was a former consultant and senior official at the presidential palace.]

 

Let me share to you some notes about the efficacy of the back-channel strategy as applied to the Peace Talks. By Peace Talks I refer to the on-going negotiations between the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and the rebel groups (National Democratic Front, Moro Islamic Liberation Front). For this briefer, I will focus on the GRP-NDF talks, the NDF being the Maoist movement led by the clandestine Communist Party of the Philippines (founded 1968).

 

The Maoist rebellion here began as soon as the New People’s Army or NPA, the military arm of the CPP, was formed. The Philippines than was predominantly agrarian, landlordism was the main stumbling block to industrial progress, the 1948-launced Import Substitution Industrialization was floundering badly, and mass poverty must have been reaching as much as past the 75% mark. With an agrarian population as base, it wasn’t difficult for the CPP-NPA to justify an armed struggle based on the Maoist strategy of encirclement: build rebel based first in the hinterlands where the enemy forces are weak, then gradually constrict the urban areas (cities, big towns) from the countryside.

 

Almost four (4) decades after the launching of the Maoist rebellion, nowhere is there any site of a victory by the Left rebels. Supposedly, the guerilla fronts have reached past the 3-digit level (160+ as of latest claims by the CPP), but those are largely spread out in rural hinterlands. RP’s population is now around 60% urban and only 40% rural, and urbanization is still spreading fast, mutating the rural landscapes into new mixed-use urban and suburban mini-cities.

 

It is now getting clearer that the Maoist rebellion here has been reduced to a Zapatista-sized rebellion, and its strategy of encirclement has become obviously intractable and nauseatingly archaic. Unless that it shifts in strategy from rural-based armed struggle to urban-based mass movement type, the new Zapatistas of Manila (CPP-NDF) may lose enormous mileage in their campaigns and legitimacy. A rising middle class here will never be able to identify with a movement that tends to diminish the importance of the ‘middle sectors’ in shaping the political wind, most specially in Asia to which Manila is now closely hued to (for many centuries the Philippines was alien to Asia and was more hued to its colonial masters in the West).

 

Often than not, the Peace Talks get stalled. This has been the history of negotiations here. But at least what is clear, as has been shown by the past negotiations with the military rebels and the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF, is that the GRP talking point is not “surrender all of you or die!” but rather one of negotiated political settlement. It took much time for the GRP to admit to this new precept in peace talks, but state negotiators have to rather take this option as it had proved relatively successful as exemplified by the previous cases.

 

One strategy used by the GRP whenever peace talks get stalled is the ‘back-channel talk’. Often than not, the names of back-channel negotiators are not identified at all in public, or that the information is strictly confidential. Having once moved in the corridors of power as a consultant and later a senior state official at the presidential palace, my very own boss then was among them, and his experiences in the BCT (shortened ‘back-channel talk’) are my basis for assessing the efficacy of the strategy.

I found out, to my own dismay being a patriot who was impatient for results, that the peace talks get stalled every now and then not because of ‘insincerity’ of the ‘other party’ but rather due to the lack of trust by the rebels in the GRP negotiating panel’s composition. One must realize that here in Manila, the ‘nat-dems’ (the Maoist national democrats) had that historical animosities and antipathies with the ‘soc-dems’ (non-Maoist social democrats) who were indeed rabidly anti-communist as any observer would notice. Sadly, before the incumbent president GM Arroyo sat in power, the ‘soc-dems’ were already visible and influential in shaping the contours of peace talks including those held with the Muslim rebels.

 

In 2004, barely had the presidential election campaign commence when the peace talk stalled again. The usual bitter reason raised, as per information coming straight from the rebels to their contacts in the GRP other than the peace panel, was the ‘soc-dem’ presence in that (peace) panel (notably the intelligence top-gun Norberto Gonzales, and another ‘soc-dem’ cabinet member Ging Deles). Before that, in the 1990s, there was the complaint against the ‘opus dei’ negotiators. You see, the NDF can never really trust these negotiators who hinge their loyalty to their Vatican-led spin doctors.

