The New Conflict

Shall we be afraid of a monster that is China?

China's behavior has gotten uglier. Its recent collision with Vietnam over the construction of an oil rig in the Paracels, and its arbitrary building of an airstrip in the Philippine Spratlys, infuriate. The anti-Chinese rage in Vietnam this month is a consequence of this behavior. At the very least, the actions against the interests of our country and Vietnam are provocative and abet rising tension in the region. 

For the first time, the two countries are experiencing muscling and aggression with tinges of violence, like being hosed with water cannons and rammed by Chinese ships. The strong-arm display in the South China Sea paints a different China today. Contrary to the post-national-liberation communist leadership in the 1950s that shunned pretensions to geopolitical hegemony in the region, the leadership that the ASEAN members confront in China today is one that is heady with superpower complex. It no longer minds disrespecting and hurting neighbors in the ambition to expand borders to theirs.

In fact, the China that we see now has gone not only to bully but belittle countries opting to defend territorial sovereignty from its incursion. More infuriatingly, its unfree press has gone to calling these countries rats, and urging Beijing to make them "pay a price they cannot afford." Does China believe now it can afford the economic, political and  military price of ramming spurious claims on waters that do not belong to it? Does it think it can just get on with disrespecting or trouncing others' sovereignty? Does it feel so unbeatable now to just do what it wants to do?

The Chinese foreign ministry lately raised the temper of the grab-territories rhetoric by saying the government in Beijing has "undisputed sovereignty" over those contested waters. The new legal tact is of course as deceiving as the so-called historical basis to the fictitious nine-dash line. China has no undisputed sovereignty to the exclusive economic zones and continental shelves of the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan. Its specious claim over them is not only being disputed but resisted. The Philippine government, for itself, has filed an unprecedented case against the claim at the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). There are tons of evidence and unassailable legal arguments to back this.

The recent violent demonstrations by the Vietnamese citizens condemning China's oil drill in the Paracels debunk the phrase "undisputed sovereignty" as nothing but a hoax. The burning of foreign symbols signal more than disputedness. It is an assertion pregnant with the readiness to put lives on the line. Indeed, if the conflict between China and the countries of Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines turns into an armed confrontation Beijing's powerful clique of top bureaucrats, military generals and business billionaires may be hard put to convince their citizens how a group of tide-washed rocks and coral outcrops along foreign shores several hundreds of miles away had become a cause to go to war.

Yes, China today is no longer the sleeping giant that the western powers in the 19th and early 20th century partitioned into enclaves of foreign authority and wealth. It is no longer the fledgling nation post-1949, buffeted by agricultural famines, one economic debacle after another, and a state of inertia. It has risen to become an industrial and financial behemoth, that now stands to rival the largest economy in the world, the United States. Its powerful economic tentacles grip the globe from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, South Asia and even America which has more than five trillion dollars of indebtedness to it. Even in our country, it has interests in strategic utilities, and has a business presence almost everywhere all over the archipelago.

Translated to hegemonic ambitions, all these take on a monstrous apparition shadowing small countries like the Philippines and Vietnam. But is the threat of China grabbing territorial waters something to strike fear and trembling among those threatened? It had gotten to have so much stake in our economy, for example, from investments in vital industries to the flooding of cheap consumer goods in the market that withdrawing all of them can have the effect of removing pillars to a house. Will we fall if China becomes an enemy instead of an economic partner? Won't we survive without it? There is also the military might to reckon with. China's industrial and financial rise has pulled along the rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army to standards that pose to level off with the US and western powers in the next decade. Its superpower status may be said to be a forgone conclusion a few years from now. Is it then the equivalent of the cinematic Godzilla for countries in the region to cower from at the thought of being trampled upon?

The answers to all are nay. At the back of its aggressive posturings is a China that cannot afford to make enemies with the world. It depends as much on its economic interests in our country for instance as we do on them. We can afford to bite the bullet and not have them anyway, as we have been used to - that is not having any of those mainland Chinese investments, in the past. But China's runaway growth and state of bigness today may not do well losing them. Countries like us are the wall that China like Humpty Dumpty sits on. Once the wall moves and offsets its balance, the overly fat character is bound to have a great fall, and no top bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party, military generals and billionaire businessmen can ever put it together again. This is to say that China has greater stake on not disturbing the status quo than shuffling the current world order.

But why the kind of aggressiveness that it has never displayed before? Recent sorties into its neighbors' seas show a country frantic to lay hands on resources that do not belong to it. The bullying and abrasive talk do not exhibit strength. They exhibit a weakness more profound than anybody could see. China did not do this even in the direst of times in the past. Why is it now brazenly doing things that soil its status in the international community, even as they court the ire of neighbors? Beneath is fear. China's display of offensive actuation in relation to them is one of a mythical god facing the specter of mortality. It is one already far from the China of old that did not need so much to live, much so grab other people's possession.

After the red army ousted the forces of Chiang kai shek from the mainland in 1949, China at once faced tough challenges to its existence as a communist-led state. The United Nations led by America shut it out. The so-called Free World of countries aligned with the west isolated it. US-orchestrated military alliances looked for every opportunity to wipe it from the face of the earth. But it was a China that stood strong, proud, defiant and united. It was a China that inspired peoples throughout the world to struggle against oppressive ruling classes and their foreign sponsors. It gave imperialism, the new era of western colonialism, a prick in the ass. It was a friend and dependable ally of the small and oppressed. Its historic people's war against imperialism, over the first half of the 20th century was held as a guiding light by similar revolutionary struggles in other societies. Seen as threat, the western powers led by the United States exerted all might to crush it. They could only lash at it, not break it.

But such a China, inspiration and ally of people's liberation  movements in the third world, is no more. In its stead has slithered a new China of self-enriching Communist Party bureaucrats, military generals acting like feudal lords, and empiric business proprietors who would enter the world's tiny circle of one percent superrich. It is a country that is seeing the gap between the vast masses of the people and the obscenely wealthy top layer of society growing wider and wider. It is a China that is steering farther away from the promise of socialist equality under the pro-people ideological leadership of its revolutionary years. Power and possession of wealth at the apex of state and society is already monopolistic. Meanwhile, its base of more than one billion population fray on the sharp edge of poverty, powerlessness and alienation.

