APPRECIATING PARK CHUNG HEE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang araw! Good day!

For so long now did I harbor an admiration for certain leaders of the South, one of whom is the late Park Chung Hee of South Korea. Among the most admirable of developmentalist Asian leaders, I nurtured wishful thoughts that hopefully we can have the equivalent of Park Chung Hee for many developing economies so as to accelerate the graduation towards prosperity.

His governance style was authoritarian, which I surmise worked well for demonstrating political will in pushing through reform programs and the industrialization of his poor country. I am no dogmatist who contends that democracy is the only true best governance modality, though to my mind this is the most fit for my country the Philippines that has failed in attaining a mature developed economy via the martial law route.

South Korea was so poor as its economy was wrecked by two great wars, World War II and the Korean civil war. Right after the truce with the North, South Korea experienced the additional misfortune of selecting a corrupt leadership under Shingman Rhee which proved costly to the fledgeling nation.

Pushing through first of all with agrarian reform, by enticing the chaebols (big landlords) to divest in land and invest instead in manufacturing concerns, just couldn’t make a headway under that corrupt regime. And so it has to take the iron hands of a developmentalist authoritarian regime, under President Park, to rectify the malady and propel South Korea towards industrialization.

President Park thus enticed the chaebols to establish the strategic or heavy industries of the nation, with the state providing sovereign guarantees to their installation. The caveat was: the state will help the chaebols enable their newly owned industries and accumulate gains, but in no way should they engage in investments outside of Korea.

In an interview before with Dr. Antonio Arrizabal, former science & technology secretary and foremost expert on steel industry in the Philippines, he revealed that Park was forewarned by the Americans not to push through with the heavy industries. The first salvo of retaliatory measure by the American elites was the blockage of financing for the big projects.

Unwavering in his decision to pursue heavy industrialization, including the installation of steel and shipbuilding industries, President Park instead diversified the financing source. He turned to Japan for alternative financing, which the latter acceded to. The rise of Pohang Steel Works (once the world’s biggest steel producer) and Hyundai are clear testaments to the success of the industrialization program under the stewardship of President Park.

Very clearly, Park pursued a nationalist economic development policy regime for his country, using interventionist measures as well as capital controls. As shown by the experiences of other countries that have industrialized, state intervention and capital controls were necessary measures to propel their respective countries to industrial prosperity. Attendant social policies led to the creation of a huge middle class in the same countries, thus ensuring a steady and strong domestic market (consumption) for the manufactured goods of the country.

Park knew his economic lessons very well, and he coupled his vision with the determination and zeal to build a prosperous South Korea and a huge domestic market in the long run. And he was undaunted by external threats by the main imperialist power, the USA, of retaliatory attacks for establishing industries that would later compete with America’s and Western powers’ articles of manufactures.

For his deep patriotism and nationalism, he lost his life eventually. Inside the Korean government was a puppet of the Americans—the very chief of the Korean intelligence body (KCIA)—who snuffed off President Park’s life with a bullet.

I wish that the young Koreans and youth across the world today, who would become leaders in their own countries some day, would re-study the exemplar from Asia in the person of Park Chung Hee. No matter what threats may come from vested interests aimed at retarding the development of their respective country, they should go ahead just the same and stand pat on their wise judgement and decision to pursue highly ambitious yet doable and noble goals for their country.

Be ready to become martyrs for the cause of liberating your own country and people from poverty. For after you’re gone, there will be other patriots who will carry on with your cause and bring your sublime vision to fruition.

[Philippines, 10 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]

RIZAL: MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Visionary genius, patriot, martyr for Philippine independence, Gat Jose Rizal was a man too far ahead of his own time. So titanic was the luck that came upon this blessed archipelago, the Philippine islands, for the embodiment among its humble people of this encyclopedic mind, Dr. Jose Rizal. He is impeccably a ‘man for all seasons’. And he is the national hero of the Philippine nation.

Most nations declare among their top patriots a warrior or military leader as their ‘national hero’. But for the Philippines, ours’ is a genius, an intellectual giant, a mind capable of engaging in issues so recondite and subjects so diverse that, in so short a span, he was able to pen an enormous variegation of topics that befit, in their totality, an encyclopedia. At the age of 35, he was terminated by the demonic imperial forces of Spain, but he never died in vain. On the contrary, his death continued to inspire libertarian patriots here and in other Asian lands, an inspiration that continues for our youth till these days.