 

The ‘nat-dem’ line is that the ‘soc-dem’ and their predecessors the ‘opus dei’ are clerico-fascist, are rabidly anti-communist and will never trust communists or Marxists of whatever rainbow hue they possess. The cleric-fascists supposedly opt for a total destruction of anything Marxist, much more of Maoists, and cannot be trusted in any way in peace negotiations. Of course, in the open mass media the typical line of the Maoists is that GRP is insincere, a line that the MILF rebels likewise echo.

 

That’s why it pays for any incoming president in particular to review the composition of the peace group that s/he inherits from a previous president. Well, the fact is that all the presidents from Corazon Aquino through Gloria Arroyo owe their victories in one way or another to the support of the ‘Jesuit mafia’ (to whom the ‘soc-dems’ owe allegiance) and the ‘opus dei’ (RP’s version of generalissimo Franco’s phalangists). So nary a president can just consign church players to roach-ridden dust bins, rest assured.  

 

A remedial measure adopted by a president here, which the incumbent particularly and that of the flamboyant Fidel Ramos found efficacious, was the use of BCT negotiators. And the result was even more stunningly successful whenever a BCT negotiator was a former comrade of the Left. Many senior-level officials since the 1990s yet, the rank going to as high as cabinet level, were former ‘nat-dems’ including dozens of former CPP cadres no less. They may have left the underground, but they were still in good faith with their former movements which they never antagonized in any way.

 

As the presidential poll got nearer in 2004, the BCT negotiator then, who is personally known to this writer, got himself busy moving in and out of the country to see the NDF officials face-to-face. There was this particular official session between the NDF and GRP, which the BCT negotiator witnessed, and to the shock of the attendants the NDF officials pulled out pronto even before the session even started. But the rebel officials never left the venue, they simply cuddled at a particular nook and discussed their moves right there.

 

As usual, among the GRP panelists were around three (3) ‘soc-dems’ and one ‘opus dei’, and so the knee-jerk Pavlovian response of the rebels was to back off, as if they perceive some hostile man-eating Martians across the bargaining table. Seeing the urgency of a mediation response, the BCT official immediately admonished the GRP panelists to stay and wait while he moves on to massage the rebel side. He then went over to his former comrades, muscled enough courage and confidence to deal witRih them, and pronounced his lines that fruitful things can come out of the session if only the rebels returned to the table.

 

Well, voila! The rebel officials did return to the table, though without a hint of trust shown to the GRP panelists. The panel wasn’t exactly an entirely ‘socdem’-‘opus dei’ tandem, as the BCT official had pointed to the rebels, and so it was a matter of competent communication of their positions that would matter the most at that historic moment.

 

I was myself very busy then with the presidential campaign, being a consultant and spokesman for the incumbent exec who was running for another 6-year stint when the talks resumed. And I was so exuberantly elated at the rebels’ return to the table. The BCT negotiator, being my direct boss in the campaign (he was also among the top coordinators for the ‘parallel campaign machinery’ of GM Arroyo), then narrated the series of events which never came out of the news.

 

Not only did the rebels return to the ‘nego’ table (nego = negotiations, negotiating) as a result of the success of confidence-building spawned thru the BCT strategy. A week before the presidential poll, the top rebel honcho Jose Maria Sison officially announced that the NDF was supporting the GMA-led team in the elections. ‘Joma’ (as Sison was fondly nick-named) even released a formal memorandum to all CPP cadres and members, to openly vote for Arroyo in her presidential bid.

 

We now have new faces among the GRP panelists here, and the political winds have quite changed since 2004. The GRP-NDF war had resumed, peace talks continue but without verve and mutual trust. But BCT had more than amply proved to be a worthwhile strategy for peace negotiations. We should all look forward to its further application in many cases of conflict resolution—from rebellion-related to labor-related conflicts (settling strikes, lock-outs, barricades).

FIND LIGHT & PEACE IN BRO. ERLE ARGONZA’S BLOGS

FIND LIGHT & PEACE IN BRO. ERLE ARGONZA’S BLOGS

Gracious Day to all friends, partners in development, fellows in the Path!

