Any claims and attacks being made in relation to this matter are from the opposition and by interest groups that are against the socio-economic policies and reforms by this administration.

As President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out against oligarchy and the domination by rich businessmen of the country’s utility businesses particularly water services, an article in a popular Asian magazine accused him of cronyism by allegedly favoring business associates.

In a situation briefing he presided over in Legazpi City in the aftermath of powerful typhoon “Tisoy,” the Chief Executive ordered the filing of economic sabotage and plunder cases against Manila Water Co. and Maynilad Water Services Inc. owners and legal counsel, and all those involved in the crafting of the deals, including agents and lawyers of the government.

Contrary to the article, “having connections and relations with officials in this administration doesn’t entitle any individual or any business entity to privileges that would allow them to bypass government policies and legal procedures,” Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar said yesterday.

The Palace official branded as “baseless” and “erroneous” the report that came out in Nikkei Asian Review about supposed cronyism under Mr. Duterte.

Andanar attributed the report’s allegations as part of an offensive by the opponents of the President and business interests affected by his campaign against business monopoly.

“Any claims and attacks being made in relation to this matter are from the opposition and by interest groups that are against the socio-economic policies and reforms by this administration. Not only are these baseless assertions erroneous, but they are also highly deplorable,” he added.

In a statement, Andanar denied that Duterte and his administration are practicing partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues.

He cited the Duterte administration’s refusal to ingratiate itself with Manila Water and Maynilad after learning that their “onerous” deals with the government have resulted to “unfavorable repercussions not only to the government but also to Filipino consumers.”

”The Duterte administration has constantly and blatantly condemned cronyism in our society,” the PCOO chief said.

Wild allegations

The report, which appeared in Nikkei’s 4 December issue, indicated that Mr. Duterte promised to “destroy the Philippine’s elite” because he “chose his own.”

The report, titled “Crony capital: How Duterte embraced the oligarchs,” noted that during the presidential campaign, Duterte took aim at the “corruption and excesses of wealth-hoarding families” like the Ongpin clan.

The report, however, claimed that Duterte’s three years in office showed that the systemic transformation has turned out to be “more like a personal vendetta.”

“One prominent tycoon who spoke on condition of anonymity described the takedown of Roberto Ongpin as ultimately insignificant — ‘a grain of sand,’” Aurora Almendral’s article read.

”Rather than sending a clear message to the country’s business oligarchs, the episode left many believing that Duterte has simply opened the door to a new wave of businesspeople and loyalists, who have been given access to political power and lucrative government contracts,” it added.

Competitive climate

Andanar debunked the report, stressing that Duterte has been persistently lashing out at oligarchs “who have promoted corruption, provided bribes to government officials in public-private transactions, and eked out favors through their political connections.” “These are actions the President vowed never to tolerate,” he said.

On Tuesday, Duterte directed the Department of Justice and the Office of the Solicitor General to draft a new water concession contract that is “favorable to the State and the Filipino people.”

To further refute the alleged cronyism in the country, Andanar stressed the current administration’s commitment to enforcing rules and regulations that will make the country’s business climate “competitive.” He said the government has been implementing “fair and impartial” procedures for private companies that want to invest in government infrastructure and development projects.

Level field

”We will continue to be tough on regulating the business sector as we advocate for a competitive economic climate so that the cronyism which has already allowed our government and society to be mired in corruption and abuse for decades will no longer prosper,” he said.

”In fact, we have continuously strengthened measures and undertaken steps along the way that would allow for fair and impartial procedures on public-private partnerships,” Andanar added.

He also noted that the Executive Order (EO) on the Freedom of Information (FoI) gives anyone access to government transactions for “better transparency on project biddings as well as on the allocation and usage of the people’s money.”

Duterte on 24 July 2016 signed EO 2 on FoI to make documents and records in the Executive branch available for public scrutiny.

”This (EO on FoI) undermines any form of possible corruption and bribery as we bring out in the open our transactions for public scrutiny,” the communications chief said.

Andanar said the Duterte government has also advocated for an equitable application of the law to all business entities, regardless of origin, through the strengthening of the Philippine Competition Commission, Anti-Red Tape Authority and National Economic Development Authority’s functions.

He said such a move would “undermine monopolies and duopolies.”

The PCOO Secretary also took note of the government’s plan to amend the 1987 Constitution on business ownership, as well as to open up the Philippine economy to more foreign investments.

”Our Comprehensive Tax Reform Program furthers this commitment as we continuously promote the reduction of personal and corporate income tax to promote a competitive and inclusive business climate while curtailing the tax incentives that have been abused by large corporations and oligarchs for decades,” he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte promised to destroy the Philippines' elite. Instead, he chose his own

MANILA/DAVAO, Philippines -- The day Rodrigo Duterte became president, Roberto Ongpin was one of the Philippines' richest men. Ongpin had survived -- and prospered -- under six presidential administrations by trading favors and greasing friendships with politicians. He had a full arsenal of luxuries at his disposal, including a billionaire's island dotted with villas, serviced by butlers and accessible by a fleet of private jets, and an exclusive club at the center of the capital's business district, where the whiskey was poured each day at precisely 5 p.m. and far into the night.

During his populist campaign for president in 2015 and 2016, Duterte took aim at the corruption and excesses of wealth-hoarding ruling families like Ongpin's. He called them "a cancer on society," and "illustrious idiots" who flew around in private planes while the Filipino people suffered.

Then, just four days into his term, Duterte unloaded. "The plan is to destroy the oligarchs embedded in the government," he said. "I'll give you an example publicly: Ongpin, Roberto."

Shares of Ongpin's public companies plummeted. By Duterte's second month in office, the tycoon had stepped down as chairman of PhilWeb, his online gambling company. "He knew the game was up," Apa Ongpin, Roberto's nephew and former executive at PhilWeb, recounted in an interview with the Nikkei Asian Review.

The stunning takedown of a man who was a fixture in the murky borderlands between Philippine politics and business sent waves of shock and fear through the country's elite.

Three years on, what Duterte framed as a systemic transformation has come to look more like a personal vendetta. One prominent tycoon who spoke on condition of anonymity described the takedown of Roberto Ongpin as ultimately insignificant -- "a grain of sand." Rather than sending a clear message to the country's business oligarchs, the episode left many believing that Duterte has simply opened the door to a new wave of businesspeople and loyalists, who have been given access to political power and lucrative government contracts.

"The cast of characters is not changing," said Lala Rimando, a journalist, who is writing a book on the Philippine business elite. "They're just being added to."

One former high-ranking elected official went a step further. Far from taking down a system of businessmen and politicians working together for personal profit, Duterte is "cultivating his own set of cronies," he said.

Davao connections

Few men have had a more spectacular rise than Dennis Uy.

Uy, a 45-year-old third-generation Chinese-Filipino from Davao del Norte, is the son of provincial traders who dealt in copra, maize and bananas. As he described in an interview with Nikkei in 2017, Uy met Duterte in Davao city, where he was mayor for over two decades. The men became friends. "He is a mentor in life [and] in leadership," Uy said of Duterte.

Uy built Phoenix Petroleum Philippines, his fuel company, into one of the largest in the country, capable of going head-to-head with Chevron. He also expanded his business into shipping and logistics. By 2016, Uy was one of Duterte's top presidential campaign donors. The next year, Duterte rang the bell at the Philippine Stock Exchange on the 10th anniversary of Phoenix going public. Uy and Duterte patted each other on the shoulders and traded effusive public compliments.