Thirty years since the advent of the Deng Xiiaoping economic formula, the merry party is winding over. The capitalist road is sliding towards the fate others have come to, such as the' Great Depression in America in the 1930s. As wealth becomes more and more concentrated in a few and all businesses monopolized by bank-industry fusions of the financial oligarchy, the same acute ills of the moribund western capitalist societies set in: money that is becoming nothing but worthless paper, floods of goods not being bought anymore by the marginalized masses simply because their minuscule purchasing power cannot afford them, and a runaway growth with no limit to the voracious need for energy. Society is awash with goods. But teeming millions of people remain dirt poor. Never before has so much wealth been created. But trillions of dollars in the hands of a few stand to lose value with the prospect of having nothing to spend on anymore. Unprecedented hugeness in the capacity for production poses to stand idle, because the big company owners face the prospect of not getting any further profit with factories continuing to run. And so, retrenchments and shutdowns become the order of the day. More massive numbers become unemployed, and the idle labor force bloats further to explosive proportion.

China is contracting the above deadly capitalist depression-syndrome of the west. The flexing and trashing of political-military muscle in the Paracels and the West Philippine Sea is part of this. It manifests the pallor of fright at the specter of end times. China is no longer the strong nation that needed least, but other societies needed. It must have greater markets in other climes to dump goods. It must have bottomless wells of energy supply to fuel ever expanding productive capacity. It must have all the monetary reserves it can extract from financing bankrupt businesses and governments to continue to be relevant. In short, it is a new China that is direly in need of continual infusions of resources into its economic bloodstream in order to survive. It is a China nearing the trip to the intensive care unit that America and Europe have gone to since 2008.

The great Chairman Mao Zedong has admonished not to fear the imperialists for all their awesome military might and display of political-economic prowess. He said, "dare to struggle and dare to win," for the oppressors of the world are nothing but paper tigers. Out there in a tiny spot of the West Philippine Sea called the Ayungin Shoal, a squad of Philippine marines living on hard conditions of existence aboard a dilapidated navy ship that has been grounded for years, does so for the country. Dare to struggle and dare to win, for the fearsome monster that is China today is nothing but a paper tiger.

As confrontations in the Spratlys become more frequent and escalate in intensity, it helps to be reminded that what we are facing is not a country, but an elite power clique at the helm of the society that China has now become. It is not the Chinese people that we face, but opposite them, a vulnerable creature expected to toss in the gigantic ebbs and flows of the turbulent political and economic waters their capitalist route is coming to. The Philippines is on the right track to opt to resolve its dispute with China by a rules-based approach of international arbitration and multilateral diplomatic alliance building. But when the water cannons are replaced with live ammunition, we should not be seen as only up to words.

Let us also be prepared for the ultimate conflict. Can a small country like us stand up to an emerging superpower like China? I think the right question is, shall we or shall we not? That is, dare to struggle and dare to win. Take it from their fathers themselves.

A time to cut the speeches

From campus activism to a stint at peasant organizing and brief warfare in the hills (which we called then CS), to the feet-punishing marches in the streets of Metro Manila especially after the assassination of former Senator Benigno Aquino at the MIA tarmac in 1983, my journey wound up at the 12-lane highway that separated the two major apparatuses of military violence and instruments of political repression by the Ferdinand Marcos regime, Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame.

That was February 23, circa 1986. With a handful of kasama (comrades) from the transport sector, which I joined in organizing lately, I strove to satisfy curiosity by meeting the crowd at EDSA.

We saw the burgeoning affair there as just a military putsch by adventurist junior officers of the Armed Forces. When the preempted coup was starting to boomerang on the plotters, they would be saved from the deadly wrath of their former boss by a religious call from Cardinal Sin, and offered warm bodies for shield by numbers from the burgisya or middle class which would be romanticized to find also names from the wealthy elite coming to link arms. It was not trying to overthrow the dictator, much more change the prevailing social order. It was just trying to save the asses of the military mutineers from being incinerated by the howitzers of General Fabian Ver, and referee the emerging fight so that blood will not flow.

But as it did, the Edsa mass-up delivered a death blow to the savage reign of Marcos, paralyzed his capacity to repress (his soldiers could not have it in their conscience to shoot at the crowds and kill thousands), and sent his monolithic military machine unraveling. The guns of the major commands instead of firing fizzled, and the officers and rank-and-file personnel left their battle positions. The historical twist was totally unexpected and unplanned. Even the gathering of millions in an instant demonstration of resolve to defy the strongman was spontaneous. It was unimaginable.

Brought in as usual paraphernalia at first blush, our red banners and streamers were met with unwelcoming stares. So we got there stripped of any political-ideological allusion. We lost our hard-core thoughts and hard-line revolutionary theory in the crowd. For once, we were just citizens of the country, and part of that magical amalgam called the Filipino people out in their full moral force to topple with a mix of courageous involvement, prayers, flowers and festivity a very dangerous dictator. We shed off our being political forces with deep red color, and joined in as moral forces. But it felt good to be just a Filipino.

That was my brief engagement at EDSA. After spending hours at the highway where history was being made on February 23, 1986 we separated to rally our own ranks. We quickly mimeographed bundles of leaflets, and by morning of February 24 we were already distributing them along Aurora Avenue, Magsaysay Blvd., Espana, Quezon Avenue and other major thoroughfares, calling for Welgang Bayan (People's Strike).

I could sense what Lenin called "profound revolutionary crisis": the people no longer able to still live under the same political order. Where before, they won't even touch such same material that we leave on jeepneys, now out of the windows of running jeepneys their hands would reach out for it. In a brief moment, the Weba leaflets were gone, lopped up by an enthused Metro Manila citizenry. Drivers would intentionally stop to say: "Bakit hinde na ngayon?" (Why not now?) A strike was one that they would at the very least frown at, at the most vehemently resist. Now. they even did go on holiday, barricaded Aurora, and parked their jeepneys in the afternoon, two days ahead of the called Welgang Bayan.

In the evening of the 24th, in an observation post at Aurora Avenue in San Juan, I saw an armored personnel carrier being chased by a car down to Malacanang. Besides the laughable incident, the road was quiet. Our group slept at Cubao that night for a long day on the 25th. The whole of the next day, we massed up at an assembly point in Cubao and V. Mapa, gathered a few buses courtesy of trade union members, and by afternoon we proceeded to Espana. At the intersection of Gov. Forbes, we set up barricade with a cirle of commandeered buses and did some sorties to JP Laurel Street to reconnoiter.