 

You’re all invited to relish moments of Light-seeking reflections, call to relevant actions and self-development thoughts with me, through my blogs:

 

Development, Economics, Better World: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

 

Seekers’ Lessons, Freethought, Yoga, Self-Development:

 http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, http://raefdargon.mysticblogs.com

 

Poetry for Inspirational Living: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com

 

Happy Reading!

 

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza / Guru Ra Efdargon

MANILA PEACE UPDATE: BACK-CHANNEL TALK WITH NDF

Bro. Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

[Writ 01 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. The author, a professor at the premier University of the Philippines, was a former consultant and senior official at the presidential palace.]

 

Let me share to you some notes about the efficacy of the back-channel strategy as applied to the Peace Talks. By Peace Talks I refer to the on-going negotiations between the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and the rebel groups (National Democratic Front, Moro Islamic Liberation Front). For this briefer, I will focus on the GRP-NDF talks, the NDF being the Maoist movement led by the clandestine Communist Party of the Philippines (founded 1968).

 

The Maoist rebellion here began as soon as the New People’s Army or NPA, the military arm of the CPP, was formed. The Philippines than was predominantly agrarian, landlordism was the main stumbling block to industrial progress, the 1948-launced Import Substitution Industrialization was floundering badly, and mass poverty must have been reaching as much as past the 75% mark. With an agrarian population as base, it wasn’t difficult for the CPP-NPA to justify an armed struggle based on the Maoist strategy of encirclement: build rebel based first in the hinterlands where the enemy forces are weak, then gradually constrict the urban areas (cities, big towns) from the countryside.

 

Almost four (4) decades after the launching of the Maoist rebellion, nowhere is there any site of a victory by the Left rebels. Supposedly, the guerilla fronts have reached past the 3-digit level (160+ as of latest claims by the CPP), but those are largely spread out in rural hinterlands. RP’s population is now around 60% urban and only 40% rural, and urbanization is still spreading fast, mutating the rural landscapes into new mixed-use urban and suburban mini-cities.

 

It is now getting clearer that the Maoist rebellion here has been reduced to a Zapatista-sized rebellion, and its strategy of encirclement has become obviously intractable and nauseatingly archaic. Unless that it shifts in strategy from rural-based armed struggle to urban-based mass movement type, the new Zapatistas of Manila (CPP-NDF) may lose enormous mileage in their campaigns and legitimacy. A rising middle class here will never be able to identify with a movement that tends to diminish the importance of the ‘middle sectors’ in shaping the political wind, most specially in Asia to which Manila is now closely hued to (for many centuries the Philippines was alien to Asia and was more hued to its colonial masters in the West).

 

Often than not, the Peace Talks get stalled. This has been the history of negotiations here. But at least what is clear, as has been shown by the past negotiations with the military rebels and the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF, is that the GRP talking point is not “surrender all of you or die!” but rather one of negotiated political settlement. It took much time for the GRP to admit to this new precept in peace talks, but state negotiators have to rather take this option as it had proved relatively successful as exemplified by the previous cases.

 

One strategy used by the GRP whenever peace talks get stalled is the ‘back-channel talk’. Often than not, the names of back-channel negotiators are not identified at all in public, or that the information is strictly confidential. Having once moved in the corridors of power as a consultant and later a senior state official at the presidential palace, my very own boss then was among them, and his experiences in the BCT (shortened ‘back-channel talk’) are my basis for assessing the efficacy of the strategy.

I found out, to my own dismay being a patriot who was impatient for results, that the peace talks get stalled every now and then not because of ‘insincerity’ of the ‘other party’ but rather due to the lack of trust by the rebels in the GRP negotiating panel’s composition. One must realize that here in Manila, the ‘nat-dems’ (the Maoist national democrats) had that historical animosities and antipathies with the ‘soc-dems’ (non-Maoist social democrats) who were indeed rabidly anti-communist as any observer would notice. Sadly, before the incumbent president GM Arroyo sat in power, the ‘soc-dems’ were already visible and influential in shaping the contours of peace talks including those held with the Muslim rebels.

