GLOBAL TOTALITARIAN POLICE-STATE & TECHNOTRONIC SOCIETY: EXTENDING CAPITALIST LIFE

GLOBAL TOTALITARIAN POLICE-STATE & TECHNOTRONIC SOCIETY: EXTENDING CAPITALIST LIFE
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Let me go back to the question of what lies ahead of us—when ‘late’ capitalism dies and yet capitalism will be extended. I am not discounting the possibility that capitalism’s life span will be extended, but this will no longer be ‘late’ capital, just to remind everyone.

You better fasten your seat belts, as the stormy days ahead will come for sure, and as this heraldry from me will sound as stormy already as those times ahead. Stormy heraldry, because (a) you will not come to like it and that (b) its impact will be so nauseating and revolting that you’d rather sedate yourself most quickly with wine, liquor, pot or anything that can reduce that revulsion. I forgot, for the fundamentalists, you’d pray for hours to allay your fears.

By the time ‘late’ capital arrived up to the current juncture, or roughly the whole of the post-Great Depression era, the following developments have come about:

• State intervention/planning was infused into the system. Post-war former colonies proceeded on their industrial development tracks along this dirigist market model. The USA and Europe were saved from collapsing, emerging markets appeared.

• Market reforms were later introduced, bringing back free market and free trade principles. Centrally planned economies China and Vietnam infused market reforms to construct a ‘social market’ model, while former socialist states folded up in Eastern Europe and 3rd world states.

• The era of ‘mad economics’ resulted from the system integration efforts of ‘instrumental reason’. The dividing line between the rational and the mad in decision-making and system maintenance was effectively deconstructed and erased. In esoteric-mystical argot, this era is the period of the Demonic Mind, the era of Anti-Christ.

• ‘Virtual economy’ based on predatory financial practices of creating values from out of money flows (rather than from concrete production) was exemplified by ‘bubble economies’. Bubble bursts were followed by destructive, catastrophic crises and shrinkages of affected economies.

• Nation-states’ economies came to be integrated into a single economy, via globalization. A planetary economy was already institutionalized, yet no planetary state exists to regulate conduct of commerce and business at a global level. The contradiction between the norms of the planetary economy and the interests of the nation-state has led in no small measure to the fragmentation of nation-states and emergence of mini-states. Globalization has been undermining the nation-state in general.

• All of such developments will hyper-converge in the months ahead in a general system crisis characterized by hyper-inflation, great depression, and total system collapse. As the economist Lyndon LaRouche correctly perceived, that collapse phase is now taking place at a rapid rate.

• Wars and hostilities are intensifying across the globe. Surrogate wars of world powers have also been rehearsed, such as the Georgia-Russia conflict. All of these conflicts will hyper-converge in a World War III or intercontinental war, the duration of which no one can forecast so easily.

So, going back to the issue, if the ‘virtual economy’ cannot be sustained and its collapse will bring the final death blow on ‘late’ capital, is it possible to extend capitalism’s life span? Yes, the possibility is very likely. But the context emerging from the resolution of the general global crisis will hardly resemble what you’ve ever seen before nor imagine.

First of all, the consolidation of the system and attempts to prolong it can never take place without draconian police state tactics. As Lenin correctly emphasized, the dividing line between liberalism and fascism is a superficial one. Neo-fascism will become the political modality in order to save capitalism and bring it to its next phase. State terror heretofore untold will unravel the old order of things and bring the ‘new world order’ into place, resulting to pogroms that will dwarf both Hitler’s ‘final solution’ and Stalin’s ‘purges’ combined.

The possibility of a global state will finally become granite rock, with the United Nations most likely the base for creating that global regulatory mechanism governed by a demonic ‘world rule of law’. This global state will have its own military and police forces, and will have no qualms in quelling dissent and enforcing global fiats in order to bring forth the ‘new world order’.

The global corporations of the moment, whose assets and revenues are already so huge that they dwarf those of nation-states’, will all the more become gigantic. The same corporations will then declare their respective turfs among region-states and city-states that will be created from the dismantled nations. Each mega-corporation will be endowed with its own private army, akin to the British East India Company or BEIC of old, of professional mercenaries beholden to no state but to the corporation, but which can be mandated by the global state to engage hostile forces in other regions and cities.

The era of New Feudalism will then ensue from the social and urban-ecological arrangements emerging. The era of ancient Florence, Venice, or city-states with their own respective armies and ruled by powerful commercial families, will come back though in more sophisticated vogue.
The competing powerful & wealthy city-states will then give rise to new conflicts in the form of ‘wars of the cities’, much akin to the ancient Greek city-states’ conflicts. Before this century’s end, no more nations shall exist, but rather a world of cities and regions integrated largely through the mediative and regulative planetary state. Weaker cities and regions will become the vassals of powerful cities and corporate groups, at a time when technology will even be more revolutionary. The New Feudalism will be based on an integration of capital and information, contrasted to the Old Feudalism that was based on land.

As soon as 3rd phase cybernetics will conclude, and probably a 4th phase will begin, which will all the more erase the barrier between human and machine, the envisioned Technotronic Society will become the manifest order. Cyborgs and machines will then become perfected and endowed with quasi-human intelligence, while those humans with weak minds will be totally controlled via perfected chips, mega-computers, and new cybernetic systems. Large numbers of subhuman ‘Manchurian candidates’ or MCs will become the docile slave labor of the day, well fed and provided for, but whose behavior will be totally programmed and re-programmable.
That technoronic society of the neo-feudal capitalist ‘new world order’, or simply Technotronic capitalism, was fitfully described and forecast in the film series Matrix and Terminator. As 3rd phase cybernetics is advancing today in laboratory incubators of the North, cybernetics that will dismantle the barrier between human and machine, the possibility of an early arrival of that dreaded machine-controlled ‘new world order’ has become concrete. The question is no longer ‘will technotronics come’, but rather ‘when will it come’? Matrix and Terminator are no film fantasies but are rather scientific extrapolations based on existing and developing cybernetic principles.

So, fellows out there, would you count yourself among the fanatical supporters of ‘capitalist life-span extension’, or would you rather opt for a new economy & society other than the ‘new world order’ that has been engineered by the global oligarchy? Or, would you rather be silent about the matter, as the ‘silence of the lambs’ means the Keynesian “In the long run, all of us will be dead!” Caput!

Let me now end here. Suffice that I shared my notes about the possible extension of the favorite economy of the pro-capitalists or the most abhorred society by capitalism’s detractors. At least I didn’t fail to show you the possibilities, I being a sociologist and economist who learned from my thinker mentors the craft of social forecasting or ‘futurology’.

Till next writing! Adios! Adieu! Paalam! Farewell!

[Philippines, 23 August 2008]

TRADE & HUNGER: SALVING HUNGER VIA TRADE POLICY

TRADE & HUNGER: SALVING HUNGER VIA TRADE POLICY
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Let me continue on the issue of hunger, which many politicians are raising howls this early in time for the 2010 polls. The tendency right now, with politicians’ short-sightedness and poverty of wisdom, is that hunger will be perpetuated and sustained even long after the same politicians are all dead.

In the study on fair trade & food security I did for the national center for fair trade and food security (KAISAMPALAD), I already raised the howl about hunger and recommended policy and institutional intervention.