When dark fell, we marched to the Mendiola Bridge with a 700-man tightly-knit contingent and hundreds more of folks tailing behind. We wound down Morayta, Lepanto, back of San Sebastian College and run smack into the phalanges of barbed wires coiling at the foot of the bridge. We folded banners and streamers and got ready for brawl. Others began cutting the wires. On balconies or windows of surrounding buildings, people were shouting: "Pasok! Pasok!" (Enter! Enter!) The crowds behind us, down the length of Recto were waving and heaving. We didn't mind losing our lives anymore. This was it!

I couldn't remember exactly what time it was, on the bright moonlit night of February 25, when we observed and heard helicopters hovering above the trees. During those days, we always remember to carry transistor radios in rallies. From one of them, carried by a comrade beside me, a station airing news feed guerilla-style shortly announced that Marcos, a sick man, has left Malacanang. I smiled, my thought was at once: too late for the gays who also joined the march shouting: "Pakurot ha! Pakurot!" (Let us pinch, referring to the moment we are able to reach Marcos.)

By that time, we had cut the barbed wires, giving way to a wide gaping breach. Before that, some of us had already slipped inside and planted our streamers across the bridge. When the breach materialized, the crowd could no longer be prevented from rushing in.

As the floodgates were finally thrown open, a deluge of thousands of people rolled all the way to the gates and up the gates of the presidential compound, to the Malacanang Palace. We shouted to stop the onrush, because there could yet be Marcos loyalist snipers around. But the flood could no longer be stemmed. The onrushing folks threw our caution to the wind.

Before midnight, the seat of power where the dictator had reigned for 20 years, was taken over by the common people. The ramparts of the brutal and rapacious regime fell into shreds. The strongman has fled. We retreated to our place at Espana, and got some needed breath. The tense atmosphere would be suddenly broken by dancing and singing in the streets as truckloads of civilian merrymakers swooped in.

I and a few straggling comrades managed to walk to a place at V. Mapa by past 1:00 AM already on the 26th, were we cramped ourselves in a room to try to get some sleep. But in an hour of trying to lapse into forgetfulness, what happened could not just let us sleep. I decided to stand up and go.

I walked at four in the morning to go back to my house at the nearby locality of San Juan for the first time in five days, after I left with a banner and two cans of sardines as food pack for some hectic political action. In the cold and dark of the wee hours of the morning, the still hard-to-believe reality was dawning. Yes, indeed, the dictator is gone, and I am once again a free man!

Still in the grip of Yolanda

The Red Cross distributes relief in Bgy. Hinulogan, Dagami, Leyte.

 It is made to sound like a magical period of time. But no miracle happened to the suffering victims of Yolanda 100 days after the calamity struck. They are still in the grip of disaster.

I recently visited some of the ravaged areas in Tanauan, Dagami, Burauen and Julita in Leyte. The people I talked to are one in saying that the situation in their barangays may not get better. It could get worse.

Local officials and ordinary citizens share the same observation. If relief by the government and other humanitarian organizations stop, hunger and terrible hardship will hit them. As a consequence, criminality will rise and chaos will be the order of the day.

“There is no problem with food as of now. We are supplied,” Ceasar Arguilles of Barangay San Miguel, Tanauan says. “But almost all of us have no livelihood anymore, if relief ends there will be big trouble,” he adds.

Immediately after the supertyphoon struck, various agencies swooped into their localities. Since then, they have constantly doled out food rations, hygiene kits, pails and construction materials.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has led in the effort. But other foreign and private aid organizations have also been helping. They are Oxfam, the Samaritan Purse, Red Cross, World Vision, Plan International and the Catholic Relief Service.

A Buddhist organization, the Tzu Chi Foundation, gave cash from P8,000 to P15,000 per recipient.

But still, 99 percent of the survivors have no means of earning to tide up each family in the near future. Agriculture is down. After Typhoon Pablo hit Mindanao, Leyte and Samar became the country’s biggest producer of copra with two thirds of their agricultural lands planted to coconuts. However, the trees have been decimated by Yolanda.

Folks waiting for relief  on  trees felled by Yolanda.

I came to Bgy. Hinulogan, Dagami in time to see the distribution of food and other relief items by the Red Cross. I took photos and asked around as almost the whole village queued alongside the vans. 

“We will survive while this goes on,” Francisco Crebillo, a resident, says. “But they are only up to March, the officials told us. Once the giving stops, our barangay will plunge into darkness.”

The whole village was flattened, with 90 percent of homes totally damaged. As early as two weeks after Yolanda devastated it, the residents began salvaging materials from their ruined houses and erecting makeshift shelters. But indeed, there seems to be no end to the need for outside help. Dependency on aid is the other tragedy that the local folks are now stuck on.

Most of the houses in Bgy. Balorinay, Burauen have been demolished by the supertyphoon. The folks are living under flimsy canopies from the canvasses or tarpaulins donated by the DSWD and other aid groups. Exposed to the extremes of weather, seemingly in a furnace during hot days, and in a freezer during cold nights, they have still to hear of any government move to help them out of these conditions.

Homes down to ground zero in Balorinay, Burauen, Leyte.

The main source of livelihood of the village was tuba and vinegar making from the coconut flower’s sap. This is gone, and will not be back for at least seven years.

The locals at Bgy. Cuyae, Julita were lucky to be reached by relief with an additional feature, cash for work. They have recently gone through a week-long cash-for-work assistance by the United Nations. But the one thing that happened under the local government unit of their municipality has not paid yet. They joke of it being instead credit-for-work.

Less than 10 percent of the houses here remained standing after Yolanda. The rest were all brought down into heaps of rubble and debris. The local folks struggled to get shelters up with tarpaulin and canvass from the aid agencies. But they could not get food production and income generation back, because their lands are still littered with fallen trees and could not be plowed.

The same dire situation goes on in most of the areas devastated by the supertyphoon in November, last year. The whole prescriptive period for them to recover and pick up the pieces seems to be getting long. But the act can be now or never.

More than three months since, lives, homes, economies and communities are yet far from the condition of really building back after the devastation wrought by Yolanda. Aside from getting desperate, folks are in a situation that can rapidly deteriorate to a point of no return. 