Since then, Uy has embarked on a head-spinning acquisition spree: convenience stores, a digital startup, a bakery chain, a Ferrari dealership, water utilities and a casino franchise. On top of all that, he gained rights to develop a 177-hectare multiuse city with office buildings, high-end retail outlets, sport centers and a resort, rising from a former American air base 90 km north of Manila.

Uy has racked up directorates and seats on the boards of companies, many of them owned by old-money oligarchs eager to associate with a man so closely linked with Duterte. Before Duterte became president, Uy was on the board of three public companies. By 2019, that number had shot up to 27. This year, he debuted on Forbes' list of the richest Filipinos at number 22. He has, in the past, denied using his personal relationship with Duterte for economic gain. Uy did not respond to multiple requests for an interview for this article.

Even though Uy projects an image of soft-spoken, provincial humility, one tycoon who has had dealings with him described a man fond of ostentatious displays of wealth and with a penchant for sports cars and other luxuries.

"He has a Richard Mille watch that you should not be wearing when you've got so much debt to the banks," he said, referencing timepieces that sell for six figures. He wants to be a "big shot," the tycoon said. "He wants to be the next taipan."

His rush to the top has been fueled partly by borrowing. Uy is estimated by Forbes Asia to have amassed around $2 billion in debt.

Uy's next venture takes him into a sector that has long suffered from the concentration of power in the Philippines' political and business communities: telecommunications. Dominated by two companies headed by the country's richest families -- the Zobel de Ayala family, who are majority stakeholders of Globe Telecom, and the tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan of Smart Communications -- the industry has long been a cautionary tale of regulatory capture, stifled competition and the power of the oligarchy.

In 2016, at the start of Duterte's presidency, telecommunications service in the Philippines was a hair-pulling combination of dropped calls, webpages that struggled to load, unstable connections and buffering video broken up by brief spells of pixelated images. The poor service was a drag on businesses dependent on internet services. In Asia, the only country with slower service than the Philippines was Afghanistan, and access costs more than triple the global average.

Duterte railed against the companies, referring to them as a price-controlling cartel and threatening to break up the duopoly with foreign competition. The telcos responded to the threats and speeds doubled within three years, but the Duterte administration pressed on with the promise of a third telco anyway.

In the final round of bidding for the third license, a joint venture between Dennis Uy's company, Mislatel -- now known as Dito Telecommunity -- and the Chinese government-backed China Telecom remained as the sole contender. Mislatel won the deal despite Uy having little or no experience in telecommunications. Critics cried foul, alleging that some of Duterte's closest political associates had been spotted riding in Uy's private jets and summering in his luxury mountain villa, and that they had sped up the bidding process.

"As it is, it's now oozing with preferential treatment and, at worst, cronyism," Antonio Trillanes IV, a former senator and vocal critic of Duterte, said of the selection shortly after the announcement of Mislatel's win.

Ronald Mendoza, dean at the School of Government at the Ateneo de Manila University, said that the bidding process lacked transparency and the ultimate outcome -- that a company "very, very much linked to the Duterte administration" emerged in the final stage as the sole contender -- is "arguably the creation of yet another powerful force of economic concentration."

The telco episode appeared to have traded on political favoritism and rent-seeking, the same currency used by the existing telco companies, which resulted in the dismal state of Philippine telecommunications.

The deal is not likely to be seen as a signal that change has come, Mendoza said. "In fact, what that episode signaled is more of the same."

One businessman with knowledge of the sector had a different interpretation -- that Uy was doing Duterte a favor. "The next five years is not, in any form, going to be a good investment for anyone," he said. "Not for China Telecom, not for decades. But Dennis had to do it, because there's going to be a lot of egg on the president's face if the third telco project didn't happen."

Payback

As fellow Davao native Dennis Uy makes his name nationally, government funds are flooding into Duterte's home province. Between 2016 to 2017, the budget for the Department of Public Works and Highways Region XI, which encompasses Duterte's stronghold of Davao city, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental, increased by over 100%. By comparison, other regions have had their DPWH numbers flatline, and the national average increased by 31%.

Backhoes, bulldozers and dump trucks are parked up on the sides of the roads next to piles of gravel and rolls of geotextile. Men with their faces wrapped in T-shirts to keep off the sun hoist scaffolding and sacks of cement onto their shoulders at dozens of public and private construction sites scattered across Davao city.

Public infrastructure investment has boosted private businesses. Ayala Land, part of one of the Philippines' most prominent family conglomerates, broke ground on a 20 billion peso ($393 million) mixed-use development in Davao city in 2017. Business delegations from China, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan have visited Davao, scouting for opportunities. According to data from the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, new business registrations in the first half of 2019 indicate a sharp increase in investments in the city, a development they credit to the increase in attention from the national government.

For some, the money is there for the taking. In 2017, Don-don Opreza stumbled onto a group of contractors while strolling the beach behind his house. They were struggling to find an access point to a new coastal road project, causing delays. Opreza paid 30,000 pesos to a neighbor for the access road. The contractors rewarded him with the rights to supply construction materials to the coastal road.

Trucks started lining up outside his container box office, heaving with boulders, armor rocks and backfill sand. As a middleman, Opreza tripled his earnings from his previous business supplying itinerant harvesters and laborers to the region's banana plantations. In comparison, counting the trucks coming in was easy money.

"I still can't believe the opportunity," Opreza said, who is settling into his new role as patriarch of his extended family, sending nieces and nephews to college, paying for vacations to the United States and buying up prime lots for his own mango and banana plantations. Even as he praises Duterte for allowing small players like himself to chip off a piece of wealth, he mentions a new supplier for the coastal road, someone close to a local politician, with whom he was recently compelled to split volume, handing over what he estimated to be 40% of the business.

"It's good, it's normal," Opreza said in defense of his competitor using political influence to gain market share.

Despite all the money flowing in, progress has actually been stop-start, as companies with capital and political connections capture projects they may not have the capacity to finish, leading to delays.

In 2019, the Commission on Audit found more than 4,000 DPWH projects were delayed nationwide, worth a total 118.4 billion pesos.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon at the new coastal road, among the largest projects currently underway in Davao, there were few workers to be found. A lone backhoe shifted rocks just by the coastline, and a black dog loped across the empty expanse of the construction site while a toddler in diapers dug into the sand with a plastic shovel. Dean Ortiz, spokesperson for DPWH Region XI, said that in 2019, the agency's goal was to complete 1.1 km of the planned 18 km road.

John Carlo Tria, vice president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the increased budgetary attention from the national government has spurred private investment in Davao, but project delays were in danger of letting the moment slip away.

"People are seeing the potential, but they are apprehensive at the same time," Tria said.

While the region desperately needs infrastructure, at the moment only a small number of people are benefiting from the influx of state funding.

A 2018 investigation by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism found that just a handful of large companies have scooped up most of the infrastructure projects in the Davao region, more than they could finish. The report singled out CLTG Builders, a company owned by Desiderio Go, the father of Duterte's longtime special assistant and current senator, Christopher Lawrence T. Go, who bears the same initials as his father's contracting company. According to the PCIJ investigation, the construction company has won over 700 million pesos in contracts from DPWH since Duterte became president in 2016. At the time of the investigation, all of CLTG's projects were delayed.

