$100B MEKONG INTEGRATED PROJECT TO BOOST ASEAN POTENCY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Magandang araw! Good day!

Around two (2) years ago, I articulated in one article the gigantic project that will rise in the Mekong River very soon. I was at that time already very supportive of the project, a support that I will re-echo at this moment.

For those unfamiliar with the project, a plan was hatched at the middle part of the decade for an integrated project along the Mekong River. Since the river begins upstream at the China side, China logically has to be involved in it. Finally, with blueprints for implementation on the go around 2007 yet, China committed to fund the projected cost of $100 Billion.

So huge a project, it will have couples of components into it. Power generation, irrigation, flood control, transportation, and tourism comprise the core sector components. A project of that size is four (4) times bigger than China’s own 3-Gorges Dam (it cost $23 at 2000 price index) and could be the largest that the world will ever have experienced once fully accomplished.

Benefiting approximately 300 million beneficiaries along its courses, the project is bound to spur development and generate incomes many folds larger than its total investments. If we use the econometric index of annual income yield that is 10X, then we can expect an annual income yield of $1 Trillion from out of the upstream and downstream industries induced by the project.

Since China is involved in it right now (as implementation is going on), then we expect China to receive the ROI (return on investments) in the widest expanse of benefits possible. That means, once fully operational, China will infuse more investments in the region to fully benefit from the project alone. The ROI will then be much greater than the original $100 accruing to China alone on an annual basis.

We can therefore hope for an excellent win/win situation for China and the ASEAN countries involved (Vietnam is the lead country executor). In the long run, we should hope that the same project would accrue to the growth & development of the entire ASEAN region that is bound to institute an economic union by 2015.

A win/win formula for the ASEAN itself is for it to use the Mekong project as exemplar to design and implement similar projects in other member countries, particularly in island southeast Asia. A particular office can be created in the ASEAN secretariat to oversee and help similar projects that can spin off in other parts of the region.

Since an ASEAN central bank is due for institution by 2015, let us expect that monetary instruments for financial packages can be had for gigantic infrastructure projects of the magnitude of the Mekong project. Probably an ASEAN Development Bank can also rise alongside the central bank, thus reinforcing the potency for launching gigantic projects that will be financed internally by the region itself.

If ever the ASEAN will wish to tap other countries for co-financing of the projects, it should be the emerging markets as top priority such as China, India, and Brazil, countries that will be more sympathetic to regional development. The option will help us veer away from the mal-intents of Northern banks that tied up developing countries in debt peonage and won at the expense of the developing countries.

As a matter of goodwill, ASEAN should better enter into the picture and look at other facets of the project that the future union can fund. The expansion phases of the Mekong project, for instance, can be taken over by the ASEAN itself, thus lessening dependence from external funders.

There are always pains to any large project, these being part of the costs of any undertaking. Nonetheless, the Mekong project should be supported and must go on until full completion. This will render it as an exemplar just right in time for the creation of the ASEAN economic union by 2015.

[Philippines, 05 November 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]

INDIANS MURDERED IN AUSTRALIA UNABATED

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Racism has been a major issue in Australia. The gruesome racial attack by the Anglo-Saxons (whites) of the land down south has been particularly focused on Indians (Asians), a reality that is bluntly denied by the Australian central government.

To date, the frequency of murders against the Indians has been by the hundreds every year. To claim that each murder is an isolated case is hubris, a fascistic garbage aimed at treating colored peoples like ‘monkeys with no tails’ who cannot comprehend what human psyche is all about (i.e. white man psyche).

Australia is a Saxon nation, an appendage of the British Empire, and therefore a puppet of the Anglo-Saxon oligarchy based in Europe. It has been behaving recently as a nation hungry for world power status, ready to bamboozle its neighbors to the north with military might.

You might as well have a deeper knowledge of psychology and cognitive sociology (sociology of knowledge) to see for yourself what’s going on in the collective psyche of the Saxon Australians. A Saxon people that will do everything to exhibit racial arrogance will have no second thought in bullying colored peoples and taking them down as worthless ‘monkeys with no tails’.

From the Australian side, there has been the projection that terrorists among its neighbors are out to take down White Australians, and raised the precautionary flag to desist from traveling in Asia. While Saxon Australia has highlighted the flaks that its citizens did receive via bombings up North, it consciously conceals to the world the hundreds of Indians it kills every year in its own backyard.

Just exactly why Indians have been the subject of attacks is a puzzle to observers notably sociologists and anthropologists. Of course, the Australian observers have their versions of reasons for the gruesome attacks, with emphasis on the ‘isolated case’ perspective for their explanatory justifications.