Mystically gifted, little did people know that he was actually transformed into a spiritual guru before his death. His guruship was unique, in that he mentored his fellows on the wisdom of nationhood and patriotism. One of his avowed readers if not disciples, Mohandas Gandhi of India, followed in his steps and became, upon his transformation into a spiritual master, a mentor of nationhood and patriotism just like Rizal.

So mighty a mind Rizal possessed, without doubt, that till these days his works overshadow the combined works of his own fellow patriots, including those who’ve gained double doctorate degrees and published widely in academic circles. Rizal’s following is solid, he need not further articulate nor gesticulate thoughts in the vogue of a desperate social marketing campaign, for even long after his death, youthful and scholarly minds read him, try to follow his ethical precepts, and emulate his exemplary patriotic behavior.

He was the first Filipino. Before his time, the term Filipino was bestowed only on those Spaniards born and raised in the Philipines. The Malayan natives were pejoratively called Indios; Chinese, Sangleys; Aetas and IPs, negritos and montanosas; and Muslims, Moros. With scathing indictment of arrogant racism of  Spaniards most especially the friars, Rizal declared, with his mighty pen, that from this day on everybody born and raised in the islands will be called Filipino. That was how we islanders were to be bestowed with the name Filipino, a term that will stick till way into the distant future when a ‘Filipino race’ will evolve from out of a mere nationality today.

In his thoughts he pre-empted the political philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, the eminent Marxist leader of the Italian Left. Rizal mentored his fellow patriots that it will prove unwise to wage an insurrectionary campaign and seize political power, at a time when the ideas of nationhood haven’t permeated the private sphere yet. The most fitting strategy for that long-term goal—of building nationhood—is education. Build the new world’s ideas first till they become hegemonic, after which winning a revolution will be more facile as it was in the French revolution. That’s Rizal, and that’s Gramsci as well, but Rizal preceded Gramsci, let the world be made aware of this fact.

In gender relations, Rizal was no less ahead of his time. He scorned the ‘Old World woman complex’ so deeply that he chose to bury this woman in catacombs of history, which he did by killing Maria Clara, the Old World’s embodiment, in his novels. He advanced the idea of Modern Woman in the figures of the ‘women of Malolos’, even as he championed women who were civic-minded, actively engaged as co-partner in shaping the modern world, intellectually adroit and well-schooled. The Filipino nation he likened to the figure of Sisa in his novels, a nurturing mother who no matter under dire duress will never self-destruct but will stand out firm, tall and well-esteemed by fellows.

Amid Rizal’s liberalism, he never had any fondness for anarchism. Following Zola’s novel-writing tradition (e.g. Germinal), Rizal embodied the anarchist in the young bourgeois creole Ibarra who, at the end of his novel scripts, self-destructed. Anarchism can never be a substitute for prudent authority that should follow the Enlightenment principles of reason, progress, fraternity, and scientific verity. He was a true-blue liberal nationalist, never an anarchist.

We Filipino nationalists will continue to be inspired by Gat Jose Rizal. And his thoughts, the most treasured jewels of Asia during his time, will continue to inspire us, diadems that we magnanimously share to all enthused Fellows of the Planet, thoughts that mentor and serve as balm on the soul, like unto those writ by the most sagely personages. For these are the thoughts of a man no less sagely than the wisest of the days of old, thoughts that long after they are gone will continue to make waves into the minds of men and women of many generations yet to come.

Hail Gat Jose Rizal! Glory, genius, grandeur!

[12 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila] 

UNFURLING BIGGEST PHILIPPINE FLAG: SIGNIFYING GLOBAL LEADERSHIP DESTINY

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good morning!

As I was moving back to home-base, done with my gym exercise, my eyes caught the news bit in the newsstands about the biggest Philippine flag recently unfurled in Baguio City. So huge was the flag, it weighed over 3 tons.

Whoever may have conceived the idea (a lady), she was acting magnanimously on the behest of her own Guide from Above. The choice of creating and unfurling a big flag, on the occasion of Philippine Independence day, can be perceived as a token of patriotism and love for fellow Filipinos.

On a deeper level, however, the unfurling of a flag so huge goes beyond simple tokenism. There’s more to the flag beyond people coming together and building bridges of Love for peace and world healing, which indeed had been delivered by the flag team at the moment of unfurling. It also goes beyond the hospitality of the Baguio people that was rightly exhibited too at that moment of unfurling.