Opposition politicians called for a Senate investigation into what appeared to be preferential treatment given to the family members of Duterte's closest aide, an accusation Go denies. Ortiz said the agency did not conduct an investigation, but confirmed that following the accusation, CLTG did not bid for new contracts with DPWH in 2019.

One contractor, who requested anonymity to protect his business, said that while his company has grown steadily in recent years, he had not seen a spike in projects as a result of the increase in government investments.

"Those funds are intended for the construction companies close to the politicians," he said. "It's an open secret."

Emerging and midsize contracting companies like his cannot afford the bribes, which he said typically ranged from 5% to 10% of the contract value. He said that the large contracting companies should focus on complex projects of national importance and leave simple road projects to smaller companies. "Of course progress is going to be slow," he said. "They're clogging up the system."

The booming infrastructure industry in Davao could become another cautionary tale on the dangers of an economic system run by rent-seeking oligarchs, with the result of poorer services for average Filipinos, whether in roads, transportation, or telecommunications, critics say.

"This cycle of groups benefiting from political connections, but not necessarily innovating, nor thriving in a competitive environment, will certainly hit consumers. But I think that the most pernicious effect is in terms of job creation," Mendoza said. "Where rent-seeking is rampant, and corruption is always a threat, that environment is not conducive to sustained growth and job creation."

Vested interests

Despite his populist claims, Duterte has shown himself willing to work with the Philippines' old-money families.

The Del Rosario-Floirendo clan in Davao del Norte has long stood for the provincial consolidation of power in business and politics. For more than three decades, the keys to the governor's mansion and the seats to Congress passed between members of the clan. They ran one of the world's largest banana plantations on land leased from the government. The clan owned the provincial banks, sold the farm inputs at high prices and bought the harvest at below-market rates. After farmers defaulted on their loans, they came to own the farmers' land as well.

This year, in midterm elections, a new candidate stood against them. Edwin Jubahib, the son of farmers, had to practice putting gel in his hair and walking in hard-soled leather shoes before facing down the incumbent governor and scion of the ruling clan, Rodolfo del Rosario, Jr.

He tapped into the rising frustration among voters in Davao del Norte and won by a landslide. Jubahib's spectacular takedown of one of the Philippines' most entrenched political dynasties should have been the embodiment of Duterte's public support of populist ideals. Jubahib even partially modeled himself on Duterte, copying his "open door" style of leadership, in which constituents are able to visit his office and petition him directly.

In the midterms, however, Duterte backed the incumbent. Antonio Floirendo Jr. donated 75 million pesos -- the largest cash donation by far -- to Duterte's presidential campaign.

Being close to Duterte is no guarantee of safety. Several of the president's friends and relatives have come into government only to be arrested, compelled to step down, or investigated for corruption.

Jesus Dureza, a friend of Duterte's since high school, resigned as presidential adviser after two of his officers were fired for corruption. In September 2017, the president's son, Paolo Duterte, vice mayor of their hometown, was hauled before a Senate inquiry into a $125 million shipment of illegal drugs that came into the country through Manila. Four months later, Paolo stepped down after a public fight with his daughter on social media. He has since been elected to Congress.

Duterte's former foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay, was arrested on charges of bank fraud. His first secretary of justice, Vitaliano Aguirre, was accused by rival and gaming operator Charlie "Atong" Ang of protecting Kim Wong, a casino magnate who was implicated in a billion-dollar heist from the Bangladeshi central bank, whose perpetrators used bank accounts in the Philippines to launder the money. Aguirre has denied the allegations.

The remaining old-money families, however, do not appear to be running scared. Duterte's populism has proved hollow, with limited benefits for average Filipinos, and few real implications for the elite. An October 2019 poll by Social Weather Stations, a local agency, found Duterte's approval rating among the rich and middle class to be at its highest since the start of his presidency, even as it slips among the poor.

"They have no real vision except disruption. They've anchored everything on disruption. Change is coming," said Apa Ongpin, referring to Duterte's campaign slogan. "But what does that change? They don't know."

As for Roberto Ongpin, he is still one of the Philippines' richest men. Ongpin sold his shares of PhilWeb at a deep discount to Gregorio Araneta III, the son-in-law of Ferdinand Marcos, the former dictator, who along with his wife Imelda, created the blueprint in the Philippines for cronyism and kleptocracy and whose family remains one of the Philippines' most enduring political dynasties. Far from taking down the oligarchy, Duterte's attack on Ongpin merely transferred some of his wealth to a more powerful family with whom Duterte has maintained a strong alliance.

In the glittering, softly scented lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel, a luxury franchise his uncle brought to the Philippines 30 years ago, Apa Ongpin thought for a moment about other wealthy families who should fear Duterte's distinctive brand of populism. As he considered the question, waiters in national costume quietly laid pressed-cloth coasters under glasses of sparkling water and picked up dropped napkins.

"No," Apa said, "I can't think of a case of anyone who should be worried right now."

MY grandson Maximillian has been fascinated of late by wars and history. When not absorbed in “Mine Craft,” the internet video game that has occupied the waking hours of his peers (he is seven years old), questions about his country’s wars intrigue him. He has never been ambiguous about his identity. Despite his 50-percent Filipino blood, New Yorker by birth but now a (temporary) resident of Manila — he clings to his stateside ways, his accent (doesn’t speak Tagalog), his demeanor and his fierce sense of individualism. Just like most Americans. I also have another grandson, Javier, who may not speak the local dialect, asserts his Filipino pedigree, but is learning to speak Chinese — as the Philippines, I believe, will someday be a province of China.

Max’s queries are roused by documentaries on Cable TV and Netflix — which I welcome, rather than that he be engrossed in “Paw Patrol” or spend hours video-gaming. These are about wars and conflicts his country has been involved in; which gave me a reason to research on the topics. And the data is appalling. I will not tell Max these facts, just yet; he will learn about these in his own good time.

9/11 — New York
The dastardly act of pure terrorism perpetrated by Al Qaida in the 9/11 Twin Towers attack introduced into the world’s stage a new instrument of public display of atrocity and unmitigated horror that was meant to inflict numbing fear never before seen since perhaps the era of the Spanish Inquisition of 1478. The perverted nature of the deed left a great nation bewildered and shocked into an understandable demand for collective revenge — something really out of character of a civilized people, but totally within the purview of its equally traumatized leadership. Thus, President “Dubya” Bush may have been left with no choice as he discerned the desire of a wounded people and embarked on a war of retribution. His righteous indignation reflecting the people’s anger was justified, but his subsequent methods, faulty.

The attacks that day resulted in 3,000 fatalities; it forever distorted the perception of any country’s safety and security, amidst threats from a band of fanatics capable of elevating such conflicts to another level. And the panic that ensued that day awakened the dormant and unspoken fear and pent-up biases brought about by ignorance of cultural and religious nuances. It was convenient for Bush and the American political-military clique to lay the blame on countries in the Middle East and easier still to sell to the American people that it was Islam, and no dichotomy was countenanced between the greater majority of the peaceful Muslims and extremists. What was being peddled was that al-Qaida, with predominantly Islamic adherents out to sow terror, were the perpetrators using Afghanistan as their base under the protection of the Taliban. Despite the fact that the majority of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, an ally of America, whose despotic princes are personal family friends of the Bush political dynasty, that country was spared.

