|
What’s at Stake in the President’s Anti-Corruption Crusade? |
|
|
|
by Herbert Docena*
No other President in recent memory has played the anti-corruption card as successfully as President Noynoy Aquino; his first SONA indicates that he will continue to do so during his presidency. This card—what we can call the “corruption discourse”—has been nicely captured in his slogan, “Kung Walang Korup, Walang Mahirap.” Its message is seductively simple without being necessarily deceptive: Round up all the corrupt officials and the problem of poverty will be solved. In the hands of a President who is perceived to be the “cleanest” of all presidents since Marcos, and whose immediate successor is seen as the most corrupt since Marcos, this discourse may yet become even more potent and resonant.
But why, in fact, is this discourse so powerful? And why is the President so keen on it?
|
|
Read more >>>
|
|
|
New Economics for a New Administration |
|
|
|
by Walden Bello*
The dominant feature of the Arroyo
administration was pervasive corruption, but its most destructive legacy
in the long term will probably be its policy failures. The ascent to
power of a new president, backed by a new Congress, provides the
opportunity for a fundamental shift in policy in order to end poverty
and re-launch the Philippines on the road to development.
The
policy paradigm of the administration was one it inherited from previous
administrations. This was a pro-market, neoliberal approach the key
prongs of which were accelerated trade and financial liberalization,
deregulation, and privatization. In addition, Arroyo continued her
predecessors’ policy of fully servicing the foreign debt, dealt with the
ever-widening budget deficit by imposing a 12 per cent value-added tax
that hit mainly the middle class and the poor, and left it to the market
to address poverty and income inequality.
|
|
Read more >>>
|
|
|
Agrarian Reform Agenda: Uncertain under P-Noy’s Administration? |
|
|
|
by Carmina Flores-Obanil and Mary Ann Manahan
“No, we’re not going to. I think it would be irresponsible because I feel that continuing what we have here is the way to go. Sugar farming has to be; it’s the kind of business that has to be done plantation-style.”
- Fernando Cojuangco (when asked about Hacienda Luisita’s distribution),
- New York Times interview, March 14, 2010
“Kinausap ko yung pamilya ko, ang habol namin yung kapakanan ng aming mga kasamahan po dun at ilipat yung mga asset sa kanila. Ang problema lang po kung paano ililipat ng wala na pong utang dun sa mga aming kasamahan dun.” (I have already talked to my relatives, we are concerned about the welfare of the farmers there and we want to transfer the assets to the farmers. The only problem is how we will transfer the assets without passing on the debts that have been incurred.)
- President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, 9 February 2010
|
|
Read more >>>
|
|
|
The Limits of Illiberal Colonialism |
|
|
|
By Herbert Docena
The following are excerpts from Mr. Docena’s essay “GMA and Moro self-determination:
The limits of illiberal colonialism” in the book “Project 2010: Confronting the Legacy of the GMA Regime” recently published by Focus on the Global South. The selection is being included in the July issue of the FOP newsletter because it discusses a concern that will be critical to the new administration’s efforts to achieve long lasting, genuine change and needless to say to the future of the people in Mindanao as well as of the whole country’s.
Few, of course, now use this word, “colonialism,” to describe what’s happening in Mindanao. Many have shirked from using the term, resorting instead to such seemingly innocuous, supposedly more neutral terms like “conflict,” “problem” or “question”—as in the “Moro problem” or the “Moro question.” They say the word “colonialism” implies a value-judgment, as though the decision not to use it—and therefore to deny the specific kind of relationship that it aims to describe—were somehow not an exercise of value-judgment.
|
|
Read more >>>
|
|
|
Confronting Education Woes: Less Politics, More Resource Management Favoring the Poor |
|
|
|
by Clarissa V. Militante
Like a popular telenovela, the first State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Noynoy Aquino on July 26 is very much anticipated and has created a lot of expectation. But these expectations could also be the result of the inaugural speech which, though it underscored important challenges that the new government promised to prioritize, had been found wanting in specific policy articulations. Education is one area where the much needed policy reform is awaited—is, in fact, long overdue.
In Central Mindanao, it is common for elementary schools to have only two to three classrooms. The norm is for two classes to share one classroom at a time to accommodate all students and class schedules. Two teachers simultaneously conduct a class for two different grade levels, with a hundred students cramped together in a 20 square meter-room.
|
|
Read more >>>
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|
| Results 1 - 9 of 129 |
Newsletter