Outside observers should go back to the contentions of Michel Foucault about the possibility of escalation of the mad discourse to be able to understand what’s going on down south. As the post-structuralists like Foucault were articulating, madness has been ascending to dominant level and replacing reason that has become inutile in the emerging postmodern context.

What outside observers need to see is that Foucault is a white man, and his thoughts were products of his own social context: the context of white society. White society’s mad discourse has been over-extended to other societies as well, which is an abusive resort to over-generalization.

Mad discourse is largely a phenomenon in white society, and Australia is no exception to the phenomenon. Australia is white society, with other races merely but fragments from the margins whose roles are negligible, secondary, subordinate and slave to the Saxons’.

Even the Islamic terror groups that Saxon Australians have been demonizing were creations of the British (Saxon) oligarchy via the espionage agencies. Bin Laden is a paymaster for the British intelligence, with his terror network used to justify mass terminations via warfare by the White nations on the Arabs and Moslems.

Of course the Saxons have the innate feeling of superiority and exclusive possession of wisdom, and they’d impose their thoughts on other peoples for as long as the institutions of mind control (mass media, books/culture industry) are in their hands. Colored peoples cannot reason out as they are ‘halfway between apes and man’.

“The ways of England are the ways of the world,” so exclaimed the hubris of Victorian Britain during its heydays. Today it is Australia that had donned the cloak of British imperialists, with the contention that “the ways of Australia are the ways of the Pacific” sort of subtlety.

Whether Asians will just idly observe the Saxon Australians demonstrate their hatreds and bigoted condescension over the colored peoples remains to be seen. Saxons have already terminated too many millions of colored peoples to count, enslaved too many millions too, plundered and looted too many nations, and so we ask ourselves how far we can trust the Saxons of the day (Australians, Americans, British, Canadians, New Zealanders).

We hope that a serious psychiatric test be administered on all of the Saxon Australians to give scientific credence to our queries about them. This way, there can be no more denial about what psyche the Australians possess. The findings can then be used by the Asians to decide how to relate to Australia as a whole.

[Philippines, 25 October 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]

DO JIHADIST ABDUCTORS HAVE FUNDS TO BUY PHILIPPINE ARMY’S GUNS?

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

The headlines and front pages of the major dailies here are focused (scoop) on the Ces Drilon abduction by the Abu Sayyaf, the CIA-created jihadist group operating in Mindanao (southern Philippines; Ces Drilon is a rated journalist of the oligarchic ABS-CBN). Reports say the P15 Million rock-bottom ransom is out, and that the jihadists have signaled an ultimatum.

As this is happening, the national army is massing up troops and intelligence assets in the area, supposedly as part of the ‘stick tactic’ that could glue the terrorists to the bargaining table. This is old-hat psych-op that belabors on the obvious, which even kindergarten minds are aware about.

The real score in the current ‘abduction game’ as well as in previous ones is that it is an opportunity for rouge military officers to sell armaments to the terrorists. I have already tackled the matter of rouge arms sellers, and factored the USA’s Pentagon neo-cons as the current force behind such abominations within the Philippines’ armed forces or national army.

As discussed in a previous article, terrorist abduction is an amusingly ‘win/win’ situation in an affected area. I also tacked the matter of pricing strategy for ransom and the network of peacekeepers involved in the process. The one bannered on headlines, worth P15 Million, is the rock-bottom price, while the maximum ransom, per estimates leaking to media and experts, shoots up to $5 Million.

The question that comes into mind now is, with the massing up of army operations in the affected area (Indanan, Sulu island province), how would the abduction be handled as a whole from both sides? Aware that rouge elements are inside the army who are up to sell arms to the jihadists, do the terrorists possess the funds for paying the rouge soldiers?

The problem, which finance experts may better reflect on, is that the cash to pay rebels hasn’t been fully forwarded yet. The only cash paid so far was for the release of the camera crewman of Drilon, who is a low-bankable player and in the latest abduction game. Though seemingly a nuisance, the value of the crew is that, while negotiations were in process for his release, the jihadists were able to spy on the connecting threads and linkages of operators and peacekeepers on the “other side” of the table.  

Such a situation is precisely what hedge funds are for. Portfolio capital can serve precisely as cash forward to the party involved (jihadists), while the same portfolio operator can likewise hedge the scheduled cash flow inputs of the paying group (Lopez group). As I was saying in a previous article, insurance companies and hedge funds operators have a ‘window of opportunity’ in the context of a ‘force majeure’ event such as terror abduction.

The final question is, in case that no cash forwards will get through to the jihadists, and no guarantees for luscious purchases by the army and designated bagmen operators, will the ‘stick operations’ pursue? Will Drilon finally be released by the jihadists in case that they feel the pressure from the army assault on their lairs?