War on terror
Bush, the 43rd US President, barely needed a pretext to exact revenge. Aside from Afghanistan’s Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a convenient villain; and perhaps to finish what Bush the 41st US President left undone during the “Desert Storm.“ Quickly hammering out the “coalition of the willing,” the US-led multi-national forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus, a reprise of what was once a similar blight on medieval Christian Europe — a modern-day Crusade appeared to bring about the downfall of not only a regime, and the Muslims themselves were convinced, justifiable or not, that it was a war with religious undertones. A clash of civilizations. America had to hype the danger of Iraq possessing nuclear weapons (a hoax we now know). A regime change was set in motion. With the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, America has surrendered the moral high ground.

But let us briefly examine the consequences of 9/11 that killed 3,000 Americans and other nationalities. President Trump admitted that the US has spent almost $7 trillion since. But American leadership never admitted that the death toll within that period was approximately 500,000 to 800,000 souls.

More deadly, the Global War on Terror, the linchpin of Dubya Bush’s foreign policy initiatives of retribution, produced a convoluted mindset in conflict resolution which subsequent American presidents have continued to apply with disastrous results.

Extraordinary rendition
To skirt US laws, suspects are snatched and brought to secret facilities, carried out by the US government as an extrajudicial practice, to be interrogated and tortured. The sites of these interrogations are in third-party countries, not in American soil. This preserves the fiction of American justice and adherence to the rule of law. Some successes resulted in the eventual capture and killing of Osama Bin Ladin — the mastermind of 9/11 and founder of al-Qaida. In all these cases, the much-revered moral concept of the the end justifying the means is reduced to mere petty verbiage.

Global assassination campaign
As an offshoot of these protracted wars and the desire to eliminate the ghost-like leadership of al-Qaida, IS and the insurgency that mushroomed in their aftermath, the use of advanced and sophisticated drone technologies was promoted. “The worst terrorist campaign in the world right now by far is the one that is being orchestrated in Washington — the global assassination campaign,” says Noam Chomsky, the eminent US theoretical linguist, philosopher, social critic and political activist. This has permitted the murder of America’s enemies, sanctioned by government, into an impersonal endeavor, detaching the act of killing and all the moral baggage it carries with it into simple acts of technicalities.

Drone strikes are deadly as the unmanned combat aerial vehicles are employed even in heavily populated civilian areas among whom the terrorist leadership purposely hide. The drone operators are safely snuggled with their video consoles perhaps a thousand kilometers from the targets, thus lessening the number of American lives lost. On the other hand, the collateral damage produced by this type of warfare is substantial. The United Nations Human Rights Council has declared that such strikes may have violated international humanitarian laws as civilian casualties are immensely disproportional to the targeted terrorist lives. According to the same study “…during one five-month period of the operation… nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.”

Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs reports that more than 801,000 people have died as a direct result of the fighting, 335,000 of whom have been civilians. The US is currently conducting counter-terror activities in 76 countries, or about 39 percent of the world’s nations vastly expanding its mission across the globe.

The US Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

It seems to me that after 9/11, American leadership has inexorably plunged the country into state terrorism. Chomsky may have been right after all when he proclaimed that “the United States is the world’s biggest terrorist.”

MY grandson Maximillian has been fascinated of late by wars and history. When not absorbed in “Mine Craft,” the internet video game that has occupied the waking hours of his peers (he is seven years old), questions about his country’s wars intrigue him. He has never been ambiguous about his identity. Despite his 50-percent Filipino blood, New Yorker by birth but now a (temporary) resident of Manila — he clings to his stateside ways, his accent (doesn’t speak Tagalog), his demeanor and his fierce sense of individualism. Just like most Americans. I also have another grandson, Javier, who may not speak the local dialect, asserts his Filipino pedigree, but is learning to speak Chinese — as the Philippines, I believe, will someday be a province of China.

Max’s queries are roused by documentaries on Cable TV and Netflix — which I welcome, rather than that he be engrossed in “Paw Patrol” or spend hours video-gaming. These are about wars and conflicts his country has been involved in; which gave me a reason to research on the topics. And the data is appalling. I will not tell Max these facts, just yet; he will learn about these in his own good time.

9/11 — New York
The dastardly act of pure terrorism perpetrated by Al Qaida in the 9/11 Twin Towers attack introduced into the world’s stage a new instrument of public display of atrocity and unmitigated horror that was meant to inflict numbing fear never before seen since perhaps the era of the Spanish Inquisition of 1478. The perverted nature of the deed left a great nation bewildered and shocked into an understandable demand for collective revenge — something really out of character of a civilized people, but totally within the purview of its equally traumatized leadership. Thus, President “Dubya” Bush may have been left with no choice as he discerned the desire of a wounded people and embarked on a war of retribution. His righteous indignation reflecting the people’s anger was justified, but his subsequent methods, faulty.

The attacks that day resulted in 3,000 fatalities; it forever distorted the perception of any country’s safety and security, amidst threats from a band of fanatics capable of elevating such conflicts to another level. And the panic that ensued that day awakened the dormant and unspoken fear and pent-up biases brought about by ignorance of cultural and religious nuances. It was convenient for Bush and the American political-military clique to lay the blame on countries in the Middle East and easier still to sell to the American people that it was Islam, and no dichotomy was countenanced between the greater majority of the peaceful Muslims and extremists. What was being peddled was that al-Qaida, with predominantly Islamic adherents out to sow terror, were the perpetrators using Afghanistan as their base under the protection of the Taliban. Despite the fact that the majority of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, an ally of America, whose despotic princes are personal family friends of the Bush political dynasty, that country was spared.

War on terror
Bush, the 43rd US President, barely needed a pretext to exact revenge. Aside from Afghanistan’s Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a convenient villain; and perhaps to finish what Bush the 41st US President left undone during the “Desert Storm.“ Quickly hammering out the “coalition of the willing,” the US-led multi-national forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus, a reprise of what was once a similar blight on medieval Christian Europe — a modern-day Crusade appeared to bring about the downfall of not only a regime, and the Muslims themselves were convinced, justifiable or not, that it was a war with religious undertones. A clash of civilizations. America had to hype the danger of Iraq possessing nuclear weapons (a hoax we now know). A regime change was set in motion. With the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, America has surrendered the moral high ground.

But let us briefly examine the consequences of 9/11 that killed 3,000 Americans and other nationalities. President Trump admitted that the US has spent almost $7 trillion since. But American leadership never admitted that the death toll within that period was approximately 500,000 to 800,000 souls.

More deadly, the Global War on Terror, the linchpin of Dubya Bush’s foreign policy initiatives of retribution, produced a convoluted mindset in conflict resolution which subsequent American presidents have continued to apply with disastrous results.

Extraordinary rendition
To skirt US laws, suspects are snatched and brought to secret facilities, carried out by the US government as an extrajudicial practice, to be interrogated and tortured. The sites of these interrogations are in third-party countries, not in American soil. This preserves the fiction of American justice and adherence to the rule of law. Some successes resulted in the eventual capture and killing of Osama Bin Ladin — the mastermind of 9/11 and founder of al-Qaida. In all these cases, the much-revered moral concept of the the end justifying the means is reduced to mere petty verbiage.