For one, the size signifies the growth and galvanization of the Filipino identity and weltanschauung that took over 300 years to build. Building that weltanschauung began when the secularization movement was launched during the Spanish Era, and then moved on to the nationalist movement of Rizal’s time, and onwards to the Filipino Renaissance of the 1990s (pre-centennial through post-centennial jubilee). The Renaissance still goes on and may be the next phase of weltanschauung formation that would take probably two (2) centuries to ferment.

The Philippine nation used to be circumscribed within the confines of the archipelago, the same island group that was created by Westphalian-type treaties among world powers. Today, the nation has gone beyond the archipelago’s borders, as Filipinos have been spread across the globe, nearly 100 million strong.

That huge flag signified the strength of the weltanschauung formation galvanizing as identity, psyche, collective taste and temper that now inhere among the equally large population of 100 million. A globalized people and nation must be signified with dignity and honor by an emblem as huge as the world: a 3+ tonner flag. Hugeness means strength, power, potency, global extent. It means there is not any place in the world that we can’t dip our hands into and be part of their reshaping. It means global imprint, global impact.

The year of unfurling is very auspicious: 110^th year after the independence declaration. 110 contains the numbers 11 and 10, 11 X 10 equals 110. 11 signifies conquest and leadership in certain domains of planetary life. 10 means 9 + 1, the number of completion that starts with zero (1 is leadership, 9 is martial abilities). Somehow, the Cosmic Hierarchs are heralding to the world, via this huge flag, on this 110^th year of Filipinas, that from hereon a new phase of history begins: the phase of global leadership in certain aspects of life.

By the fact that Filipinos were spread across the globe, a feat that can be attributed largely to the Divine Hierarchy in pursuit of a greater Plan (which we 3-dimensional mortals are blind about), already is one cause for wonderment. Hidden Divine Hands are working on these islands, and so the message of the Hierarchy to the Dark Forces who want to destroy our people is for them to ‘make no mistake’, the Divine Plan holds and will hold through. No Dark Force can ever wreck the destiny of the Filipinos, a destiny that has global effects in the future eras to come.

Not even the destruction today of the archipelago through WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and the mass termination of 90 million inhabitants can ever kill Divine Plan. That huge quake that struck China recently, using a Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM, was already a forewarning by the Dark Forces (Luciferans) of their resolve for destruction and global domination. But they will fail, they can never make Filipinos submit to their dictates, the future Filipino as a distinct sub-race or ‘species race’ will come, no Luciferan abomination can deter or deviate it from happening.   

My kudos goes to the team that did this flag project. But most specially, I salute the Cosmic Hierarchy who actually gave the go signal for this event to take place on this year, 2008, the 110^th anniversary of our independence.  

[Writ 13 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE: ASIA’ BEACON OF HOPE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Philippine solidarity to all Fellows on Planet Earth!

On the 12^th of June 1896, as the sun was rising, the Philippine Flag was raised for the first time in Kawit, Cavite. The Philippine National Anthem was also played, in the genre of classical marches, putting it alongside the French Republic’s anthem. Emilio Aguinaldo, first president of the new republic, declared the independence of the Philippines from Spain and the official birthing of the Philippine nation-state.

That moment of victory, no matter how short-lived it was as the American forces soon snapped off the flame of liberty in the islands, was of gigantic significance to all Asia. For the first time, a modern republic was born, forged from out of the struggles and blood of the Filipino people, who fought arduously against the mighty empire of the Spanish Crown. Over three (3) centuries of Western imperial cruelties, demonic calumnies and abominable barbarities were officially ended that day.

All of Asia watched the unfolding events in the islands then. The young patriarch of the nation, Dr. Jose Rizal, was terminated by the Spaniards in 1896 yet, but his ideas of nationhood spread like wildfire across the archipelago after that infamous moment of his execution. With the founding of a new republic, the Asians realized that nationhood ideas, typified by the thoughts of Rizal, were viable. No matter how mighty an evil empire would be against a colonized people of Asia, the latter will be able to forge collective might and will, terminate imperial rule and build a new sovereign nation-state.