 

In 2004, barely had the presidential election campaign commence when the peace talk stalled again. The usual bitter reason raised, as per information coming straight from the rebels to their contacts in the GRP other than the peace panel, was the ‘soc-dem’ presence in that (peace) panel (notably the intelligence top-gun Norberto Gonzales, and another ‘soc-dem’ cabinet member Ging Deles). Before that, in the 1990s, there was the complaint against the ‘opus dei’ negotiators. You see, the NDF can never really trust these negotiators who hinge their loyalty to their Vatican-led spin doctors.

 

The ‘nat-dem’ line is that the ‘soc-dem’ and their predecessors the ‘opus dei’ are clerico-fascist, are rabidly anti-communist and will never trust communists or Marxists of whatever rainbow hue they possess. The cleric-fascists supposedly opt for a total destruction of anything Marxist, much more of Maoists, and cannot be trusted in any way in peace negotiations. Of course, in the open mass media the typical line of the Maoists is that GRP is insincere, a line that the MILF rebels likewise echo.

 

That’s why it pays for any incoming president in particular to review the composition of the peace group that s/he inherits from a previous president. Well, the fact is that all the presidents from Corazon Aquino through Gloria Arroyo owe their victories in one way or another to the support of the ‘Jesuit mafia’ (to whom the ‘soc-dems’ owe allegiance) and the ‘opus dei’ (RP’s version of generalissimo Franco’s phalangists). So nary a president can just consign church players to roach-ridden dust bins, rest assured.  

 

A remedial measure adopted by a president here, which the incumbent particularly and that of the flamboyant Fidel Ramos found efficacious, was the use of BCT negotiators. And the result was even more stunningly successful whenever a BCT negotiator was a former comrade of the Left. Many senior-level officials since the 1990s yet, the rank going to as high as cabinet level, were former ‘nat-dems’ including dozens of former CPP cadres no less. They may have left the underground, but they were still in good faith with their former movements which they never antagonized in any way.

 

As the presidential poll got nearer in 2004, the BCT negotiator then, who is personally known to this writer, got himself busy moving in and out of the country to see the NDF officials face-to-face. There was this particular official session between the NDF and GRP, which the BCT negotiator witnessed, and to the shock of the attendants the NDF officials pulled out pronto even before the session even started. But the rebel officials never left the venue, they simply cuddled at a particular nook and discussed their moves right there.

 

As usual, among the GRP panelists were around three (3) ‘soc-dems’ and one ‘opus dei’, and so the knee-jerk Pavlovian response of the rebels was to back off, as if they perceive some hostile man-eating Martians across the bargaining table. Seeing the urgency of a mediation response, the BCT official immediately admonished the GRP panelists to stay and wait while he moves on to massage the rebel side. He then went over to his former comrades, muscled enough courage and confidence to deal witRih them, and pronounced his lines that fruitful things can come out of the session if only the rebels returned to the table.

 

Well, voila! The rebel officials did return to the table, though without a hint of trust shown to the GRP panelists. The panel wasn’t exactly an entirely ‘socdem’-‘opus dei’ tandem, as the BCT official had pointed to the rebels, and so it was a matter of competent communication of their positions that would matter the most at that historic moment.

 

I was myself very busy then with the presidential campaign, being a consultant and spokesman for the incumbent exec who was running for another 6-year stint when the talks resumed. And I was so exuberantly elated at the rebels’ return to the table. The BCT negotiator, being my direct boss in the campaign (he was also among the top coordinators for the ‘parallel campaign machinery’ of GM Arroyo), then narrated the series of events which never came out of the news.

 

Not only did the rebels return to the ‘nego’ table (nego = negotiations, negotiating) as a result of the success of confidence-building spawned thru the BCT strategy. A week before the presidential poll, the top rebel honcho Jose Maria Sison officially announced that the NDF was supporting the GMA-led team in the elections. ‘Joma’ (as Sison was fondly nick-named) even released a formal memorandum to all CPP cadres and members, to openly vote for Arroyo in her presidential bid.