Global assassination campaign
As an offshoot of these protracted wars and the desire to eliminate the ghost-like leadership of al-Qaida, IS and the insurgency that mushroomed in their aftermath, the use of advanced and sophisticated drone technologies was promoted. “The worst terrorist campaign in the world right now by far is the one that is being orchestrated in Washington — the global assassination campaign,” says Noam Chomsky, the eminent US theoretical linguist, philosopher, social critic and political activist. This has permitted the murder of America’s enemies, sanctioned by government, into an impersonal endeavor, detaching the act of killing and all the moral baggage it carries with it into simple acts of technicalities.

Drone strikes are deadly as the unmanned combat aerial vehicles are employed even in heavily populated civilian areas among whom the terrorist leadership purposely hide. The drone operators are safely snuggled with their video consoles perhaps a thousand kilometers from the targets, thus lessening the number of American lives lost. On the other hand, the collateral damage produced by this type of warfare is substantial. The United Nations Human Rights Council has declared that such strikes may have violated international humanitarian laws as civilian casualties are immensely disproportional to the targeted terrorist lives. According to the same study “…during one five-month period of the operation… nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.”

Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs reports that more than 801,000 people have died as a direct result of the fighting, 335,000 of whom have been civilians. The US is currently conducting counter-terror activities in 76 countries, or about 39 percent of the world’s nations vastly expanding its mission across the globe.

The US Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

It seems to me that after 9/11, American leadership has inexorably plunged the country into state terrorism. Chomsky may have been right after all when he proclaimed that “the United States is the world’s biggest terrorist.”

IN 2017, I came across this fascinating book by Graham Allison, Destined for War, which described the rise of China and its impact on the world, particularly on America’s position as the architect of the international order that has prevailed for seven decades from 1945. Ingrained in this architecture are the basic tenets of Western thought: democracy and the rule of law, free enterprise and global trade — America’s instruments that propelled her to hegemony in the aftermath of World War 2. Intended or not, this role which America assumed for itself brought about an unprecedented era of peace or at least a state of non-war. And this allowed China to reappear in the world stage after an absence of more than 200 years. It may be recalled that ancient China, the Middle Kingdom, was dominant in Asia for thousands of years before it was eclipsed by the West that began during the Age of Discovery in the early 16th century.

Thucydides trap
Allison proposes that the impact of China’s rise will cause

“…discombobulation to the US and the international order.” He cited Thucydides, the Greek historian who first defined the concept of history in his History of the Peloponnesian War 2,500 years ago. In his book, he suggests that, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this installed in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Applying this to the current status of America confronted with the rise of China, Allison conceived the “Thucydides Trap, a dangerous dynamic that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a major ruling power.” In this case China, the rising power, threatens to displace the ruling power, the United States. Will war ensue, as in Athens versus Sparta? Allison suggests that war is likely but not inevitable.

And this is the underpinning theme of this column: to divine on one hand the direction of Philippine foreign policy in the light of President Duterte’s pronouncements about aligning with China (and Russia) “against the world”; and his unilateral decision to set aside the Hague court arbitral ruling, abetting China’s moves in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) jeopardizing ours and other Asian countries’ claim to some islands within. On the other hand, we can’t arbitrarily negate our close and personal ties with America, forged in the crucible of battles and her tutelage for a century. It seems incongruous that upon the assumption of the Deegong to power, he pivoted us to China at the instance when the outgoing Obama pivoted to Asia.

The Philippine dynamic
At this point, Allison’s book becomes relevant to us as the Philippines is now reluctantly complacent in some ways with China’s “usurping,” developing and converting our claimed islands off Palawan and Luzon into Chinese military bases; and adding salt to the wounds, proposing joint commercial resources exploitation of areas like the Recto Bank, which are obviously not within her exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Mindful of Allison’s warning that war comes from three factors, interest (for real), fear (perception of) and honor (feeling pride and respect), the Philippines, linked to China by reason of geography and the US by reason of kinship, may now find herself in an untenable and delicate position, perhaps unwittingly by hurried personal choices of our political leadership, oblivious to the exigencies of history.

To complicate matters, one of the more compelling ideas advanced in the book is that the Thucydides trap “allows external events and actors who otherwise are inconsequential or easily manageable to trigger cascades of consequences that get you to places you don’t wanna go.”

And these cascades of possible consequences are embedded in the Philippine claim to disputed territories, including Panatag (Scarborough Shoal) in Luzon and the bigger Kalayaan Island Group in Palawan. Also called the Spratly Islands, these are within the Philippine EEZ. And these claims are in “suspended animation” pending our leaders seeing their way clear through our muddled foreign policy.

Previous regime’s incompetence
The blunders of President Benigno Aquino 3rd’s administration taunting China by breaking off an impasse and in effect abandoning Panatag to China has been well documented. (“Aquino, del Rosario begged US to use its military in Scarborough crisis,” Rigoberto Tiglao, Manila Times, Aug. 6, 2018). Be that as it may, the converted islands in the West Philippine Sea are now in effect Chinese garrisons engulfing the Philippines as part of China’s forward defense — preparing for maritime conflict. Allison has cautioned us that “Thucydides teaches us [that there]are the structural factors that lay its foundations: conditions in which otherwise manageable events can escalate with unforeseeable severity and produce unimaginable consequences.”

Some of the “unimaginable consequences” were almost triggered by the unthinking President Aquino, and the bungling of his foreign affairs secretary, del Rosario; then running off to America to invoke the PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty. This was an inane and dangerous move, exactly one of the trigger points pointed out in the Thucydides Trap.

The onus has now been passed on to the Deegong. And his ability to appreciate his role will be tested. He is what is described by Allison as the “actor on top of external events, otherwise inconsequential, who could trigger cascades of consequences we don’t want to go to”; in this case, a shooting war between two giants and a nuclear holocaust in its wake. The imperatives therefore would shift to the President’s organic team. Are they armed with enough sophistication and skill in statecraft and international negotiations? So far, what has emanated from Malacañang is the President’s propensity to regard negotiations as a zero-sum game. As I intimated in my past columns, “…the President is unable to or refuses to see options other than that which a butangero in the streets is inured to, reducing the alternatives into a fistfight or flight.

Are China and US destined for war?
Back to the overarching theme of this column. Are China and the United States destined for war? Yes and no! Yes! If we are not mindful of Santayana’s dictum and history’s follies. And the historical odds are bad. Of the 16 cases of Thucydides Trap, 12 resulted in war.

No! If China and US will sidestep the Thucydides trap, internalizing the “…consequential question about our world today. Are we going to follow in the footsteps of history or can we through a combination of imagination and common sense and courage find a way to manage this rivalry without a war nobody wants everybody knows would be catastrophic?”

Perhaps America needs to understand too that China now is compelled to write its own narrative. For about 3,000 years it was dominant in Asia except for the 200 years that the West imperialized and exploited her. She may simply want to reclaim her status quo ante.

And for the Philippines’ role, a caution: “…few of these (16) wars were initiated by either the rising or ruling power but a third party’s provocation forces the one or the other to react and that sets in motion a spiral which drags the two somewhere they don’t wanna go.”

When elephants dance, the ant should give way!

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives intends to approve its proposed Charter change amendments, including the lifting of term limits and shift to federalism, in the next three months.

“By Dec. 11, we will approve the proposed amendments in our committee. Plenary approval is slated in January. By February, the approved changes will already be with the Senate,” Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, who chairs the committee on constitutional amendments, said yesterday.