Thus were our fellow Asians emboldened to study the path of national liberation, build the patriotic ideas and revolutionary movements that will serve as their executor vehicles, and wage libertarian campaigns to the finish, even if it will take thousands to millions of martyrs to conclude the national liberation project. Gandhi, Aung San, Sukarno, Sun Yat Sen and leading patriots from fellow Asian lands, who read and digested Rizal’s writings well, stood out among our great leaders in Asia, and the rest was history.

Modern nationhood in Asia started in my beloved country. This is an established fact, though seemingly ignored and forgotten. Because it started here, let it be the duty and obligation of all fellow patriotic Filipino to continue to spread goodwill and good faith unto all the peoples of Earth, whether from developing or developed states. For in today’s context, there are those powerful predatory forces that aspire no end to snuff out the nation-states in the name of their ignominious greed, lust for power, and tyrannical might.

Back home, here, we nationalist patriots continue our struggle against the pro-colonial forces in all spheres of life. Rizal’s dream here hasn’t completely galvanized yet, as the pro-colonials and the oligarchs they serve are ensconced in all terrains of social, cultural, political and economic life. We nationalists are in the margins, while the pro-colonials and pro-oligarchs are hegemonic, and so we will continue with our struggles until the destructive dragons of colonialism and oligarchism will be effectively slaughtered here.

Let the world remember this heraldry, that on the 12^th of June 1896, nationhood and the values that underpin it (sovereignty, liberty, brotherhood, patriotism, prosperity) were born and planted in the Philippines as the first instance of nationhood in all of Asia. This being the sublime narrative, we patriotic Filipinos shall continue to bear with us the flame of liberty, and will defend the values that forged nationhood to the last instance of our breaths and energies. That which was first will be the last to fall, and will, with the blessing of Divine Hierarchy, never fall in spirit and wisdom to pursue the grand mission of helping other nations build their own narratives and practices of nationhood.

Hail the Philippine nation! Glory, genius, grandeur!

[12  June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila] 

DON’T COUNT OUT NEPAL’S ROYALISTS, THEY’LL COUNTER-ATTACK!

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Good morning from Manila!

The recent turn of events that saw the catastrophic devastation of the old order in Nepal should not be equated to the complete eradication of kingship. Any adroit observer of political dynamics knows that, in the founding of any modern nation-state, the forces of the deposed ancien regime will counter-attack sooner or later, with the option of a royal revival or equivalent being the top agenda.

Nation-building takes so much time to galvanize, more so for a new nation with a diversity of ethnic communities. Look at Canada, after so many decades of existence as a sovereign nation-state, there are still forces within it that want to separate from the republic. The Canadian nation is still being constructed till these days, this is the clear message of the Quebec separatist movement.

A century may not even suffice a time to build a new nation from out of formerly diverse ethnic communities, or after gaining independence from a colonial master. In the case of the USA, the southern landlords-slave owners represented the ancien regime that refused to go by the wave of the north’s modernist, anti-slavery, pro-industrialization path. The landlords opted to make war against the Union, and had they won, they could have gone back to the old days of bondage to the British Empire.

Till these days, the clash between the Unionists (nationalists) and Confederates (pro-British Empire & oligarchy) continues in the USA. Amid the galvanization there of a federation-wide American identity, the clash continues in the terrains of public policy and foreign affairs. Fact is, the victory of the neo-conservatives and realists in America—who kowtow to the whims of the Anglo-Dutch oligarchy—point out to a subtle victory of the Confederate forces right inside Washington DC.  

In my own country, the landlord-clergy classes comprise the representatives of the ancien regime .Even before America left Manila in 1946, the landlords-clergy already pre-positioned themselves in society. The landlords eventually controlled both the Establishment political parties, thus effectively undercutting the possibility of a revolutionary agrarian program that could have jettisoned the country to mature industrialization as early as the late 1970s.

Till these days, patron-client relations remain strong in all spheres of Philippine life. Not even if the post-industrial society had already made inroads into Manila’s cultural and economic domains. The landlords are themselves the big capitalists, while the Church remains the biggest landlord oligarch of all, praise the Lords of the oligarchic houses!

Thus, in the Philippine case, the nationalists who represent the modernizing, Enlightenment-inspired trend remain in the margins. During the Cold War, the nationalists were demonized as Soviet agents and were chased out of state organs, chased in the hills as insurgents, locked up behind bars, tortured and killed. Till these days nationalists are marginalized here, this is the real situation in Manila.