A social and economic collapse may be far off in the minds of government responders at the top. But to the folks on ground zero, the likelihood of this scenario has loomed even much larger than in the first weeks after the disaster.

In December, the government talked of a price tag for Recovery Assistance on Yolanda to the tune of PhP360.9 billion, out of which 50.79% or P183.3 billion was for the reconstruction of homes alone. I estimate that the 1,500 barangays in Leyte - granting that all of them have been razed to the ground, may need only around P4 billion to get more durable shelters up in due time.

First off, where are the talked about billions? The promise of assistance is urgently needed on ground zero to materialize. It must begin to roll now, before it becomes too late. Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo? (What is the grass for if the horse is already dead?)

Help In Real Time

      A smile on the survivors’ faces

How many of the Yolanda disaster victims pinned under the debris or fragments of home could still have been saved by rescue? No one knows. Had help gotten there on time, we would have known.

Up to now, many survivors cannot categorically say if one of those thousands of body bags transported to mass graves at Barangay Basper and Suhi contained a missed family member. The time for positive identification based on intact physical appearance has been lost.

On many instances, the underlying factor why the Yolanda tragedy became more tragic was not being able to deal with the critical situation in real time.

Stores may not have been looted if panicky residents were not sent into frenzy by the thought that they may have survived the wind’s fury and the water’s surge, but not hunger. It was the moment right after the calamity when the need for relief was critical and it did not come.

Time is of the essence. True then in the immediate aftermath of the supertyphoon, true still in the rehabilitation effort of the areas torn by it, time would have made the difference.

Two and a half months after Yolanda, help in recovery and rebuilding must already be up and running or it may be too late again.

The scourge of Yolanda continues. Its victims still reel under the agony and hardships brought by it. The unending queues on stores in the city’s center, pharmacies, banks, wet markets, make one wonders: Is this yet what it is to live in the 21^st century, to be so downed and made helpless by a calamity?

On a long file at the BPI automated teller machine, someone remarked, “Waray pa gud katatapos it at sakripisyo kan Yolanda.” (Our sacrifice from Yolanda has not ended.)

Sacrifice is one aspect, fear is another.

The threat of foodless days nags. Warmer and unlit homes and nothing to do because there is no electricity fuel uncertainty. Realizing with alarm that this could go on for months and years makes one go bonkers. The scenario of having no food and electricity is panicky.

Hostile weather aggravates the already harsh cold and heat. Still in a state of trauma from the Yolanda rampage, folks instantly become jittery over news of another low-pressure-area with the potential to evolve into a monster, like the ferocious visitor on November 8.

Agony, uncertainty, trauma and nervousness mix up into a volatile state of affairs.

Along the Eastern Visayas Region’s Pacific Coast and Leyte Gulf area, are numerous villages flattened by Yolanda. Many of them are now sprawls of tent and makeshift-shelter communities, propped by aid. There, most folks have been reduced to reliance on lifelines from outside.

They urgently need to rise from the ruin and rubble as much as they needed to survive Yolanda.

The maligned bunkhouses are only tiny island specks in this vast sea of dehumanized refugee humanity. If folks can be too hot on those controversial structures, this one is really much too hot.

Those suffering may no longer take the time, as in the days following Yolanda, to paint on pavements the words, PLEASE HELP US. Their plight has been made known throughout the world. They have undergone how it is to beg and join the long queue under rain and sun for five kilos of rice, canned sardines and noodles.

To survive on donations, to rise on somebody else’s helping hand, to be plucked out of one’s proud being by the posturing of aid as if this was all that mattered in the situation, are no small concessions to given assistance.

Government and the international community have announced billions of dollars for recovery and rebuilding. The earmarking by the administration of P360.9 billion for Recovery Assistance on Yolanda (RAY) has gotten into headline and primetime news.

But folks in the flattened communities are not jumping with joy. Why?

No victim of Yolanda has said help is not needed. But the help that is needed is the real thing, not the news. It is what goes to improve the situation on the ground, not what hogs the headlines.

Until now, nothing of that has come, or shows to be coming.

The people cannot even finish counting in their lifetimes the huge assistance promised. But humbly small or boastfully big, they really don’t mind. They just ask: When and How?

Any definite answer to that would already put a smile on the survivors' faces.

Help Us Give Support (HUGS)

The Homeless And Needy Disaster Survivors (HANDS) Rehab Initiative

The Institute for Local Innovation and Approach in Development Inc. (ILIAD) is launching an initiative to help in the socio-economic recovery and rebuilding of communities devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda. This is named Aksyon Bulig sa Operasyon Tindog Kabisayaan (ABOT Ka). It covers places in Leyte and Eastern Samar that were worst hit by the calamity.

ABOT Ka engages in the mobilization of support by agencies, organizations, groups and individuals participating or wanting to participate in rehab aid effort for the Yolanda affected areas. Support is directed at particular villages or households with which cooperation has already been initiated or of which critical needs have been identified and assessed.

The initiative specifically will help folks in the category of Homeless and Needy Disaster Survivors (HANDS).  It is intended not only to provide such assistance as food relief and core building materials, but to catalyze and enable efforts by the suffering victims themselves to pick up from the loss, damage and disruption of livelihoods brought about by Yolanda.

Assistance consists of three major actions, namely:

One,  Fast Assessment and Statistics Tracking for Rehab Aid Coverage (FASTRAC). This is the rapid gathering of data and appraisal, quick construction of target beneficiary database, their summary in report or newsfeed format, and their speedy communication to prospective benefactors and the public at large to seek immediate support or guide assistance. Through FASTRAC, ABOT Ka serves as spotter on ground zero to point aid to the proper target. It also serves to constantly monitor situation and bring to the attention of concerned agencies breaking issues and problems.

Two, Immediate Shelter and Livelihood Assistance (ISLA). This is the delivery of solicited financial and other forms of assistance to match the building of starting shelters by identified beneficiary HANDS. The effort at basic shelter provision is designed to generate, alongside, livelihoods for workforces in the community as well as women.

Three, Community Level Action Support Partnership (CLASP). This is the engagement of cooperation with local government units at the barangay level, or civic organizations at the grassroots, in participatory planning and joint implementation of courses of action to spur off rehabilitation through an integrated socio-economic development approach. CLASP aims to bring to the table new physical framework designs in pursuit of a development that is environmentally safe, ecologically sound, and disaster resilient, besides being socially just, economically feasible and holistically human uplifting.