Since other experts, notably nutritionists, already highlighted many factors to hunger and under-nutrition, such as lifestyle problems, economics, and lack of appropriate public policy, I preferred to highlight in that study the factor of trade on food insecurity and the hunger malaise. Let me cite some cases here to show how trade and hunger are directly related:

• Immediately after the termination of the sugar quota of the USA for Philippine-sourced sugar in the early 80s, the domestic sugar industry collapsed. 500,000 hungry sugar workers and their dependents had to line up for food, a tragedy and calamity that shamed the country before the international community. Till these days, the trauma caused by that ‘line up for porridge’ solution remains among those children of those days who are now adults, one of whom became my student at the University of the Philippines Manila campus (a girl).

• Two years ago, a cargo ship carrying PETRON oil to the Visayas got struck with leaks and a tragic spillage covering wide swaths of sea waters. The island province of Guimaras suffered catastrophically from that incident, its economy was as bad as a war-torn economy for one year. Its marginal fishers couldn’t fish for at least one year as the sea spillage had to cleaned up. The hunger and under-nutrition caused by that tragedy is indubitably related to a trade activity: oil being transported to a predefined destination.

• At the instance of trade liberalization on fruits upon the implementation of a series of GATT-related and IMF-World Bank sanctioned measures that began during the Cory Aquino regime, the massive entry of apples and fruit imports immediately crashed tens of thousands of producers of local mangoes, guavas and oranges, as domestic consumers (with their colonial flair for anything imported) chose to buy fruit imports in place of local ones. Economic dislocation and hunger instantly resulted from the trade liberalization policy.

The list could go on and on, as we go from one economic and/or population to another. What is clear here is that trade measures and activities do directly lead to food insecurity and the attendant problems of malnutrition and hunger. In the case of the Guimaras oil spillage calamity, humanitarian hands such as the Visayan provinces and Manila’s mayors’ offices, added to private and NGO groups, quickly moved to help the affected residents. Of course the PETRON itself took responsibility for the spillage, clean up, and offered humanitarian help as well. But did trade stakeholders ever paid for the hunger malaise suffered by the sugar workers and families, fruit small planters, and other families in the aftermath of shifting trade policy?

A strategic solution to trade-related hunger would be to constitute a Hunger Fund, whose funds shall come from at least 0.1% of all tariffs (on imports). A 0.1% tariff alone today translates to P800 million approximately, or close to $20 Million. This can serve as an insurance of sorts for trade-induced hunger. The funds will then be administered by an appropriate body, comprising of representatives from diverse sectors and headed by a nutritional scientist of international repute (e.g Dr. Florencio) rather than by a politician or ignoramus species.

Furthermore, insurance groups here can begin to innovate on food production-related insurance to cover force majeure damages. Cyclone insurance and earthquake insurance would be strong options for agricultural producers, even as other options can be designed most urgently.

I would admit that trade-related hunger and its solutions are practicable for the productive sectors of our population. There are 2.3 million street people today who comprise the relatively ‘unproductive sectors’, who all suffer from hunger. This need to be tackled as a distinct sector and problem, and discussed separately.

[Phiippines, 28 July 2008]
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NAZI HEALTHCARE AGENDA RISING IN AMERICA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

It is night time as I write this note. The easterly winds have been blowing, seemingly reminding us here of the coming hot days. While this happens, winter has been bringing storms in America, storms that accompanied the torpedoing of the new health bill, the torpedo ‘storm troopers’ being the neo-fascistic ‘Tea Party’ of the Republican Party.

 

The world is watching the unfolding events in America concerning health care. This analyst is among those keenly interested, as the matter of making health care accessible to everyone in my own country has been a mind-boggling challenge for the development experts. We have been scouting around for models of health care accessibility, and the concept of ‘universal healthcare’ that some experts are espousing in the USA is worth examining.

 

A question that arises from the unfolding events is this: is health care headed for a new summer in America, or is it moving towards a long winter? The enthused readers can go ahead and choose to discuss the matter, and generate their own opinions about it.

 

My own reflection about the matter makes me conclude preliminarily that America’s health care is heading towards a parallelism with the Nazi health care of the Hitler’s heydays in Germany. Nazi policy in health means a dichotomous delivery of access to health: make those strongest physically and mentally have access to state-sponsored health care, while close the access to those who are the weakest.

 

To reduce the cost of sustaining a state-sponsored health care program, eliminate those who are the weakest. Round up those with lingering ailments, the lame and blind, the ‘subhuman’ or below-normal intelligence, and so on, line them up on the wall and machine gun them to death.

 

My own reading of the events in America makes me see, among other things, the increasing closure of health care to the impoverished families and individuals there. Poverty now exceeds 40 Millions of Americans, with the Blacks and Latinos comprising the greatest percentage of ethnicities below poverty line.

 

It seems, as of now, that no one single political force has a monopoly of Nazi-type health policies there. True, the fascist wing of the Republicans, coming under the names of ‘Tea Party’ and ‘neo-conservatives’, have deep, elitist, condescending scorn for poor folks and colored peoples who are receiving too much state attention via welfare subsidies for health. But that is belaboring the obvious.

 

There are forces within the Democrat Party—masquerading in the mantle of liberalism—who would have none of the drift of America towards a Welfare State akin to what befell Europe. They know that America’s coffers don’t cough up enough funds for subsidies, so what they do is pretend to be pro-people by voting for bills that allocate greater state subsidies for health care.

 

Such forces are making use of political parties as Trojan Horses to wage a sadistic attack against the poor people of America. They will brook no quarters in excluding the poorer folks, including immigrants, from mainstream health care, and they commit the heinous act through rigmaroles of legislative fiats.

 

While such new Nazis, and real Nazis to stress the point, fiddle their superficial policy agenda and do backroom maneuvers that concern health care, hundreds of thousands of poor folks die yearly of every kind of ailment there. By dilly-dallying on the galvanization of the ‘universal health care’ idea alone, numerous dying folks are already being sacrificed in the altar of Evil there.

 

Let us all watch closely the events concerning health care, and see what happens after another year will elapse. If it will be so easy to forecast that more Americans are being kept out of the health care circuits, then rest assured a Nazi killer agenda is in place to satisfy the sadistic lust for blood by demoniacs in the Establishment.

 

That being so, the rest of the world, more so the emerging markets, will add another reason to their rising list of rationales for ignoring America as a recognized leading state by showing leadership through example. The year 2012 will be a clear turning point, when nations will decide whether there is still an iota of leadership that America can demonstrate.

 

Health is wealth, and a nation that closes health care access to its people is a nation without soul and conscience. Other nations should move on in life without that soul-less state to reckon with.

 

[Philippines, 17 February 2011]

 

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FILIPINOS 104 MILLION STRONG: 94 IN PH, 10 OVERSEAS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Magandang gabi! Good evening from PH’s suburban boondocks!

 

The Philippines just conducted a census last year, 2010, and the result shows a sum total of 94 Million heads in the archipelago. The population growth of 2 Million heads per year is also indicated, showing an increase from the 1.7 Million heads annual increase ten in the year 2000 (when the last census was conducted).

 

The 2 Million annual growth is already a total result in itself. Accordingly, about 500,000 fetuses are aborted every year in the country, a figure that has alarmed population and health experts. Never mind if the national charter bans abortion, women who commit unwanted pregnancies simply decide to go abortion.