Administration officials have said federalism is no longer a priority of Duterte.

Rodriguez, however, said based on public consultations his committee has conducted in Luzon and Mindanao, there is overwhelming support for at least four major amendments.

“Participants are for lifting restrictions on foreign investments to increase more employment in our country, and they are for shifting the nation to the federal-presidential system to develop the countryside,” he said.

Rodriguez noted that the proposed shift was a 2016 election campaign promise of President Duterte.

“The President and his congressional allies can still fulfill that promise,” he said.

He said there is also popular support for lengthening the term of office of local officials and their representatives in Congress from three years to five years “to give them more time to finish their programs and projects for their constituents, and for the election of senators by region to ensure regional representation in the Senate.”

He said the present two-chamber Congress would be retained in the envisioned federal-presidential system that would replace the present “unitary and centralized” setup.

Rodriguez pointed out that lawmakers have enough time to introduce changes in the Constitution during the remaining two-and-a-half years of the Duterte administration.

THIS column concludes a three-part series on the creation of a populist welfare state as the precursor of the downfall of empires and governments. Rome is a case in point in the first half of the 1st century A.D. and Argentina from 1930 onward. Their experiences will be briefly narrated in the hope that our country’s own political and economic leadership will mull over the antecedents surrounding the circumstances that brought about their societal decay. This columnist will not attempt to provide our leadership a menu of solutions as the political-economic realities in the Philippines are as much complicated as the other two. But surely, our leadership, whose patriotism may not be questioned, can extract lessons to be learned from the fall of Rome and the decadence of contemporary Argentina; and perhaps save our country from a similar fate.

Rome as a sample is logical in that the empire had so influenced the West in its concepts which are dominant but waning, among them, the ideas of democracy and the rule of law handed down from Greece but honed at the Senatus Romani; and freedom and individual liberties, notions so ingrained and cherished by America that they propelled its drive for hegemony in the earlier part of the last century.

Argentine connection
Why Argentina? Because this country has intrigued me since I was privileged to be invited as a consultant to Industrias Metalurgica Pescarmona (Impsa) by its Harvard-trained principal, Francisco Ruben Valenti, who from the mid-1990s has been a close friend, a confidant, a confrère who provided me excellent and valuable insights into this beautiful yet complicated country’s history, it’s culture, the nuances of its politics and its contradictions.

Argentina’s trajectory leading towards its apex was the successful results of the application of “…consistent liberal economic policies starting from 1880 and to the opening of its borders to a wave of European immigrants” (“Argentina — an enigma,” The Manila Times, Nov.13, 2019). By 1910, Argentina was at the top of the world boasting of its honorific as “Granero del mundo,” capable of feeding many countries. But from that dominant position as the leading “European City” in Latin America, the policies introduced by subsequent populist administrations were pushing the country toward a welfare state, its economic-political and cultural flight plan plateaued circa 1930s, eventually hurling the country down looking at the gaping abyss of economic oblivion. The demands for entitlements were aggravated during the reign of the charismatic couple, Juan and Evita Peron, which personified the essence of “Peronismo,” an ideology that was masses-bred and -directed but evolved away from its roots. Its popularity driven by the ghost of its past is so compelling that even subsequent Argentinian presidents must claim the badge of a Peronista simply to entice the millions of the poor for their votes.

Argentina’s recent past
Transiting to the recent past, President Carlos Menem in the 1990s at first tried to correct the iniquities, from taming runaway inflation to disciplining the government’s parastatals. But the corruption in his administration and the persistent loss of jobs intensified the economic hemorrhage. With his term running out, the undisciplined populist compromises Menem crafted kicked in, jeopardizing his ambition for an unprecedented third term. He did not get it but in the process, Argentina’s fate was imperiled.

Argentina was in a mess, its international reputation in tatters and the bond market gave its harsh verdict, pricing their bonds at $0.30 to $1. This, even before the international financial collapse.

Argentina did not learn from its mistakes. Still continuing its welfare state-propelled social agenda, modest subsidies on monthly salaries were granted — for survival. An emergency measure at best, this was extended and become permanent during the 12-year conjugal authoritarian-nepotism of President Nestor Kirchner and later his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (currently vice president). President Mauricio Macri, a liberal turned socialist, has abetted this vicious cycle.

Trying to stem the tide
Perhaps Macri’s initiative for changes may be honorable but the populist dreams and mindset for government entitlements are so ingrained as to demand immediate satisfaction now — and let the future generation fend for itself. And the leadership, including the opposition, are totally clueless as to how to balance the voters’ demands of today as against the exigencies of tomorrow.

These series of failed policies towards sustaining a welfare state and irresponsible direct subsidies toward its citizens will result in a complicated set of generational problems. As translated from Spanish “…the present crop of youth that has not witnessed and appreciated the values of hard work and diligence of their ancestors will produce the next generations, ignorant of the value of work ethics.”

Thus, Argentina’s recent past policy choices have endangered its youth today. They are fertile grounds for drugs — which is prevalent in Latin America; witness Columbia in the time of Escobar and the drug cartels in Sinaloa, Mexico. A dealer in a barrio makes more money than a worker but destroys his life and the lives of others.

Many of the frantically concerned citizens in Argentina may have the seeds of a solution — only if government, which is now seemingly detached from its people, will listen. Among the many immediate ones they propose are the reiteration of down-to-earth proposals harking back to their successful past from 1880 to circa 1925.

In lieu of direct subsidies, the private sector is ready to help government create massive jobs with investments from investors abroad, but only if corruption in government is eradicated or minimized and the bureaucracy is trimmed. For its part, the local investors having been ravaged by the economy in the recent past, may have to compromise to work with government on new politico-economic initiatives.

Special attention should be given to the banks and financial institutions by restructuring and refocusing operations to serve the interest and welfare of business and local entrepreneurs — especially in the agricultural sector, producing goods and services rather than redirecting capital to speculative markets.

A jobs-creation program is a must to cover an ample spectrum ranging from low to higher skills in order to provide ascendant mobility. The vast natural resources of the country could be developed to exploit its competitive advantage (only a population of 44 million in an area almost two-thirds the size of the US).

Hope and deliverance
Could this be achieved? Argentina may have to recapture the spirit of its salad days during President Domingo Sarmiento’s regime when free education was imposed, resulting in the best educational system in Latin America, producing five Nobel Laureates and catapulting Argentina among the best economies in the world. The seeds of Argentina’s resurgence are there. With one caveat. The political leadership and the private sector, particularly the banks and financial institutions, must begin to look inward into themselves and germinate that which is drastically needed today: Argentina and her people’s common good must prevail.

Our Philippine leadership could look at as an exemplar of what not to do after its heyday in the 1910-1930s, from whence it nosedived when the welfare state was put in place. Filipinas is at this crossroad. Where do we go from here?

I HAVE been to some Latin American countries since the 1980s and have found a certain affinity with their people. It is perhaps because we were all once colonies of Spain: Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Argentina. The Spanish language was the glue tying these countries together — except Brazil, a colony of Portugal — but still imbued with the Latin temperament — which at best is an accepted but nebulous concept nevertheless.