For the above thrusts, ILIAD is seeking assistance from various sectors and sources. It may be directly implemented by the donors themselves, with ILIAD facilitating cooperation with target beneficiary households/communities. Or it may be executed with the collaboration of ILIAD, which will provide the network of volunteers on the ground for liaison and organizing tasks, and staff for technical support. In a detailed proposal for this purpose, ILIAD will delineate the optimal strategy, and concrete methods and processes wherein the aid will be most effectively delivered, and will generate desired results towards the recovery and rebuilding of communities.

ABOT Ka initially is covering the following areas:

1)      Barangays Ormocay, Camanse and Wilson in the coastal town of Mayorga

2)      The agricultural town of Burauen, Leyte (specific localities still in the process of selection)

3)      Barangays Hinulogan, Maliwaliw, Calipayan, Rizal, San Benito and Caluctogan in the interior agricultural town of Dagami

4)      Barangays San Miguel, Magay and Sta. Cruz in the heavily devastated coastal town of Tanauan

5)      Town of Hernani along  the Pacific Coast in Eastern Samar (specific localities still in the process of selection)

6)      Town of Giporlos along the Pacific Coast in Eastern Samar (specific localities still in the process of selection)

Preliminary reports by ILIAD volunteers on ground zero count the dwellings flattened or totally damaged by the supertyphoon at 50 to 80 percent of households in the said areas. The food situation is critical, for if relief is cut at this stage, hunger will break out. Livelihoods and productive activity are generally at a standstill. And local folks besides being traumatized by the catastrophe on November 8, undergo a stressful day-to-day existence accompanied by confusion, fear and anxiety over an uncertain future.

Shelter for the homeless is either in tents or hastily propped makeshift structures of salvaged lumber and doled-out canvass or tarp. Under these the folks suffer extremes of cold during nights and days of intermittent rain, and heat beating on the canopies during sunny weather. Heavy downpours send them into panic as waters begin to rise rapidly on rivers and come close to their fragile dwellings.

Meanwhile, 80 to 90 percent of the pre-Yolanda business has been ravaged and not yet come back.
Agriculture with the massive damage wrought to the coconut industry is on the verge of stagnation, and may not rise back to where it was before, in the next seven years. Social disintegration and economic collapse are likely to combine in a second generation tragedy after the Nov. 8 disaster.

The Institute for Local Innovation and Approach in Development views with deep concern the intense hardships and dangers that the Yolanda survivors continue to go through. All these urge everyone, the government, civil society, the business sector, and other aid donors to act now and very quickly. The dire situation does not afford losing a day. The rehab must start rolling in no time at all.

For our suffering brothers and sisters, and for the country which needs Eastern Visayas to rise and fulfil its economic and social role in our overall development, Help Us Give Support!

please visit: www.philiad.com.ph
email: iliadphil@yahoo.com or clasp@philiad.com.ph

The ordeal and the danger are far from over

The world hailed the resilience of the survivors of supertyphoon Yolanda. But there may be little appreciation of the fact that until now they are still fighting a battle for survival.

The Yolanda ordeal is far from over. Indeed, the danger of a sequel disaster part-two to the November 8 rampage lurks: a social and economic meltdown.

A collapse of order and collective life from the strain of continued human suffering may happen, once rebuilding stumbles and securing anew a decent shelter with simple comforts and ambiance of home end up in prolonged frustration. The disaster victims have to get settled to lead productive lives.

That is why the construction of the controversial bunkhouses should have been carefully thought of, or better still thoroughly discussed with the folks who were supposed to live in them. Their say on the make and circumstance of the temporary dwellings should have been given primary importance.

Right now, most of the survivors of Yolanda are in a state of suspended animation. The homeless and needy idly await assistance in such hard-hit areas, for example, as Barangays San Miguel, Magay, Calogcog and Sta. Cruz in Tanauan where so many deaths occurred and clusters of tents have replaced the old dwellings, or Bgys. Ormocay, Wilson and Camanse in Mayorga farther down south where homes have been demolished and folks are exposed to the harsh beating of alternating rain and sun. The wait and inaction are becoming torturous as no help seems forthcoming. It is a state fraught with perils.

If paralysis and the slide into harsher conditions of existence are not arrested, the situation can deteriorate to a point where neither peace nor harmony prevails anymore, where communities break down in chaos or flight, and engagement in livelihood of any kind no longer washes.

Something like the spree of looting right after Yolanda’s fury can explode. The restive quiet now could be the proverbial lull before the storm.

A complementary threat is the retrogression of local economies. Two months after Yolanda, 80 to 90 percent of pre-disaster businesses especially in the regional commercial hub of Tacloban have not come back. Business slowdown or ultimate shutdown with establishment owners either facing bankruptcy, finding it impossible to resume, or deciding to leave, can slip towards stagnation.

If not rescued, agriculture also can lapse into stagnation having absorbed great damage particularly in coconut production – Eastern Visayas’ top provider of cash and economic driver.

As business activity has dwindled, workforces presently have nowhere to find jobs or employment. This affects market, for folks cannot buy goods or services with no income, or with minimal cash circulating around. The consequence is that production all the more constricts.

A point may be reached where any production is no longer viable.

Currently, basic commodities continue to be in short supply, while their prices skyrocket. The prices of sugar, egg, meat, fish, cooking oil, soap, kerosene, and anti-mosquito coil, for instance, have gone up twice or thrice their pre-Yolanda level.

The condition of stagnation being coupled with soaring inflation creates the disastrous phenomenon called stagflation. It is a sure-fire formula for a cataclysmic social upheaval.

With the perception or illusion that things are normalizing, the scenario may be hard to believe much less think of. But it was so with dire warnings of a category four typhoon that the people brushed aside, conditioned by old mindsets. They thought it was yet something they can cope, just like in the past.

As experience went, Yolanda happened to be no longer what dire weather disturbances used to be. No one was ready for the impact when the strongest wind on record to hit land made landfall bringing ashore seven-meter high waves. The extreme calamity foisted extreme social consequences.

The usual is not the normal anymore. The world is now in what former US Vice President Al Gore calls the “period of consequences,” the payback time for man’s environmental sins. The normal in weather patterns has changed: much heavier rainfalls, more violent typhoons breeding in warmer oceans, higher chances of landslides and flash floods occurring over regions that did not encounter them before.