 

94 Million Filipinos, at a time of economic boom and rising incomes, is a cause for celebration. With a rising middle class at hand—who form the demand base of consumption-led growth—we expect a steadily growing number of Filipinos who comprise the family income bracket earning U.S. $6,000-$30,000 annually. 20 Million Pinoys are in that category today, which will expectedly rise in the next couples of years.

 

Thus, PH qualifies as an ‘emerging market’. It has first of all a large population, and millions of people falling within the middle class spenders with incomes ranging from U.S. $6,000 to $30,000. Many heads working and earning well translates into economic wellness for a country, so we should welcome this development.

 

Now, let us not forget the Overseas Filipinos or OFs who comprise an estimated 10 Million heads across 200 countries more or less. These OFs earn an aggregate income of U.S. $400 Billions annually, $20+ Billions of which is remitted to the Philippines as Net Factor Income from Abroad or NFIA. Of the $20+ Billions, only around $18 entered legally established channels of remittance annually.

 

That means the OFs remit 5% of their earnings to the motherland, and that is good enough. No matter what misery-inducing policies the global elites would slap Pinoys with via the World Bank-IMF-WTO Group, the most demonic being the austerity policies of the IMF, the Philippines can survive thanks to the OF remittances. Let the evil elites shackle PH with crippling low credit ratings and low entry of ‘smart money’ and investments by them, we will still survive thanks to the remittances and our own domestic investments.

 

The signs are pretty clear that fecundity, the capacity to give birth, is high among Filipinos. This for me is a cause for celebration. Let us sustain our high birthing capacity and increase the number of middle class people by the year, and we will all the more exude our economic and social power as a people.

 

Contrast that high fecundity to the trends in Japan and Russia, where their populations are falling by the year. Russia has been alarmed a decade ago yet about falling population, and identified the phenomenon as the top national security problem. Japan just began to experience a falling population, and this early look at how alarmed and panicked the Japanese stakeholders are of the consequence of diminishing population.

 

Not so for my beloved Philippines. We will be producing 2 Million+ Filipinos annually in the archipelago and overseas for many years to come yet, and we shall use the burgeoning population as leverage in negotiating with other nations and regions. The global oligarchs can no longer be fooling us at this time, whacking us with oppressive policies that produce deplorable conditions for our poor folks.

 

Abroad, our own Kabayans are now crystallizing a consciousness as an Overseas Filipino Nation, and I do welcome this progressive development. United by culture, language, and shared experience, the OF Nation will wield the stick to leverage vis a vis governments, market players, and interest groups in their host countries. They can no longer be fooled in the negotiating tables, much more enslaved and butchered like unwanted pests by sociopathic monsters without responding in a pro-active way.

 

Clearly, the days when White Americans sang “Brown monkeys have no tails” in the archipelago, a sordid racist song they popularized upon invading the Philippines, are over. The figure of 200 Million Pinoys can be breached by 2050, at a time when PH will be a wealthy nation, huge and wealthy to lead the ASEAN Union.

 

In sum, 104 Million Filipinos should be welcomed as good news. It is the leveraging power of Pinoys in the new era of Urban Philippines, whence 68% of Pinoys are residing in urban communities here.

 

[Philippines, 11 February 2011]

 

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AFTER ARIZONA MASSACRE, WHAT’S NEXT IN ANGLO-SAXON AMERICA?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Americans were shocked again by another event of mass murders done by an expectedly sociopathic man—a certain Mr. Loughner, 22 year-old White man. Just about a month ago, a White man in the east coast shocked Americans when he shot at a school board’s officials before shooting himself to death.

Aren’t Americans supposedly inured to such sociopathic murders already? Not only Americans, but White men and women shouldn’t be shocked at all over such tragic deaths, as White society has been showing increasing signs of madness over the last 150 years or so.

I’m sure nobody has forgotten Jack the Ripper. At the time the crimes of serial murders were done by the diabolical killer over a century ago, sociologists were busying themselves with studying the fragmentation of the collective mind in modern society, which has been the cause of crimes and suicides.

Just go back to the works of Emile Durkheim, George Simmel, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and you would browse for yourselves the painstaking inquiries and theorizing done by sociologists then to capture the fragmentary state that institutions and the collective mind were undergoing.

Onwards through the latter half of the 20^th century, Western (read: Caucasian) thinkers haven’t ceased to capture in theory what was going on behind society’s structures that was cause behind fractured minds and sociopathic behavior. Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean Francois Lyotard, Jacques Baudrillard, to name a few luminaries, continued the tradition of studying the fragmenting society, psyche, and their expressions in symbolic constructs.

So, with the latest round of massacre expectedly by another White man, what else is new in Anglo-Saxon America? That gunner’s psyche is fragmenting, rendering him as a dangerous walking predator of sorts. Too many Anglo-Saxon men and women, followed by their colored people who were socialized into the Anglo-Saxon’s culture, are fragmenting in their psyche just as White society’s institutions have been disintegrating (read Baudrillard, Lyotard, Foucault).

Let’s get this straight: the phenomenon of sociopathic massacres is highest in the United States, though it is also prevalent in other Western countries. In contrast, such massacres are nearly absent in the ‘emerging markets’ that are today’s growth drivers of the global economy.

One need not even resort to using statistical correlates or chi square test to check whether being White man’s country is a predictor of such sociopathic murders. And among White man’s countries, the USA is topmost in the total incidence of such a ‘deviant’ or ‘abnormal’ behavior.

I did discuss the matter of mass massacres with my mother very recently. She acquired American citizenship and is already retired, though she chose to have a dual citizenship. She is very much aware of the social pathology that goes on in the USA, and was of the opinion that the next mass massacre is just around the bend.

So I raised the ‘research problem’ to my Mom about when would be the next massacre in case? Using intuitive forecasting, based on pass trends, I surmised that most likely over the next six (6) weeks at least, another massacre will take place somewhere in Anglo-Saxon America, and most likely it will be a White man committing the crime.

I won’t be surprised if my own estimate of one massacre in six weeks will turn out to be badly underestimated, that a couple or more will take place in the days ahead. A society that is in deep crisis—socially, culturally, economically, politically—is replete with possibilities of pathologically-induced massacres.

To comprehend their own states of being, I would counsel Americans (predominantly White Anglo-Saxon) to go back to the work of the late Pitirim Sorokin titled Crisis of our Age. Likewise read the works of Daniel Bell concerning the unfolding Post-Industrial society up North.

Well, there also was the late Jurgen Habermas who reflected on the ‘legitimation crisis’ and its attendant malaise in White societies. From Habermas you can branch out to the works of Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, and Ernst Bloch.

But this is what Americans ought to think about: time is running out on America. Too many luminaries up North have written about the fragmentary society and psyche, yet Americans failed to grapple with the realities unfolding, failed to address the fragmentation process with ‘best practices’ done at all levels.  

Americans better be quick in altering the course of their history, for the compass of the unfolding history points towards sinking in quicksands of uncertainties, chaos, and a Dark Age.

[Philippines, 15 January 2011]

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ARGONZA BACK FROM THE HOLIDAYS, EXTENDS GOODWILL!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Good day to all ye global citizens, readers, friends & fellows of this enthused analyst from Manila!

I’m back from the holidays, recharged and refreshed. I haven’t returned though to my gym works, so I promise myself renewed gym burning late this week.