My previous trips to Argentina were all work-related. But my umpteenth trip — this time with my wife Sylvia, her first — was purely for pleasure, renewing ties with good and true friends of almost three decades. I am seeing the country therefore in a more intimate light, overwhelmed by its vastness, the richness of its culture, the range of its climate, from the tropical north to the arid and temperate middle to the cold south polar regions and, more importantly, the resilience and contradictions of its people. It is said among the Argentinians that “when God created the world, he made Argentina what it is, vast, beautiful, resource-rich and diverse. Others were envious, upon which God to appease those resentful ones decided to populate it with an appropriate race — Argentinians.” Perhaps to level the playing field with His other creations.

Freedom from Spain
Argentina was a colony of Spain for 294 years from 1516, ending with the revolution of May of 1810, and eventual declaration of independence on July 9, 1816. The Federal Republic of Argentina was formed 45 years later. It has come out from under Spain’s skirts to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Being exempted from the ravages of the First and Second World Wars, the new republic thrived and, beginning circa 1910, became known not only as a European city in Latin America but behaved like one.

The rise of Argentina as a world economy was propelled by consistent liberal economic policies starting from 1880 and to the opening of its borders to a wave of European immigrants, this fresh blood catapulting the economy to new economic heights. Infrastructure was developed, railroads and subways were built, and public parks, museums and amphitheaters were established — all these are still evident today. Its growth, by current standards was phenomenal and, by 1908, it ranked seventh among the wealthiest developed nations, after Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Belgium.

Cultural flowering
It was during this period, too, that a cultural flowering occurred, nurtured by a then-radical concept of a public, free and compulsory secular education, prompting an increase in literacy rates and influencing other Latin American countries. This was perhaps the golden age of Argentina. For one, the emergence of the passionate yet erotic tango came into the scene, with the poetry and songs of Carlos Gardel accompanied by the eerie cries and lamentations of Anibal Troilo and Astor Piazzolla’s bandoneon. The charming complexity of the tango defined Argentina’s character.

In Buenos Aires, the capital, one can see traces of Paris, London and Rome in its architecture. Their main boulevard, Nueve de Julio could be compared to the Champs-Élysées of Paris, a broad avenue with shops on both sides with its own equivalent to the Arc de Triomphe or the La Place de l’Étoile. The Obelisk of Buenos Aires was erected at the Plaza de la Republica in 1936, commemorating the 400 years of the city’s first foundation.

Decline
But all good things must end, it seems. As in a similar piece I wrote on this column last week on the decline of the Roman Empire, its actual rise was nebulous, but its end certain. Argentina’s ascent in Latin America and among the world’s first economies could not be sustained, and this trend from the 1880 was reversed, beginning in the late 1920s. The seeds of populism began to germinate and at a time when the Great Depression was coming to a head, Argentina’s government accelerated its march towards a populist-propelled welfare state. Government enacted social and economic reforms extending assistance and subsidies to small farmers and businesses — policies the government could ill-afford.

A series of coups d’état by the military divided the nation, precipitating an economic and social decline that put the country virtually back to square one —this while the world was wracked by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

At this point, a charismatic leader emerged — Juan Domingo Peron, a former minister of welfare who was popular with the workers and the poor. With his equally popular wife, the enigmatic Evita, the tandem embarked on the creation of a political movement that would serve the interests of this motley clientele. As in the beginning of any welfare state, government policies are directed toward the immediate gratification of populist demands — not minding the cost — postponing the inevitable consequences of political acts. Thus, wages and working conditions were improved, nationalizing and putting under control strategic industries and services by Peron’s cronies, the better to control the dispensing of government largesse. Standing by Peron’s side, Evita persuaded Congress to give the vote to the womenfolk and was extremely generous with government funds for the poor and needy. She was projected as an angel to the downtrodden and he could do no wrong. But she died early of cancer, and he did things wrong indeed.

He was eventually ousted, but his and Evita’s concern for the poor, however questionable, metamorphosed into a ghost that propelled the growth of the Peronistas, a populist movement. But the poor were not the exclusive domain of the Peronistas. There were other claimants vying for political power that eventually drove the right-wing dictatorship to employ state terrorism now labeled as the “Guerra Sucia,” or the Dirty War. An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 left-wing activists and militants, students, trade unionists and Peronistas were killed.

This was part of the military-led National Reorganization Process (Proceso), a euphemism for succeeding juntas that further condemned the economy to stagnation. The last military dictator, Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri blundered into invading the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) simply to divert the Argentinians from the economic crisis and regain his waning popularity. The British crushed the invasion. Argentina surrendered. Rioting in Buenos Aires ensued, the military was humiliated and Galtieri resigned.

Argentina, purported to be a federal republic with independent and autonomous states, was always run as a unitary government with powers controlled from the center — Buenos Aires. Perhaps this is the root problem of the country — the traditional politicians have captured the tools and institutions of the state and have gone rogue. Corruption in the highest levels of government flourished.

The subsequent economic blunders by President Carlos Menem pegging the Argentinian peso to one-on-one with the American dollar was political hubris. Today, hawkers at the pedestrian Florida street in Buenos Aires will exchange your $1 for P62; and interest rates charged by banks to businesses could reach 70 percent annually. You could, of course, invest in the money market at 54 percent per annum return. But would you?

And if this is not resolved, Argentina will continue in its slide. And, I’m afraid — Argentinians will cry for Argentina.

“Then I fall to my knees, shake a rattle at the skies and I’m afraid that I’ll be taken, abandoned, forsaken in her cold coffee eyes.” – A quote from the song, “She moves on” by Paul Simon, singer/songwriter

THE recent tremors affecting the central provinces of Mindanao caused by a series of seismic waves radiating to the northern and southern parts of the island, were like nature shaking a rattle, emitting sharp sounds and unnerving motions from the underground, both frightening and bewildering as to the intensity and confusion they generated.

The successive earthquakes and aftershocks were rattling the nerves not only of residents close to the epicenter but also those living along the active fault planes who were not used to strong earth movements. Some reported dizziness, anxiety, depression and other post-traumatic stress symptoms after experiencing continuous shaking and periodic vibrations.

As this article was written, less frequent but perceptible tremors were felt on the affected areas although everyone is reportedly bracing for aftershocks which many hope and pray, would not turn out to be the dreaded “big one,” as some irresponsible persons are falsely posting on social media. Shake a rattle drum to this latter blokes.

According to Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), since the 1900s, Mindanao has been rocked by at least 35 earthquakes, three of which, felt at “Intensity 7” or worse, were deemed destructive: the 1976 Moro Gulf earthquake which caused a tsunami reaching up to nine meters that killed about 8,000 people including the unaccounted ones; the 1999 series of earthquakes in Agusan del Sur damaging roads, and poorly constructed schools and infrastructure; and the Sultan Kudarat earthquake in 2002, killing eight people with 41 others injured and affecting over seven thousand families in the provinces of Sarangani, North and South Cotabato (Rappler 2019). Shake a rattle of prayers for all who perished in these tragedies.

The series of earthquakes in October of this year, just weeks apart, with magnitudes of over 6 hitting many provinces, again, in Cotabato and southern parts of Davao accounted for the death toll of 22, damaging homes, school buildings and many infrastructure, shaking and sending chills to many residents who have to deal with continuing albeit smaller tremors which can be felt as far up the city of Cagayan de Oro and down the southern province of Sarangani.

Some local officials reported residents having developed “earthquake phobia” keeping watch on their clock hanging inside their tents in evacuation sites, losing sleep with anxiety awaiting when the next tremor would be coming. With frayed nerves, some would panic over even slight ground shakings.