So, fellows, please don’t count out the royalists of Nepal just yet. Even long after the present monarch (Gyanendra) is gone, pro-royalist fanatics will raise up arms against the prevailing regime, expect this to happen. It’s like the recycle of the Stuart revival in England, Bourbon revival in France, and the long struggle for a Bonapartist revival in the whole of Europe.

The modernists of Nepal (Congress, Marxists, Maoists) look like the Atuturk prototypes of Turkey of the nationalist halcyon days of post-Ottoman era. The problem for Nepal is that it has too many nationalist voices with nary  clear consensus on the compass of nationhood, while Ataturk forces were homogenous in mindset, vision, and agenda of economic development and governance for Turkey.

So no matter what overthrow plots the Caliphate’s loyalists want to mount in Turkey, they will fail. They have to ride by the modernist rules there, abide by the ‘rule of law’ of the Atuturk mindset. It’s been a century hence since the Caliphate’s overthrow,  so the chances for the Caliph’s fundamentalists to return Turkey to the superstitious ancien regime is too late a dream.

Again, to re-echo, please don’t count out Nepal’s royalists. They are watching closely the fractiousness of the Enlightenment parties (secular, modernist, socialistic) in Nepal. They will bide their time. They will regroup, silently organize and expand, build their logistical bases both within and outside of Nepal.

And then they will strike with sweeping zeal, like thousands of angry Himalayan tigers coming down upon their enemies. Whether they win or not is another question. They will come back for sure.

[Writ 02 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

 

 

 

 

BUILD STRONG NATIONS AMID GLOBALIZATION

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

[Writ 22 March 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

 

In my meaty article on New Nationalism, I advanced fourteen (14) contentions in substantiation of what neo-nationalism is.

 

The first basic contention is that the nation-state can thrive and grow amid globalization. In other words, globalization shouldn’t lead to the destruction of nation-states. The trend since the start of massive implementation of liberal reforms leading to global integration of markets has been, in fact, the destruction of nation-states. This trend has to be stopped now.

 

There is really no reason to destroy the nations just so that our global community can be integrated. In the Philippine experience, nationalism has been a positive, progressive force that had united close to 100 ethno-linguistic communities. The Philippine nation had just lately crystallized, with a national identity now in shape though in moderate level, a phenomenon that took over 200 years to build.

 

There is no way that we can allow the massive destruction of nations today just in order to whet the appetites of the global oligarchy and their transnational corporations or TNCs for control over the world’s resources and labor. The conservation of nations must be a pre-requisite to building the ‘peace condition’ nationally and globally, guided by the principle of ‘dialogue of civilizations’.

 

On the other hand, amid the failings of globalization, we simply cannot go back to the past and destroy the integration efforts altogether. We can still move on towards a more progressive globalization that serves the interests of nations rather than the global oligarchy. Nations can derive benefits from integrated markets, we can’t overstress the risk-side of globalization at the expense of the benefit-side.

 

Somewhere along the line, the striving for stronger nations must cohere with the collective efforts for integrated markets. Later on, nations would compose an integrated political entity, the global state with its own global institutions.

 

Below is the excerpt from the New Nationalism article regarding the nation-state.

 

Strong nation can thrive & grow amid globalization.

 

The nation can continue to exist, even become strengthened, while it sails deep into the middle of the ocean of globalization. The two are not necessarily contradictory. Nationhood can continuously be pursued, patriotism can move ahead while paddling astride the powerful waves of globalization. For as earlier stated, globalization holds the promise of growth through the vast opportunities it has opened. Nations must strive to concur cooperation with other nations to extend the scope and limits of the opportunities, while at the same time build internal opportunities to further optimize inducements for investments.

 

Just recently, our entrepreneurs and professionals made waves through the international awards they respectively received, such as Tan Caktiong (top entrepreneur) and F. Palafox (the only ASEAN architect to make it to the world’s Top 200 architects), signifying the high level of competitiveness our compatriots are capable of achieving. Such sterling achievements surely inspire us to continue to strengthen nationhood and to forge new areas of cooperation and growth-inducing endeavors. While forces exist that work to tear the nation asunder, forces are likewise growing that lead to the nation’s strengthening. We should all work hard to make sure that the latter forces prevail, while neutralizing and diminishing the potencies of those forces that destroy nationhood.