Ye fellows of mine who did intake so much food inputs this past holiday season, don’t forget to burn down those extra fats, cleanse away excess bad cholesterols, and regain back your regular weight. Go back to your physical regimen, or develop one if you have been neglecting your physical wellness in a long time or so.

There are so many exciting things to talk about this year, more so from where I’m located: Asia. Just sit and relax, sip coffee or beverage while you browse over my coming notes, share comments every now and then. We will be together in the excitement, like riding our roller coaster of blog thoughts.

Goodwill, good health, prosperity to all of you for the year 2011!

[04 January 2011, Philippines]

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EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT & CAPACITY-BUILDING

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT & CAPACITY-BUILDING

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to all ye fellow global citizens, peace & development advocates!

I have just writ a series of articles about physical regimen and capacity-building. The topic stresses the central import of developing multiple intelligence to capacitate oneself for achieving diverse goals—from physical to spiritual. Let me then continue the trajectory of the topics to focus this time on emotional development.

To start with our discourse, high ‘emotional quotient’ or EQ contributes immensely to the building of our individual capacities. Conversely, low EQ determinately incapacitates us, thus disabling us from achieving our goals in life. This goes true for folks who aspire to graduate from low quality to high quality of life.

Emotional intelligence’s core is attitudes, which could be summed up as the integration of our capabilities to empathize, sympathize, and enact goals from an affective facet. Learning attitudes are particularly foremost in any change program. Good learning attitudes can lead one to succeed in achieving one’s goals, while bad learning attitudes could debilitate one from achieving short- and long-term goals.

Any person who aspires to be a change catalyst for whatever purpose should be equipped with the sufficient level of EQ, otherwise the person involved could be a liability to the change program. Not only should the catalyst be foremost in demonstrating good learning attitudes, the catalyst should also demonstrate the capacity for empathy that begins with good listening, and for sympathy that is exhibited by building sincere rapport and camaraderie.

A catalyst who demonstrates high levels of empathy and at the same time has the knacks for counseling—both the one-on-one and group levels—is a model for one who has high EQ. Such a person has unlearned a childish Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD, or has kept the latter weakness as residual if ever. S/he is sufficiently equipped to handle and manage a change program.

A catalyst who has weak listening abilities (low empathy) but who just the same counsels a client is a bad catalyst. The counsel could be psychosocial interventnion, or financial counsel for livelihood clients, or advisory to an entire poor village for community development, or pro bono legal counsel by grassroots paralegal. Counsel without sufficient listening (with sincerity, goodwill) is intrusive type of counsel.

The message of developing good EQ for grassroots clientele is equally important too. After doing grassroots work for so long a time in my life (beginning with my adolescent years yet), I could readily exhibit to you a long list of defects of the folks that are largely traceable to bad learning attitudes.

Take the case of marginal planters. I’ve heard too many complaints of marginal farmers about miserable living conditions, about inability to raise money to build a decent home, and so on. Yet I see the same folks smoking, drinking, and gambling! I could very easily demonstrate to any poor folk who is afflicted with those vices, that if s/he would take off smoking & drinking at least, s/he could save enough money to build a decent home and buy a service mini-truck.

I’d tell the folk that a Marlboro or equivalent cigarette which sells P35 a pack would total almost P500,000 in four (4) decades, assuming that the folk smokes a pack of cigarette a day, an amount than can build a decent and spacious low-cost house. Meanwhile, if the same person saves the P1,000 a month spent on beer/gin & delicacies, then in four (4) decades s/he could save P500,000, enough to buy a very decent service vehicle for farm use. [P44 is U.S.$1]

Not only are many poor folks afflicted with vices, they also don’t save money for the rainy days. Saving behavior is a huge development challenge in this country, in as much as Filipinos as a whole don’t save. The change is now moving towards the right direction, but the pace of change towards adopting saving is too slow. This situation partly contributes to the low level of national savings in this country compared to the East Asian neighbors.

Let’s take the case of a fisherfolk, who at the end of a fishing schedule offshore makes around P1,000 post-sales. Instead of saving part of the money for the rainy days, the same person would buy some gin & delicacies + cigarettes, calls on kins and pals, and play poker or so with the latter. Comes the start of schooling, the same folk would end up complaining of not having funds for the kids’ schooling needs. Well, what do you expect from a consummate spender!

If a change catalyst (e.g. social worker) would counsel the same folks to begin saving and deposit the same in the bank, the folks would grumble and exclaim “those banks would just rob our funds!” which is indicative of the low attitude for trusting financial institutions. Without extra funds on their account, the same folks would be at the mercy of usurers who charge 20% interest on short-term loans (it’s called 5/6 in my country). Charge it to bad learning attitude!

Now, just by reflecting on bad learning attitude (low EQ) as factor, you can understand why 33% of Filipinos are very poor. The figure was already down 28% in 2001 yet, then it went up again to reach 33% in 2006 (the last time we had systematic poverty studies nationwide). To factor government corruption alone as the cause of ballooning poverty—‘bad governance in public policy jargon—is utter non-sense to me.

There are variegated tools available today for improving one’s own emotional intelligence, and I do highly recommend such tools to catalysts and clientele. They’ve worked for so many people who tried them, so why not try them (again there’s the attitude question of whether to try or not).

If your emotional problems are deep-seated, or that they are of a dysfunctional level, then please consult a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. It’s best to undergo testing, as the test tool can reveal the extent of dysfunctional syndromes. Anybody with deep-seated emotional or affective disorder syndromes is advised not to attempt at all to be a change catalyst.

To conclude, emotional intelligence is among the factors that contribute to capacity-building. Never miss out on the chance to fortify your EQ as this can capacitate you in no small measure to achieve your core goals in life. The tools are out there waiting for you from some sort of ‘fairy Godmother’ expert or specialist, please go for it for your own sake.

[Philippines, 28 September 2010]

 

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

FITNESS NEGLECT & INCAPACITATION

FITNESS NEGLECT & INCAPACITATION

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi sa mga ka-global citizen! Good evening to fellow global citizens!

It’s now night time as I compose this piece, which is a sequel to the article written earlier titled “Fitness Program & Capacity-Building.” From capacity-building impact I now move to incapacitation as a most likely effect of a neglect of fitness program.

You see, if you really wish to find out about the incapacity that results from fitness program neglect, just visit a hospital and inquire from the epidemiology department whether those who frequent hospitalization have a great deal to do with the lack of fitness regimen. Fix the age limits to those past 30 years old. Chances are that you’ll get the same answer as you verify the matter from one hospital to another: neglect of fitness results to health risks and frequent hospitalization.

Now, go out to a shopping mall and let your eyes scan the people inside the building. Make finger counts as to how many overweight persons there are for every ten (10) shoppers and/or mall visitors. Go up and down the mall, turn your eyes to the left and right, in front of you and behind you, and you’d truly get the shock of your life to find out the fact that overweight is a deadweight reality in today’s fast-paced urban life.

When I visited the USA in 2000, ‘01 & ‘02, I got the shocker of my life for witnessing a humungous quantity of warm bodies afflicted with obesity. My eyes just couldn’t believe how appalling the lifestyles of people are in America, with as much as 2/3 of people in a mall, transport hub or office building manifesting obesity. If only the late Pitirim Sorokin were alive today, he’d faint with disbelief that he could have missed out on obesity as among the indicators of the Crisis of our Age (his classic book).