But this is not about the temblor as much as the response of people and the country’s leaders and responsible officials. Except for the government of China which donated P22 million in aid and support for relief efforts in Mindanao, hurray for China, other foreign countries just expressed condolences and messages of sympathy to families of victims. No pledges, no assistance. Perhaps, they can’t trust our government agencies to do the job for them anymore. To them, a shake of the baby rattle.

To the initial bunch of donors who immediately come with their financial assistance such as Yorme Isko Moreno of Manila with his P5 million personal money, Mayor Vico Sotto with relief goods and P14 million coming from the people of Pasig City, Mayor Marcy Teodoro of Marikina with 100 modular tents, movie star Angel Locsin who moved about sans fanfare for her charity work offering food and other assistance to victims in Davao and North Cotabato, to Mayor Inday Duterte for relief distribution, Cebu provincial government for disaster relief campaign and to the many nameless others who came with their relief aids, shake a rattle of joy and thankfulness for their kindness and generosity.

To our government officials and politicians goes our appeal to set aside politics, distribute the relief items according to the wishes of their donors and not allow goods to rot because of political colors as was shown in the previous administration’s handling of donated goods. To them, shake a rattle of enlightenment and peace.

In whatever disaster or crisis that befalls the country, trust Filipinos’ resiliency and coping mechanisms such as resorting to prayers and humor to come to their succor.

Social media become a natural venue for memes, practical jokes and bantering such as the ones which came after Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy reportedly claimed that he caused to stop the earthquakes so they can no longer create damage. To everyone, shake a rattle of laughter and fun while we help provide for the needs of our less fortunate brethren in Cotabato and Davao provinces.

HISTORICALLY the rise and fall of empire is measured in millennia. The former is often imperceptible, while the latter could be abrupt, immediate and deadly. Such was the fate of the Roman Empire. Its rise is covered in the mists of time and suffused with myth, making it almost impossible to separate the chaff from the grain. Legend has it that the brothers Romulus and Remus founded Rome. They were the offspring of gods and a mortal. Because of some prophecy that the twins would cause the downfall of a family member, they were abandoned at birth on the Tiber River. Rescued and suckled by a she-wolf, the twins were later adopted by a shepherd. The prophecy of course came to pass. Both eventually founded Rome. In a bizarre twist, Romulus killed Remus, thus the birth of the Roman Empire midwifed in blood augured its downfall.

Final sacking of Rome
Rome’s destruction has been accurately pinpointed in 467 AD, when the last Roman Emperor, ironically named Romulus, was deposed by a Germanic chieftain Odoacer, who subsequently sacked Rome and became its first barbarian ruler. This was simply the culmination and the exclamation mark of the city’s end. The classical causes of an empire’s demise are often attributed to invasion by other empires out to expand their influence while extracting the victim’s resources, or conquest by hordes of “barbarian tribes” — Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, etc.

But the fall of Rome as an empire began imperceptibly several centuries earlier as the seeds of its destruction were planted, in episodes either as uneventful ones or distinct milestones, which germinated pushing Rome inexorably towards its decay and death. It is said that Rome did not simply fall. “It committed moral and economic suicide. Romans first lost their character. Then, as a consequence, they lost their liberties — and ultimately their civilization.” (“We Are Rome” by Lawrence W. Reed, director, Foundation for Economic Education.)

This column is an attempt to extract lessons from Rome’s internal decay and lay it against contemporary events, the better to understand with clarity the forces arrayed against us, mindful of Santayana’s dictum about faulty memories. Despite Santayana, we never learn, perforce we are condemned to repeat history’s follies. And the sceptics’ definition prevails, that history’s essence is simply its repetitive character, just like a broken vinyl record.

We will draw heavily from Reed’s thesis laid down in his excellent essay on Rome’s decay that started when it lost its soul as a republic with its attendant belief in personal responsibility. In short, the economic components are closely intertwined with concepts of freedom and liberty. You lose one, you lose all. In the span of a thousand years, roughly the first 500 years, Rome as a republic emerged as the center of the known world then. Romans regarded themselves as their chief source of personal income and livelihood, which they could acquire voluntarily in the interplay of the marketplace, the precursor of the modern concept of free enterprise.

This propelled Rome’s economic ascendancy and subsequent military dominance establishing its might in the known “Western” world, outside of which was the domain of the barbarians.

Rome as a welfare state
Reed proposes that Rome’s initial decline began when the people discovered another source of income, the political process — the state. Over the next five centuries, self-responsibility and self-reliance began to erode. Romans voted themselves benefits to use the state to extract from other people’s pockets to “…rob Peter to pay Paul.” Thus, the concept of the welfare state came into being, defined then as the “legalized plunder of the Roman State sanctioned by people who wished to do good.” This populist notion pervaded Roman life, and even its judicious and more circumspect citizens who opposed a welfare state, still clinging to the old Roman virtues of work, thrift and self-reliance, “began to drink at the public trough” as it were, with the justification that if “they didn’t get it, somebody else would.”

The second half of Pax Romana paradoxically ushered in political factions trying to control the state apparatus and access to public loot leading to corruption. The ever-expanding demand of the populace for free benefits laid a heavy burden on the taxing powers of the state. Private enterprises were squeezed dry by burdensome regulations and high taxes, driving many to bankruptcy and outright takeover by the state. The state had to resort to this to seek new sources of income — creating new money. The minting of the Roman denarius debased its coinage from 94-percent silver content to eventually .02-percent silver by 268 AD, rendering money practically worthless.

This inflationary scheme of flooding the economy with cheap money, fueled by populist demands, resulted in the state running huge deficits, high prices, savings erosion and political turmoil. The markets subsequently collapsed as goods and services were no longer fairly priced. From then on, the empire’s downfall was guaranteed.

Although Reed’s article was meant as a warning to America in its profligate ways mirroring Rome towards its decay, it is well worth noting that the Philippines too could extract lessons from the causes that impelled Rome’s disintegration. Not that our country has delusions of empire building, despite Duterte’s invitation to China and Russia for a “triumvirate against the world.” But, like America, we are in some ways mimicking Rome’s lead in her early centuries of development. For one, being the first colony of America, we were her guinea pig practicing its tentative first attempt at hegemony and empire building, bequeathing to us a government, which was a perverted version of her own. America’s mistakes are replicated in ours. The lessons from the two empires, Rome’s and America’s are thus relevant to us.

History’s stubborn lessons
Reed offers what he calls “three most stubborn lessons”: 1) No people who lost their character kept their liberties; 2) power that is shackled and dispersed is preferable to power that is unrestrained and centralized; and 3) the here and now is rarely as important as tomorrow — plan accordingly.

The second one is a timely reminder, especially in our march towards the dispersal of political power towards the periphery in President Duterte’s aborted march toward federalism. The third lesson could be self-evident and a reiteration of what we already know, but not practiced. But none is as important and as critical as the first one.

Liberty, a universal idea, is equated with concepts of “rule of law, respect for and protection of the lives, property rights and contracts of others.” Reed’s caveat is that this is the only “social arrangement that requires character.”

And what is important is character! Rome’s decay and ultimate downfall could be traced to its erosion and loss. When self-responsibility, self-discipline and self-reliance went down the drain, so did Rome.

And for the Deegong, my two cents worth: The absence of character produces, chaos and tyranny; its presence makes liberty possible.

And his survival, too!