Yolanda was something that did not fit into regular reality. The people did not get it that they live already in a much altered environment, in a world haunted by climate change with freakier moods of nature.

What goes with the environment goes with society. Communities absorb graver effects – greater deaths, huger loss of property, and more massive demolition of infrastructure, fouling of weathers brings. They also have to contend with unprecedented disruption of social and economic life.

The fallout from the devastation of Yolanda, as far as the latter is concerned, can endure for years, or can finally spell the sudden demise of a way of living.

Hours or even days before the supertyphoon struck, official weather forecast did not lack in trying to impress the severity of what was coming, which scientific experts described in one layman’s word, “delubyo” (deluge).

Malacanang interrupted programs on radio and television for the president to go on air on the evening of November 7 with the appeal to take the apocalyptic scenario seriously.

But scepticism coupled by misplaced confidence overrode warnings. Residents did not take the repeated prodding to move out of hazard zones. The price was very dear. Deaths climbed to thousands, mixing up with the mind boggling destruction of everything along the disaster’s path.

The steep price of not taking measures to deflect extreme outcomes has taught no longer to leave to chance their possibility. This should be so with the prospect of a second generation tragedy resulting from festering problems bred by Yolanda. 

Tragedy in Marikina, when the model sank

Tragedy in Marikina, when the model sank

HAY NAKU BANSA! (Ikalawang Bahagi)

Nangyari ngang nagpalitan ng iba’t-ibang palagay ang tropa sa kasagsagan ng inuman na nakatuwaan nang pangalanang golf (katunog ng gulp – ingay ng lalamunan sa pagtungga ng tagay).

Kung may Pangkat ng Sunog-Baga sa Da Riles, may Brigadang Alsa Baso din naman sa aming Da Purok en Kawntri Club kung saan garantisadong sarap maggolf – aheste gulp.

Di kalaonan, umarangkada na ang baso, rumonda ang brigada sa sigid ng tuba. Bumida ang pulutang kinilaw na dilis, na nilamas sa suka, pinatalonan ng gata ng niyog, pinaloan ng luya, pinigaan ng kalamansi, at tinirisan ng siling labuyo. At umapaw ang galak sa paglimot sa mga hinaing sa buhay.

It’s showtime! Unang bumitiw si Brod Ben ng malalim na buntong hininga: “Sana di na problema ang kasalatan. Bakit ba tayo naghihirap?”

“Kasi inuman na lang lagi ng inuman,” pukol ni Mareng Doray nagmamasid sa likuran ng mister niyang si Estok, sa may di kalayuan. Si Estok ang nagsilbing host sa pagkakataong ito.

“Kaya nga, inuman na lang ng inuman, kaysa magmukmok sa pangungunsumi sa buhay na laging kabuntot ang kawalan,” mabilis na salo ni Estok.

“Hummm, nakakabili nga ng matutungga,” ismid ni mare.

“E di kung walang korap, wala sanang mahirap,” pabirong sabat ni Tente na ginagaya si PNoy.

“Alisin ang kahirapan kamo, mawawala ang mga korap,” pihit ni Mang Andy.

“Papano?” habol na tanong ko.

“Di ba’t ang dahilan kung bakit nasa gobyerno yang mga korap na yan ay dahil sa mga mahihirap na rin na pinagbibili ang kanilang boto sa eleksyon dahil sa kahirapan?” kabig ni Mang Andy.

“May punto ka chong,” susog ni Basilyo na kadalasa’y siyang gunner ng brigada kagaya ngayon. “Kung ‘di tayo nagpapabili, di sana yung mga matutuwid ang nandiyan sa gobyerno.”

“At dahil superlaki ang naipuhunan sa bay-en-sel ng mga tiwaling pulitiko, ha ha, alang kakorapkorap naman ang pangungulimbat para makabawi at gumanansya ng todo-todo,” dugtong pa ni Mang Andy.

“Teka, parang mahirap resolbahin ang sinasabi nyo,” harang ko. “Parang itlog at inahin na naman yan, alin ang nauna, korapsyon o kahirapan.”

“Pagkalulong sa toma o kahirapan, kahirapan o katiwalian, itlog o inahin, alin ang nauna?” hamon ni Estok sabay tukoy kay brod Ben. “Pero tol huwag mong patagalin ang baso, baka maging sisiw na yan.”

“Ang sistemang paging alipin tingin ko ang nangingitlog ng kahirapan,” tugon ni brod Ben na may dagdag  “dahil di natin mapagpasyahan ang tama at makabubuti para sa atin.”

Tumingala si Estok na kunwang nag-iisip. “Malalim ang tinuring mo Baba… (pinutol ng tawanan ang paggaya sa teleseryeng Amaya), pero sa tingin ko mas matining pa sa bahalina ang ibig mong sabihin, bilib ako dyan.”

“Pero di ba laya na tayo noon pa, di pa nga yata ako ipinapanganak noon, sa sinasabing independens day bigay ni kano?” riwa ni Tente.

“Pinamimigay ba ang kalayaan? Para na ring sinabi mong di ka talagang malaya, dahil ito ma’y nasa pagpapasya pa rin ng iba, kung mapapasaiyo o hindi,” tutya ni Mang Andy.

“Ang tunay na kalayaan ay wala sa kamay ng iba, kungdi nasa sa iyo lamang, pinanghahawakan, pinaninindigan at ipinaglalaban,” giit ni brod Ben.

“Yes, yes, yo! Sang-ayon,” sabat ko kasama ang palaisipang tanong. “Paano tayo masasabing malaya kung wala tayong ibang alam kungdi ang sinasabi’t idinedikta ng nang-aalipin?”

“Tumpak, kasama ang sumunod tayo na lokohin mismo ang ating sarili,” dugtong ni Mang Andy.

“Pakiisplika, plis!” hiling ni Estok.

Si brod Ben ang sumalo: “Kagaya ng itinuturong demokrasya ng mga nanakop sa bansa noong ipapanalo na sana natin ang pagsasarili laban sa mga Kastila, walang iba kungdi ang mga Amerikano.”

“Bakit, ano sa tingin mo?” usisa ko.

“Di, ito raw ay paghahari ng mayorya,” sagot ni brod Ben. “Pero kaliwaliwanag naman na sa matagal na panahon sila lang iilan ang nasusunod, at tayong nakararami mula pa ng dayuhang pananakop hanggang ngayon ang naging utosan at sunodsunoran lamang ng mga nagdodomina na kakaunti.”