How appalling indeed urban life and the rat race have made out of today’s habitués across the world, with the USA seemingly taking the lead. My own country, the Philippines, has an incidence of 25% obesity and that could be under-estimated as the figure is moving rapidly to 30% (per Department of Health reports).

The Department of Health technocrats in Manila have already raised the alarm bells in the media over the rising obesity incidence. But alas! No one seems to be paying attention to the experts, as the peoples’ eyes are made to focus on the hunger incidence which afflicts around 20% of the population (poor folks largely). Contrast the hunger of 20% to the obesity of past 25% and you know which figure is indubitably larger.

The absence of a fitness program is truly debilitating, as per my own experience. So dedicated to my grassroots development work in 1981-82, I neglected my physical program and resorted to every kind of rationalization for that neglect. Along the way, I contracted falciparum malaria while doing the rounds of program monitoring of small towns for my employer (Ministry of Human Settlements).

The malaria could have gotten into my veins as early as 1981 yet, but since I was still fresh out of college then (I jogged and walked a lot till graduation time in Oct. 1980) the effects of my previous regimen were still working on my system. Then, came August of 1982, a deadly fever struck me cold turkey that rendered me pathetically bedridden for over three (3) weeks. I almost died from that ailment, which was diagnosed as malaria falciparum.

I had repetitive attacks of the malaria fevers for many months to come, and so I had to be armed with quinine pills at all times. At one time, in early ’84 (I was already beginning graduate school), the fever was so high that it knocked me out unconscious while taking a pee in our apartment’s toilet. I was so lucky then that my friends and siblings, with whom I shared the apartment unit in Manila’s suburbs, were around, so they quickly plucked me out from the toilet (I was still unconscious) and rushed me to the nearest hospital.

Do reckon that I was already beginning with a renewed fitness regimen since late 82 yet, but to no avail! See what inroads of a degenerative disease can do that it can knock you out even if you’re back in the trails of fitness programs. It took some three (3) more years before my body stabilized completely, and no more malaria attack came since then.

But the parasite is with me forever, and I easily chill when the temperature radically drops in any environment (e.g. airconditioned hall). And I can no longer donate blood to those in need, since donating would mean transferring the parasite to the recipient.

My chilly cryptic experience was my own teacher that wakened me up from my physical lethargy. I have since mutated into a wellness buff and lifestyle guru sort-of, even as I continue to re-echo wellness themes whenever the opportunity permits.

To add the cryptic facet to that experience, a first cousin of mine, Eroll Argonza, who was my kababata (childhood playmate) and of identical age, also suffered from a debilitating disease (typhoid) simultaneous with my own malaria attack. My cousin tragically failed to make it, died while struggling in the hospital bed, and was buried when I was just recovering from my own malaria ailment.

The death of my cousin, who was a young bank professional then and had a family of his own (he fathered an only girl child who later graduated from the University of the Philippines and is happily married to a maritime engineer), sent shuddering tectonics and shockwaves for years to come on our entire family lineages. His sad travail was an added teacher to me, mentoring me with the ‘stick’ in hand to never again be remiss on my fitness regimen.

To end this note, let me re-echo the challenge that each and every working man and woman build and sustain a fitness regimen. The overall goal is to capacitate the person. No one forces fitness regimen unto those emotional morons who are indifferent to it, fitness is just a mere choice really. Those among us who are attitudinally smarter should just go ahead and make ourselves physically smarter and serve as exemplars of smartness by doing instead of talking.

[Philippines, 18 September 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

FITNESS PROGRAM & CAPACITY-BUILDING

FITNESS PROGRAM & CAPACITY-BUILDING

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang umaga sa inyo! Good morning to you all!

Let me re-echo the theme of physical fitness in this note, with my contention being that fitness regimen contributes immensely to capacity-building. Conversely, the neglect of a fitness program—sustained across time—would incapacitate a person in no small measure, leading to even greater risks of physical degeneration and short life-span.

I have already tackled fitness programming numerous times in the past, notably in speeches on development, health and wellness. I’ve likewise wrote notes about the matter, with one note posted in my wisdom & self-development blogs (“Health & wellness: promoting longevity, prosperity, harmony,” in http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com, http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com).

Rest assured, I shall never get tired of re-echoing the theme. Whatever one wishes to use fitness program for, whether for advancing one’s material well-being (profession, craft, business) or spiritual self-development, the lesson should be as clear as the most transparent water: build and sustain a fitness program to capacitate you for your short- and long-term goal attainment.

To note, urban life and the rat race are skyrocketing to take up the largest chunks of peoples’ attention, and that chunk of attention includes neglecting fitness in favor of conspicuous consumption and toxin build-up of the biophysical body. Every kind of rationalization is advanced by the working folks to justify the neglect of fitness program, and they’d blame every external factor (work, their boss, career, money…) to cover up for their personal weakness in neglecting a very basic practice in life: fitness regimen.

I do resonate with the physical education professors, such as Prof. Mar Panganiban of the University of the Philippines Manila (a former colleague at my home College of Arts & Sciences), when they cogitate that “the amount of inputs ingested in the body should be commensurately followed by an equivalent quantity of outputs.” Input means, of course, sums of food intakes; outputs, the burning of calories and detoxification through physical exercises.

To take the argument further, “should you put excessive inputs in the body but output is less than the input, than you build up unwanted fats and toxins.” That is classic systems analysis, where a system breakdown if the output can’t churn out much to correspond to high input levels.

So the logical conclusion is: ensure that output level (exercises and related detoxifications) should catch up with, or level with, the level of input. If a person inputs 2,000 calories per day or 14,000 calories per week, but output consists mainly of work routines and mobility exertion routines (driving or riding to work and back home), then chances are that the output is lower than the input.

The average weight for that calorie level is middle weight (for man or woman), or approximately 145-160 pounds. So if a person of this weight range ingests such levels of inputs, the demand for output is clear: let fitness exercise be added on top of your work regimen and mobility exertions. Aside from that, find ways to detoxify through regular drinking of herbal teas averaging two (2) mugs a day.

Avoid sweets, carbonated drinks (eliminate them if possible) and junk foods. If it can’t be avoided that you take caffeine (to waken up for the day) accompanied by sugar, then that’s alright, provided that you burn the sugar and detoxify the excess through herbal teas at night time (they can serve as beverage accompanying dinner).

And please drink enough water every day. In my experience, I drink a minimum of fifteen (15) glasses/mugs of water daily. That includes water used for mixing my coffee before breakfast, milk choco accompanying breakfast, two (2) coffees in to go with afternoon snacks, and the two (2) mugs of herbal tea at night. My last glass of water is consumed in sips every time I wake up at night to pee. The coffee and herbal teas that I drink are diuretics that aid the water to be released, taking out the toxins in the process.

As a testimony, it was my fitness programs (swim & jug in the 80s, powerlifting since 1990) that capacitated me to work longer hours daily. Without a fitness regimen, I would already feel fatigued before 5:00 p.m. (I really felt such a bad state in 1981 & ‘82 as a starting young professional). With fitness program in hand, I can begin work at 6 a.m. (prep for breakfast & work) and end up at past 10 p.m. (I’d be meeting fellow professionals or development clients, or drafting documents).