 

We now have new faces among the GRP panelists here, and the political winds have quite changed since 2004. The GRP-NDF war had resumed, peace talks continue but without verve and mutual trust. But BCT had more than amply proved to be a worthwhile strategy for peace negotiations. We should all look forward to its further application in many cases of conflict resolution—from rebellion-related to labor-related conflicts (settling strikes, lock-outs, barricades).

FOOD WARS ARE COMING, PREPARE!

Bro. Erle Frayne D. Argonza

[Writ 04 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Food wars are coming, prepare for the contingencies! This is now a visible possibility, so all those enthused development stakeholders and peace-builders better insert an extra agendum on their ‘key result areas’.

Given the so many sources of conflict that are natural resources related, the latest ones being the ‘water wars’, it is no longer a remote possibility that food wars will erupt in some ‘hot soup spots’ in the world. Such hot spots are not those ones the world knows today (e.g. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Korean Peninsula, Taiwan-China strait) that can be potential starting points for great wars. But somehow, the areas and the food wars coming can ‘cross-cut’ the issues involving conflicts in the hot spots we know.

The scenario would be as follows:

·         A convergence of volatilities in the global market would, at one conjuncture, lead to simultaneous price increases in food, oil/energy, metals, utilities. Hoarding then takes place at alarmingly uncontrollable levels. Shockingly, the old ‘policy tools’ to control prices and hoarding won’t work.

 

·         Massive urban riots and upheavals in the affected rural areas take place. New militia groups will rise almost overnight, challenging both national armies and established warlord and rebel groups where these are found.

 

·         Noticing that their own food, energy, base metal stocks are near or pass the critical points, affected states will then turn blind eye to the militias. Tying up with underworld for arms and information, the militias would then conduct quick eco-scan of neighboring countries that are relatively porous for food ransack operations. Key areas would be mapped out as professionally as possible.

 

·         Noticing their own relative porosity, the panic response of affected food supplier states would be to plug their borders as quickly as they can before hothead militias come. They may do panic last-level talks with the state leaders of neighboring countries, who in turn will simply claim that they do not control warlord/militia groups at all. They may send token protection groups at the border.

 

·         Anticipating such moves, the militias, forming cross-country alliances, will mount a coordinated surprise attack. Invasive entries will be done from around 5-6 country origins, using both dawn and dusk attacks. Simultaneous attacks via air, sea, land, rivers & lakes will be mounted on all fronts.

 

·         Effectively unable to prevent the coordinated invasion, the national army/police of the affected state will watch in horror as the rapid moving invaders coalesce with internal players (‘dog of wars’ supplied by local mafia or related groups) to open and ransack warehouses.

 

·         The invaders will then retreat back to their base origins as quick as they’ve entered the porous state. Hot pursuit is simply nil, save for a few sporadic gunfights with retreating forces.

 

·         The affected state will then demand for indemnification or equivalent payment from the militias’ respective states, none of which may come at all. Given the already burgeoning subsidies by states to shore up domestic supplies and prevent further civil unrest due to the crisis, the states will simply have no resource for indemnification. To print more money for indemnification would be to risk hyper-inflation on top of an already inflationary environment.

 

·         With hardly any sincere face-saving moves by the militias’ states, the affected state may then be provoked into a ‘call to arms’ and do some punitive attacks on some quick neighbors. It can also unleash the firepower of rebel groups from the ransacking countries that are based in its territory, arm these groups and make them lead punitive attacks.

 

·         Unless cooler heads prevail in the region, a regional conflagration could ensue, hence widening the latitudes of the conflict. The original ‘hot soup’ for the stomach then turns to a ‘hot caldron’ of total war. Multilateral efforts may fail for a time, as the conflicts happen in at least three (3) world regions.

 

Partners in development and peace, this scenario can no longer be ignored today. Let us all prepare for the eventuality. If it can be stopped by cutting off the bud before it blooms, whatever that may take, then let’s better do it as soon as we can. Time is now against us, I believe, as events are moving so fast they happen as soon as we forecast them, like the formation of the food cartels.