“Demokrasya sa salita, paghahari at pang-aalipin ng iilan sa gawa, ekwals korapsyon at kahirapan,” singgit ni Mang Andy na parang nakatuklas ng isang pormula.

“Yon! Nakana pare,” bati ni Basyo.

“Ano nga bang puede pagpasyahan ng isang alipin?” Kahit nga yong kung kanino siya magpapaalipin ay wala sa kaniya para magpasya,” paliwanag ni brod Ben.

“Pero sabi naman ni pangulong Noy ‘Kayo ang boss ko!’” bawi ni Tente.

“Puede akong maniwala, pero.… O sige naniniwala na ako, pero nandiyan lang ba siya sa tabi-tabi para mapagutosan? Kaya ba natin talaga siyang utosan?” harang ko.

“Maririnig ba niya kamo ang utos ko, kung sakali, at magagawa ba niya?” sabat ni Estok.

“Ano nga ba utos mo?” pangungulit ko.

“Mag-asawa na siya!”

Hay naku, bansa! Masasalimuot ang mga usapin, at kanya-kanyang magkakasalungat na palagay.

Tulad ng ibang karaniwang mamamayan, natuto na rin akong lumagay na lang sa sariling sapatos at manahimik, at mag-antay ng mga kasagutan sa paglipas ng panahon, pag-ikot ng tagay ng tuba, paghabi ng gagamba ng kanyang sapot na sumisila sa maliliit, pero nilulusotan ng malalaki.

Kagaya ng madalas sabihin, hanggang sa susunod na kabanata…. (Itutuloy)

HAY NAKU BANSA!

(Kuwento ng isang mahabang buntong hininga sa harap ng mga salasalabat at masasalimuot na usapin.)

Bago ang lahat ako si Sebyo, karaniwang tao, madaling makita, mabilis mawala. Hindi mo ko maiaadd as friend. Huwag mo nang pagkaabalahang itanong pa kung nasa Facebook. Wala! Face-to-face lang akong nakakasalamuha sa pang-araw araw na buhay. Kaya lang, ng mangilan-ngilan.

Pero alam ko ang sinasabi noon - Facebook na parang fishball (‘di ko ganun kamangmang ha). Sabagay, isyu ba yon?

Singkuwenta sais anyos na ako. Kung sa pulis, panahon na magretiro. Pero ayaw ko pa ho, lalo naman sa sinasabing “retire from the human race.” 


Di ko nakakalimutan ang pangangailangang magsexercise tuwing umaga, upang ang katawan ay sumigla. Idadagdag ko lang, walang Viagra.

Gusto kong maging vegetarian, hindi vegetable. Pero alam mo naman, hindi lang masarap ang karne, nakakaadik lalo na kung malambot. (Kung mayroon ka pang ibang gustong sabihin doon, isip mo na yon.)

Huwag magtaka kung makikita mo ‘ko saan-saan. Ako’y pagala-gala, hindi lang dahil sa walang masandigang hanapbuhay, kungdi dahil sa walang tiyak na matirhan. Kumbaga, NPA – No Permanent Address. Sabi pa nga ng kanta: “I never stop my wandering.”

Papano kasi, laging pinapalayas dahil di makabayad ng upa.

Nakakahiya man sabihin, babanggitin ko na rin: tapos lang ako sa Bachelor of Common Sense sa PKP – Pamantasan ng Karanasang Panlansangan. Ito’y isang mahabang kurso ng pagmamarunong sa pamamagitan ng sariling sikap, na namimilit bigkasin sa mga dayong kataga – magkabuhol-buhol man ang dila, ang ilang kaunting nalalaman.

Dahil sa pagiging mental koloni daw, minsa’y gusto kong magpasikat ng mataas na kaisipan na di naman matarok, ni simpleng maintindihan, dahil kadalasa’y banyaga. May mga panahong ako’y nahihilig magsalsal ng mga ideyang ‘di nakatungtong sa lupa. Yon ngalang pangintelektuwal ang dating, masarap ipanghambog, nagmamagaling, nagpapahanga sa mililiit nating kababayan.

Sa idad kong ito at mga pinagdaanang sarkastik na pagkakataon, madali at mabilis mambato ng puna. Tulad ng iba diyan, ako’y madalas mapunta sa pagiging kritiko ng maraming bagay, sa pagiging ganado sa pagpansin ng mga kapintasan ng kapuwa o gobyerno, pakialamero sa buhay ng may buhay.

Pero huwag mong basta na lang pupunain at pakikialaman ng ganun-ganun lang at mahabang bakbakan yan ng kung sino ang tama o mali. Sa takbo minsan ng gurang na pag-iisip, para bang ako ang lubos na nakakaalam, at parating tama. Napapansin ko naman yon, at napapangiti nalang.

Bihis ko’y di naiiiba at di kapansin-pansin kahit na pawang bihis na bihis panglakad. Sa gitna ng marami ay walang mukha at walang pangalan, walang pagkapangilanlan liban na lang seguro kung malalagyan ng serial number sa noo. Minsa’y mabuti pa ang numero kaysa sa mukha, natutukoy.

Marahil ay nakakasabay mo ako paminsan-minsan, sa agos ng sangkatauhan sa iisang direksyon ng paghahanap ng bagay na di matagputagpuan. Ito na seguro ang pagka-isang bansa, sa paghahanap ng mapapasokang tabaho, sa pagpapasok sa trabaho araw-araw na sinisikatan ng haring araw.

Kung may namamatyagan ka sa dyipni na nakalibing sa katahimikan, seguro’y ako na rin yon. Kung minsa’y may naaalala kang nakatagpo na di matandaan ang mukha, baka ako yon, sa katauhang parang ikaw, nagmamasid lang ng buhay sa loob ng isang pampublikong lugar.

Sa ating indibidwal na pagkakahiwahiwalay, may sarili kang mundo, mayroon din ako. At habang nakatuon sa kanikaniyang pribadong pagiisip, walang salitaan, di nagsasalita, walang kinakausap, di nakikipag-usap. Kahit ang minsang pagkakasagi ng balat ng bawat isa ay parang di nangyayari.