After decades of fitness regimen, my body has become so primed up that today I had cut down on exercises and still remain physically adroit the whole day. I’ve also cut down on inputs (diet) to accompany my cutting down of burning regimen. Whereas I used to gym for four (4) days a week, today I sustain it with only two (2) days plus another three (3) days of walking (at least 45 minutes leisurely walk).

It surely pays to listen to your body, conscience and experience that are your teachers along your way. And, it pays never to listen to your ‘inner demon’ that would do everything to get you out of a fitness regimen, make you lazy and rush you to hospitals later for repetitive ailment attacks.

So the choice is really yours. Change your lifestyle now, include fitness regimen in it, or retain your lazy bone lifestyle and deposit as many fats and toxins in your system. Go ahead and make the choice.

[Philippines, 18 September 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

FOR CITING MY WRITES AMONG TOP BLOGS, GRATITUDE!

FOR CITING MY WRITES AMONG TOP BLOGS, GRATITUDE!

Prof. Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Guru Ra

Felicitous greetings to you all!

I hereby extend my most heartfelt gratitude to enthused readers and fellow writers who appreciated my notes about social life, wisdom and arts.

Just about three (3) years ago, there was very little information about my person on cyberspace. Today, as I’ve spread my messages of Light and hope to all of the corners of the globe via the blogs and social networks, many enthused souls responded through reading, exchanges of notes, and citations of my works. Finally, after your appreciation and support of my cyber-crusade, information about me on cyberspace increased by gigantic strides.

Special thanks to the following online news, magazines and portals for citing my notes as among the top blogs on cyberspace:

• http://thedailyreviewer.com
• http://humanitariannews.org
• http://www.nonprofit.org
• http://sociology.alltop.com
• http://clpl-india.com
• http://pul.se
• http://asiafinest.com
• http://newestnews.net
• http://topcityblogs.com

Thanks too to the following sites that have cited, discussed and debated on various notes of mine about a diversity of topics and themes:

http://adamsmithlegacy.com

http://alltop.com

http://asean-society.org

http://blog.searchaid.info

http://awakento1.org

http://boardreader.com

http://cantbustme.com

http://castasiaforum.org

http://conceptsinproduction.com

http://deepmarket.com

http://eeeph.netbooks.ph

http://globalbalita.com

http://leathernews.myip.org

http://mixx.com

http://mmsnews.cz.cc

http://nuip.net

http://online-profitsnow.com

http://origin-bx.businessweek.com

http://peacocksandlilies.com

http://petites-phrases.com

http://pipl.com

http://pirs08.webs.com

http://www.rehabfromdrug.com

http://revspeech.proboards.com

http://surchur.com

http://www.toluu.com

http://trendbuzz.com

http://webpac.lib.nthu.ed.tw

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com

http://www.answerbag.co.uk

http://www.ask.com

http://www.blogged.com

http://www.blogsope.net

http://www.carboncapturereport.org

http://www.cnn.com

http://www.deepmarket.com

http://www.familycommitment.org

http://www.finir.org

http://www.icerocket.com

http://www.iyou.me

http://www.mynewsdigest.com

http://nisim-tw.com

http://www.onlineobchody.com

http://www.pointsdevente.com

http://www.psychantenna.com

http://www.pubsub.com

http://www.samepoint.com

http://www.spiritbond.com

http://www.tapatt.net

http://www.theakan.com

http://www.topix.com

http://www.usforcenews.info

http://www.wealthyauthority.com

http://www.westpalmferrari.com

http://www.wopular.com

http://yoga-experts.info

Maraming salamat! Thank you very much! Love & Light!

September 2010

ENLIGHTENING ARGONZA WRITINGS SURGE WORLD TOP BLOGS!

ENLIGHTENING ARGONZA WRITINGS SURGE WORLD TOP BLOGS!

Good day to all endeared readers, friends, fellow global citizens!

A truly gladdening news has been breaking the cybersphere of late. Prof. Erle Frayne Argonza, a social analyst and self-development guru from Manila, has been continuing to gain mileage in his magnanimous efforts to enlighten humanity about the current social and cosmic issues.

To date, dozens of online newspapers and magazines across the globe have featured Prof. Argonza’s writings on their very own websites. Championing the causes of peace and global cooperation, Prof. Argonza has continued to reach out to enthused readers, writers and spiritual seekers. The latter contributed to the upsurge in the numbers of citations of Argonza’s writings aimed at accelerating awareness-raising.

For your reads and exchange of notes about Prof. Argonza’s blogs, please visit:

SOCIAL WRITINGS:

https://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

WISDOM WRITINGS:

http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

ART & POETRY:

http://erleargonza.wordpress.com, http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Join now the growing numbers of global citizens who find Light in Prof. Argonza’s englightening blogs!

Argonza & Associates Consulting

September 2010

TOP BLOG SITES:

v  http://thedailyreviewer.com

v  http://humanitariannews.org

v  http://www.nonprofit.org

v  http://sociology.alltop.com

v  http://clpl-india.com

v  http://pul.se

v  http://asiafinest.com

v  http://newestnews.net

v  http://topcityblogs.com

CITED ARGONZA BLOGS FOR DIVERSE THEME DISCUSSIONS & ANNOTATIONS:

http://adamsmithlegacy.com

http://alltop.com

http://asean-society.org

http://blog.searchaid.info

http://awakento1.org

http://boardreader.com

http://cantbustme.com

http://castasiaforum.org

http://conceptsinproduction.com

http://deepmarket.com

http://eeeph.netbooks.ph

http://globalbalita.com

http://leathernews.myip.org

http://mixx.com

http://mmsnews.cz.cc

http://nuip.net

http://online-profitsnow.com

http://origin-bx.businessweek.com

http://peacocksandlilies.com

http://petites-phrases.com

http://pipl.com

http://pirs08.webs.com

http://www.rehabfromdrug.com

http://revspeech.proboards.com

http://surchur.com

http://www.toluu.com

http://trendbuzz.com

http://webpac.lib.nthu.ed.tw

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com

http://www.answerbag.co.uk

http://www.ask.com

http://www.blogged.com

http://www.blogsope.net

http://www.carboncapturereport.org

http://www.cnn.com

http://www.deepmarket.com

http://www.familycommitment.org

http://www.finir.org

http://www.icerocket.com

http://www.iyou.me

http://www.mynewsdigest.com

http://nisim-tw.com

http://www.onlineobchody.com

http://www.pointsdevente.com

http://www.psychantenna.com

http://www.pubsub.com

http://www.samepoint.com

http://www.spiritbond.com

http://www.tapatt.net

http://www.theakan.com

http://www.topix.com

http://www.usforcenews.info

http://www.wealthyauthority.com

http://www.westpalmferrari.com

http://www.wopular.com

http://yoga-experts.info

NERO SARKOZY EXPELS GYPSIES: PRELUDE TO BONAPARTIST EUROPE?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good Day and goodwill to you fellow global citizens!

It is now September as I write this piece. September is the end of summer up North, while here in the tropics it is another month of monsoon rains and powerful typhoons.

Well, in France it is summer for the legitimate scions of the Republic and Caucasian Europeans, while it is typhoon season for the Gypsies. Ethnic groups that are migratory bands don’t have a place at all in Sarkozy’s France and the likes of him who are indubitably Nero types of leaders that burned Europe’s economy while they fiddled in their palaces.