These types of operations are already routine in Mindanao’s life and hardly make a dent on public attention that is focused on other hard issues like oil price hikes and inflation. What makes the case unique is the person of Drilon who is an asset of the ABS-CBN, a Lopez family firm. The jihadists know the great sins of the Lopez utilities notably the Meralco on the public, which could factor in the dynamics of the abduction.

Needless to say, the Lopez sinners can pay the price of the latest game. Government can also exact a bit of revenge for the beating it got when its board representatives in the MERALCO lose in bidding for chairmanship and juicy posts. Or, perhaps a turn-around that could see the release of Drilon and heavy beating (with high casualties) of the jihadists would happen, thus increasing the palatability of the government control of the MERALCO firm.

The scenario is no determinate one as the situation is fluid. You can make your own guesses about the compass of the abduction. In case you’re following up on the news, better do your own scenario building now while the “soup is hot.”

[Writ 17 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

KICKBACKS & PEACEKEEPING, TV JOURNALIST’S ABU SAYYAF ABDUCTION

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

As of this moment, Manila is in the heat of coffee shop speculations about the fate of the recently abducted Ces Drilon & crew, personnel of the oligarchic network ABS-CBN, by the Abu Sayyaf. The ‘cara y cruz’ debate is whether the Lopez group will pay for the ransom of Drilon & crew, amounting to $5 Million more or less.

Having observed peacekeeping for some time now, and having had the privilege of being close to peace negotiators on both camps (state and rebel counsels), I know very well about the perks that go with peacekeeping. A favorite popular idiom today, when one is uncertain whether to push through with a work engagement, is “i-career mo na” (make a career out of it). This goes through for peacekeeping.

Let me ping straight to the point: there’s a lot of kickbacks in peacekeeping, that is why it is a great project engagement for any state official to role-play peacekeeper. On the terrorist side, mujahideen work becomes adventure, fun and good life as sweet money would come around every time that abductions and raids would be mounted. Abduction, specifically, is a ‘win/win’ situation (Fidel Ramos favorite idiom).

Here is the value chain of abduction: A group of young terrorists are tasked to abduct any bankable personage or group. Most probably a preliminary assessment had been done about the ‘book value’ of the proposed victims. With all parameters and actions observed (on the backward and forward linkages, inputs and outputs), the group then proceeds to abduct the bankable victim and team members.

The ever ready peacekeepers, actual (those with mandates) and potential (those local and other personages who can do go-between or back-channel tasks), will then quickly respond to the situation. The terrorists are aware of the chain of peacekeepers, and knowing the “10% goes to Boss” S.O.P., they already padded the price of the ransom. A lot of contingency expenses are entailed in the negotiations, a lot of risks too, so all operating expenditures must be covered in the ransom estimate.

The bargaining then begins as soon as the peacekeepers rendezvous with the terrorists or their authorized agents. To show semblance of civility and concern, the peacekeepers would try to strike a bargain, but not rock-bottom please. Nobody wants to come home empty-handed, please understand.

Upon doing the preliminary rendezvous, the terrorist group or T-Group would then re-assess the estimate. They have already done their own counter-espionage about the ‘chain of peacekeepers’, so this dovetails in the decision whether it is sound to scale down or move up the ransom. Factoring along the number of new T-Group recruits who may need immediate ‘glad tidings’ support is also an important decision input here.

The family or firm that is set to pay ransom will make the pronouncement that “there will be no ransom” and the rationale that “we will not and never will negotiate with criminals and terrorists.” This is a mere cover-up by-line, remember, I know this for a fact. Non-payment is too remote from reality, I’m very certain about this.

What is factual is that the family or firm would have to decide quickly to pay more as soon as a bargain had been done via back-channel. Often than not, the paying group must also offer gifts (payola incentives) to the back-channel negotiators. Payment must really be quick and sweeping. Because failure to do so would make the T-Group raise the ransom, and the negotiations after that would be more difficult, hazardous, and  the chain of peacekeepers would rise, perhaps following 2-3 chain tracks.

So, what happens upon the conclusion of the deal is that everybody will be happy. Jihadists are awash with funds for operations and payments of assets, locality’s banks are awash with fresh cash that will then circulate back into the local economy, and happiest of all will be the peacekeepers whose purses and secret vaults will bulge with fresh funds. Everybody gets a lot of news exposures, the media personnel abducted will have tons of materials for new write ups and reportage, the paying group will project an angelic mien as philanthropic moguls worth your emulation.

Perhaps the insurance companies should cash in on terror abductions and attacks, and open up ‘terror insurance’ or maybe peg them as ‘force majeure’ with specifications applicable to terror-operated abductions. And, maybe they can even partner with wealthy peacekeepers to study the viability of hedge funds operations for abductions. Isn’t this a fantastic proposal?

[Writ 15 June 2008, Manila, Quezon City]