If there would still be time to constitute strategic studies teams that can eco-scan the planet and identify possible ‘hot soup spots’, this would be a welcome move. Failing to recognize the evolving contingency, let’s not get shocked at all when the paramilitary ‘dogs of war’ will be at the gates of the bereaved states. They deserve some ‘hot soup’ after all, we may surmise.

WHAT RICE SHORTAGE? SACKLOADS CAN FILL MOUNTAINS!

Bro. Erle Frayne D. Argonza

[Writ 03 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Good day, Fellows!

You see, if you’re going to beg (panic buy) from any rice trader in Cagayan Valley (northern Philippines) for some rice, accompanied by your melancholic look like as if all rice will disappear from Earth very soon, the stunned trader would most likely say, “you’re asking only for a few rice? By golly we got mountain loads of them here!” “What? You say there’s a shortage of rice? Tell that to the Marines! What a Big Lie, this shortage!”

 

Development partners, peace builders, this is the latest news update I got on the ground. A structural  engineer up north, who contracts projects for the Department of Agriculture, laughed with guffaws about the ‘shortage lie’ as he narrated to me his fresh reportage passed on to him by traders. There’s plenty of rice to last for months, for Christ’s sake!

 

Look at what the organized chaos had done so far here in Manila and other regions. It had made the poorer more pathetic as they have to line up for supposedly cheap rice, made to believe as they are by public relations Pied Pipers that rice is going to run out soon. We’re almost near to stampedes here already, thanks heavens there’s still some dignity left among our poor folks they won’t stampede for rice alone. They would do that for a Wowowie TV program that promises to turn them into millionaires overnight, but to stampede for 5 kilograms of rice? Hello! Our folks are too civilized to buy that bullet.

 

To continue, listen to what some traders said: “Kabayan, how tragic this shortage lie had done not only to our poor but to us traders. We got so huge stocks in the warehouses, but now we cannot just bring them to Manila for unloading, afraid that no retailer might buy them because suddenly their wholesale prices are sky high. So now even our pockets have to wait for the more stable days. Sad!”

 

That’s the real picture at ground-level, Partners in development & peace. THERE IS NO RICE SHORTAGE. The shortage was stage-managed. Whether the theatrics was designed overseas and spilled over here, or that it’s only a domestic script is something worth investigating. Our intelligence community should get busy getting to this business of pinning down who staged managed what.

 

Meantime, the Thailand & Company (states) that cartelized rice recently has done an act that now seems reactive. It is pure and plain panic, disguised as anything worth the ‘rationalization’ of the rice sector. True, for a time this measure can stabilize rice price and bring it down a bit. But now, this company has to prove itself worthy to the global community that its cartelization effort—state-sponsored, using the nation-state as mediating instrument—will make rice available to rice-consumers at relatively reasonable (note: cheap is out of the question) and sustained supply.

 

If the Thailand & Co will fail to meet global expectations, its member-states will be stoned with fiery embers of public wrath. And that is because, by placing themselves in the line of fire between the global consumers (who were the ‘victims’ in the shortage game script) and the global financiers-speculators (the real culprits in the criminal rise of price rice and stage-managed shortage), the national cartels will be the vent object for public ire. And there it goes, the real culprits go unnoticed and unpunished.

 

The real story of the price fluctuations in grains and foods in general is that many hedge funds and related financiers decided to park their money a bit in food for their commodity futures operations, eventually driving prices higher up. The reason being that it’s safer to park and earn money in food, period. Look at how the hedge funds were burnt out by their over-exposures to the subprime housing in the USA, that’s enough a precedent for the same financiers to go to safer investment havens. Or else the various global stakeholders will focus their eyes on these gung-ho derivatives investors and ‘burn them at stake’ (criminalize in world courts, regulated via new global treaties and instruments).

 

And that’s where price stabilization would start later: regulate speculative finance, take down the ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory speculation, dismantle global monopolies, return to fixed currencies backed up by the gold standard, tax cross-border financial transactions, and so on. Quite a wish list for now, true. Crisis after crisis will bring us to their galvanization…and, returning to the ‘real economy’, there’ll be enough grains, cereals, staples for all the earth’s peoples.