Actually, if you take a cursory look at all the planet’s regions, indigenous peoples or IPs have been effectively excluded in the development game. They are the labor robots for Big Business mines and forestry enterprises who are expendable as flies. Never mind if they die by the thousands in mishaps or dreaded viral epidemics in the boondocks, their value is as low as a cheap cyborg that can be decommissioned anytime.

Lucky are those IPs up the boondocks as there are too many feel-good urban habitués who have taken up the cudgels of IP advocacies. After the Western anthropologists over-studied the highlanders for the purpose of acquiring data for the corporate oligarchs to control the said IPs (while anthropologists fatten their purses with research funds and academic promotions), here comes the feel-good urbanites who can perhaps balance the dark machinations of Western-cloned anthropologists and oligarchic patrons.

The Gypsies just don’t have such a luck it seems, and so are those migrating bands of IPs in Africa and Brazil. Ambulant IPs are not to be found in the notebooks and databases of anthropologists, or if they do, they are programmable for expulsion if not physical elimination.

Gypsies just don’t possess the combat prowess of the once mighty Sioux and natives of America, for if they did, they could have shot down so many robbers, psychopaths, cops and soldiers. They carry along with them their baggage and cultural wealth, and no more. They are not up to hold on to any piece of territory in the lands they occupy for a while, they don’t have visas or passports to show to immigration cops as these documents are alien to their ‘system’, and they come in peace and harmony with those whom they interact with.

Sarkozy and his ilk are scions of the Jacobites of pre-Bonaparte heydays, and should not be perceived as ‘democrats’ in the true sense of the term. Sarkozy, Merkel, Barroso and company are of the same mold of Nero leaders who would have no second thoughts in expelling migrants in the continent through miniscule expulsions of the nature of Gypsy kick-in-the-ass as pilot ‘project’ for a forthcoming grand scale of expulsions.

If there is any word of advice I can give to my fellow Asians in Europe right now, better depart in peace while there is time. Thou art the worthless Mandingos of a forthcoming Bonapartist gendarme state based in Brussels, and you can be butchered like fried chickens if the tide will turn the clock towards a full gendarme state indeed.

Sarkozy is a mere Robespiere, a pawn in the dangerous games being hatched by the oligarchs there. Sooner or later he’ll be booted out of office, replaced by one who would advance the Bonapartist agenda for a nation-less unified Europe. Merkel, Cameron, Barroso and their likes are going that path too, as more fanatical Bonapartists will be installed to power.

The Gypsies’ expulsion could very well be the ‘handwriting on the wall’ of neo-Mandingos of all hues (including White Mandingos from Eastern Europe), a prelude to a larger crackdown forthcoming.

[Philippines, 01 September 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

RURAL DEVELOPMENT SHOULD BE TOP PRIORITY WORLDWIDE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good evening from the Philippines’ highland suburbs!

For this note I will focus on the thesis that rural development should be pursued by developing countries. The world’s nations have pursued growth that has been badly skewed towards urbanization and commercialization since after World War II, a total effort that has seen many people become poor as a result. Most of the poor folks are in rural hinterlands and fisherfolks.

The Philippines is a classic case in point that has been direly affected by the badly skewed development in favor of urbanization, an endeavor that has been fostered at the expense of rural communities of farmers, fisherfolks, and Indigenous Peoples or IPs. Today, Philippine population is 66% urban and 34% rural, with 2% added to urban population every year.

As urbanization grows, rural poverty likewise grows in my beloved country. Rural to urban poverty ratio here is 2.5:1 and is still moving up. It was 2.1:1 in 1989, and the situation has been deteriorating ever since. 70% of the country’s poor families are rural, with only 30% as urban. Very clearly, between the two, it is rural development that must be pursued with vigor to reverse the poverty situation in the country as a whole.

To demonstrate what I mean by skewed development, consider the following information:

ü  MetroManila or simply Manila, the national capital region (NCR), produces 30% or nearly 1/3 of the nation’s wealth. Yet it supports merely 12% o3 1/8 of the nation’s population.

ü  As of end of 2009, Manila contributed a whopping US $65 Billion to the country’s $186 Billion GDP or gross domestic product. Using UNDP converter index, Manila’s GDP, multiplied by 4, registered an enviable $260 Billion-Purchasing Power Parity or PPP for 2009, rendering it as wealthy as the whole of Vietnam.

ü  Included among the world’s 35 most wealthy and powerful mega-cities—comprising the ‘global nexus’—Manila’s economy remains at 65% services and 35% industries, with nary a food base worth documenting. These economic sectors are the highest in value-added, ensuring high levels of income for all component cities and towns of the mega-city.

ü  Poverty in Manila has been reduced to a manageable 8%, rendering it on an even much better situation than the USA’s whose poverty incidence had climbed from 12% in 2002 to 15% today. Manila has all the resources it needs to solve its own poverty and development problems, which made it drastically reduce poverty since the 1990s.

ü  Therefore, Manila should no longer be subsidized by national government in terms of development projects, from roads to international airports (Los Angeles & US cities are building their own airports without federal or state government support). Yet, as records show, billions of dollars are still being poured by national government to bankroll gigantic projects here, such as lightrail systems, international airport expansion, and flood control.

ü  On top of those national government-initiated projects is Pagcor City, a world-class theme park-cum-gaming complex that is costing U.S. $25 Billion (with private participation). It will employ 250,000 and will house the world’s tallest tower. It is targeted for completion in 2014.

So, as you can see from the Philippine case, whereas the mega-city receives billions of dollars for new projects and urban renewal, the rural areas continue to wallow in appalling states of abject poverty. Lucky enough if a region outside Manila would be appropriated P1 Billion or U.S. $24 Million at any given year from the pork barrels of Congress.

Fisherfolks in my country are particularly the most vulnerable to poverty and deleterious living conditions spawned by it. With poverty incidence at 66%, you could easily see why past 40% of fisherfolks’ children suffer from advanced malnutrition. The situation of over-fishing in the entire country compounds the poverty situation of marginal fisherfolks who can ill afford to equip themselves with state-of-the art fishing gears to compete with commercial fishers.

To say that the Philippines is in a transition phase, and that poverty and malnutrition will disappear it time as the country reaches development ‘maturity’, is pure delusion. Without active intervention to improve the capacities and capabilities of fisherfolks, farmers, and IPs, the problem of poverty will never fade away but will, as a matter of fact, worsen with time.

With so many rural folks wallowing in cesspools of pauperization, we can at best watch more rural insurgencies feast upon the resentment-filled minds of the rural poor. As the Philippine case has shown, past rural insurgencies have ceased only to be replaced by new, bigger, and more ferocious insurgencies.

[Philippines, 11 August 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

PAN-AFRICAN AWARENESS RISES: WILL IT BITE?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi mula sa Perlas ng Silangan! Good evening from the Pearl of the Orient!

Pan-Africanism seems to be getting sweeter an idea recently, so I chose to delve on the subject for this article. Pan-Africanism as a pathos (group feel & aware) seeks to unify the diverse ethnicities of the continent from southernmost South Africa to the northern Arab-Berber-Hamite territories, to indicate the contours of the emerging pathos.

Whether this pathos will gel in order to effectively create synergies among Africans of so heterogenous a composition remains to be seen. As a matter of development imperative, I’d encourage such a colossal effort myself, and I hope that the Africans would truly get together to solve their deep-seated social, political and economic malaise.

As far as I see it, the pathos was there from the time of the early pharaohs through the time of Carthage, but declined rapidly during the advent of the Hellenic monarchs of the northeastern region. When Cleopatra ruled Egypt, the fragmentation and decay of that unity was completed. Africa was thereafter subordinated to empires and potentates to its north (Rome and later empires).

For two thousand years such a pathos slept and lay dormant in the antechambers of the African psyche. Western powers arrived, occupied, and declared Africa and its peoples as their chattels, and that latter imperialist act of the West seems to have doomed any effort to revive pan-Africanism via a renaissance movement.

Thereafter, before and after the colonial periods for each of Africa’s regions, each nation waged its own version of nation-building and national renaissance. Sadly, the post-colonial period saw the nation-building efforts degenerate, with many African states cascading catastrophically down ‘failed state’ syndrome.

Africa’s nations were actually creations of the West, and they fail because tribes that were like oil and water just couldn’t get their acts together in the last instance in each nation concerned. They sold their sovereignty to warlordism and Anglo-European oligarchic moneybags. The superficial states just couldn’t hold water much longer, and so we witness fragmentation and balkanization till these days.

It seems that the last salvation for the end of the chaos and fragmentation is pan-Africanism itself. Africans are trying to construct a new center—not geographical but cultural-ideational—that could cement the diverse ethnicities of a chaotically decentered continent.

Pan-Africanism will have to compete though with other revivalist movements. Pan-Arabism, as represented by Ba’ath ideology, used to be a strong contender but is now on the rapid decline. Pan-Islamism is on the rise, though it has its own competing discourses—Sunni and Shiite. There is Christian fundamentalism that the Opus Dei, Jesuits, evangelical and Baptist groups are stirring up in a frontal clash with pan-Islamism.

Such revivalist movements tend to secure a region or select African ethnicities, such as the Arab-Berber-Hamite triad for pan-Arabism. They may get some pieces of the African pie with them, but they are narrow and parochial as they divide the continent and its component ethniticies. Pan-Africanism can therefore supersede all of them, though its maturation is a tenuous endeavor.

A very rough political-cultural ocean this pathos is surely confronting. Getting together hundreds of tribal and ethnic groups, with their own inter-ethnic conflicts raging till these days, is enormously enigmatic a goal to hurdle, with so many gourdian knots to cut.

Africans have no better choice but get together. Poverty, ethnic conflicts, bio-warfare ailments (AIDS & others), balkanization, and the looting of its resources by Western moneybags is leading the continent and its peoples to a cul de sac Hades.

Europe had been re-awakening the long dormant Roman pathos, and that “grandeur that was Rome” is running through the gamut of the European psyche on both sides of the Atlantic. Bonapartism is crystallizing rapidly as the state ideology of the emerging New Rome (EU-USA), its contours now forming though straddling sand dunes. Rome is re-acquiring its old territories as we’re now witnessing.

The subordination of ancient Africa (Egypt-Nubia leading) to Rome is again being revived. Such a revivalism would get expressed as an enchainment of pan-Africa to New Rome’s agenda of conflagration versus a renascent Persia (Shiite Iran). If the conflagration will ensue, pan-Africa’s gains will collapse under the roof.

So the question that we ask now is, will pan-Africa yield to the Anglo-European oligarchs and become canon fodders for the latter’s war versus Persia? Or, will pan-Africa truly unite the vast continent’s diverse ethnic communities and galvanize a sovereign continent that can’t be dragged into the ‘clash of civilizations’ madness of Western moneybags?

[Philippines, 30 July 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

WATER RIOTS IN MANILA: TOO SOON!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good evening from the Philippines!

A water crisis is now looming big in Manila (the entire metropolis), the Philippine’s premier big city. The western side of the big city is particularly badly affected by pilferages and spillages (over 55% lost), thus reducing the volume of water available to around 7 million people more or less.

Such a situation has been causing panic lately on urban residents, a panic that could lead to water riots. The western side of the big city is flatlands, which renders it vulnerable to floods and consequent destruction of water pipelines during calamities. Contrast that to the eastern side that comprises of highlands where watershed areas are nestled.

Just recently, the palace officials in Manila have been pronouncing the mobilization of army troops to help deter possible water riots. This is a new twist in the history of army missions, as the mission is one of police task in an urban setting (most army missions comprise of anti-insurgency tasks in rural hinterlands).

The outbreak of water conflicts right at the heart of Manila appears  culled from the futuristic narratives of Isaac Asimov. The sci-fi genius prophesied (right after World War II) that the future will see communities divided between suburban highlands and urban lowlands. The residents of the suburbs, whose living comfort in gated villages is accompanied by robot sentinels, will comprise the upper class, while those of the urban lowlands, who will be exposed to the hovels of pollution, will comprise the lower class.

The urban-suburban divide seems to be gelling so fast in this country today. The water crisis caught palace officials and utilities bureaucrats flatfooted, even as they have been acting in near-hysteria fashion. A water war right in the big city is looming ahead, and there’s nothing in the management textbooks of the officials that can offer them quick solutions to an escalating crisis.

I do recall well that in the late 1990s, when I went back to graduate school to hone my skills in development policy via retooling with state-of-the-art analysis and social technologies, we already forecast the possibility of water wars (during classroom discussions). At that time, certain towns in the Cordilleras (mountain range to the north) began matter-of-factly to quarrel over water source and distribution. And so the challenge for us development workers was to craft mitigation measures that can deter such wars.

As soon as the new millennium began, Singapore and Malaysia did have some diplomatic confrontation regarding the issue of Singapore’s access to water sources found in Malaysia. The water source, so to speak, was getting depleted, thus slowly disabling Singapore from meeting its water needs. Desalination was the strategic solution to the problem, a surefire solution by Singapore’s visionary leaders that averted another conflict between the two polities (the earlier conflict led to Singapore’s separation from the Malaysian federation).

Certain policy experts and development workers are quite prepared for the eventuality of water wars in this 2^nd world country, true. But those in the palace and even the legislature just may not have that luck of being exposed to new policy and institutional tools to deal with water-based conflicts.

Certainly too, the local execs and bureaucrats of Manila are unprepared for such a gargantuan crisis and eminent conflict based on water access and distribution. They haven’t retooled, and I know this for a fact based on my interaction with local officials known to me in the big city. They are mired in the old world, a world that is long gone (10 years ago in today’s context of rapid change is too long a time gone).

A water-based Asimovian nightmare is shaping up fast in Manila, and probably in other mega-cities around the world as well, a nightmare that is over-stretching the competencies of Establishment bureaucrats and politicians. The crisis exacerbates the urgency for urban lowland dwellers to leave the flatlands once and for all for the greener and water-rich highland suburbs, which could be the lowlanders’ panic complex response.

As an analyst and development practitioner, I am critical of any decision to use police state tactics to resolve the crisis. Scare tactics won’t let the problem fade away at all. The stakeholders better do their homework well, by getting together to dialogue, think and act. Through good all consensus they can configure what course of action to take that includes desalination of waters off Manila Bay.

Meantime, I am now all the more discouraged from ever residing or working in urban flatlands. Safely niched in Manila’s western highlands and suburban Calabarzon for the longest part of my life, I’d now rather heed the Asimovian option of better living in the suburbs, with or without the robot sentinels in our subdivision villages.

[Philippines, 23 July 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]