May mga bagay-bagay na di maikonekta kahit magkakaugnay, dahil pinipiling maging hiwa-hiwalay kahit iisa, kahit lahat nakatira sa iisa lang planeta, sa ilalalim ng isa lang papawirin, sa ibabaw ng isa lang uri ng kalupaan kung saan walang mga pambansang pagitan ang hanging hinihinga.

Mas pang tinitingnan ang pagkakaiba ng kulay ng balat, hugis ng ilong, talukap ng mata, anyo ng buhok, tindig ng katawan, at laman ng bulsa, kaysa mga hibla ng pagkakapareho bilang isang sangkatauhan sa wangis at kagustuhan ng isa at isa lamang Tagapaglikha.

Iisa lang ang langit na pumapayong sa lahat, ngunit ang tinitingnan pa ay ang pagkakaiba-iba ng bubong na sinisilongan, kinatatayuan sa buhay, at salu-salongat ng mga pangarap. Dito umusbong ang yabang at pagmamalaki sa kapangyarihan na nauuwi sa pagkakait ng katarungan.

Teka, lumalalim na yata’ng usapan, sumayad na muna tayo sa konkretong kalagayan. Di ko lubos maisip na sa likod ng umaapaw na likas na yaman ng ating bansa, sobrang dami nang mga kababayan natin ang salat sa buhay. Bakit tayo naghihirap? At bakit tayo lubhang naghihirap pa rin hanggang ngayon?

Hay naku bansa! Kailangan pa bang pahirapan sa kaiisip ang sarili samantalang nandiyan naman ang mga biyayang pinagkaloob ng poong maykapal na abot kamay lamang? May panahon noong sasalok ka lang daw sa batis ng kabuhayan at mga likas na pangsuporta sa buhay na nasa paligid lamang. Nasaan na ba ito ngayon?

Ang mga balon natin ng yaman at ikabubuhay kung kailan hitik ang buong kapulohan noon, ngayon ay nangawala na. Pero wala pa ring pangarap ng magandang buhay para sa lahat ng mga kababayan natin ang mga nangatupad. Walang nakakamit kundi patuloy na kabiguan sa inaasam na ginhawa.

Mangyaring sa ikot ng tagay ng tuba, nagkabalitaktakan kaming malaon nang magdadabarkads. Sa munting salo-salo sa pulutang kinilaw na dilis na pinatalonan ng gata ng niyog, pinigaan ng kalamansi, at tinirisan ng sili, nagkasundo-sundo kaming di-magkasundo. Gumulong ang malusog na debate. (sundan ang kuwento sa susunod na serye)

World Food Day: Feeding the future

World Food Day: Feeding the future

Deep-rooted

Deep-rooted

Almost there, end times for capitalism?

 Almost there, end times for capitalism?

  Bimbo Cabidog on Sun 7 Aug 2011 - 23:00 (Published at Free Forum: Country Road

The United States averted a catastrophic default on its huge financial obligations. But it wasn't lucky enough to avoid a credit downgrade. Following a political gridlock in Washington that pushed the world's largest economy to the brink of a debt crisis, Standard and Poor lowered its sovereign rating from AAA to AA+.

Among three major credit ratings agencies, S & P is the most prestigious. Its downgrade was a setback to the US. This posed to trigger a chain reaction of recessionary trends all over the globe.

What brought America to this point?

The capitalist superpower hit its statutory debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion on May 16. The Treasury Department has been taking extraordinary measures to prevent default. But it ran out of options starting August, and there wasn't enough money anymore to pay the nation's bills.

The Treasury faced an August 3-31 cash deficit of about $134 billion, according to the Washington DC-based Bipartisan Policy Center. Expenses for the month ran up to $306.7 billion. The government borrows roughly 40 cents for every dollar. 

The US government incurs a huge budget deficit year on year, spending more than it raises money in tax. A credit limit is set by Congress. This time the debt ceiling has to be lifted by August 2 or the American treasury would no longer have funds to meet payments like social security benefits, military pensions, contractor payments and interests.

Slashing government cashflow alone by 40 to 45 percent could already cause serious economic disruptions. With not enough funds, the country would not be able to run itself. 

The nation has had public debts since inception. This escalated in recent years to fund big expenses like wars and stimulus packages. Every president since Harry Truman has added to the total.

The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since 1962: 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, and seven times under George W. Bush. But obstinate Republican opposition made the raising of the debt ceiling under President Barrack Obama a highly contentious issue.

The GOP's right wing Tea Party threw a monkey wrench on any effort to arrive at bipartisan legislation that would manage the budget deficit and continue to pay obligations through cuts in spending over the next 10 years as well as additional taxes.

Legislation to resolve the budgetary deficit and debt issues got caught in a tug-of-war between the hard-core capitalist diehards in the GOP who resisted higher taxes on the rich, and elements softening towards the socialist tendency to propose big revenues on wealth and higher social-welfare spending

Sober and responsible heads finally prevailed. The US House of Representatives narrowly passed a deal to let the government borrow $2.2 trillion for payment of obligations. The debt bill cleared the US Senate by 74 to 26 votes.

But partisan recklessness and the dangerous stalemate of several weeks that drew unto the last minute made a downgrade of the country's prized AAA credit rating inevitable.

The bill's passage failed to bouy the financial markets. Wall Street stocks ended down by more than two percent. Japan's Nikkei index followed suit with the same degree. The fact that the US has been almost there spooked.

"Whatever the logic about the tactics, it's very dangerous environment," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said expressing dismay. He added: "To be blunt, to have a debt default in the United States would not only be a financial calamity but should be an embarassment for every American."

China, which is America's largest foreign creditor and trading partner, scored Washington for irresponsibly putting the world on the edge. China has repeatedly urged the US to protect its dollar investments. The state-run news agency said the economic stakes of the US on the world had been compromised by "dangerously irresponsible" partisan agendas.

Citigroup's chief economist Willem Buifer described a US default as "an act of collective insanity."

Buifer said that even if a default was promptly averted, "it would severely dent the credibility of the US as a global financial player and the provider of the world's leading reserve currency."

"There would be an immediate repricing of the dollar and an increase in medium and long-term nominal and real interest rates. Asset, credit and funding markets in the US and the world as whole would likely suffer and a global recession would likely result, centered in the US but not restricted to it," he further said.

Andrew Garthwaite from Credit Suisse said a default would have been disastrous, causing a five percent contraction in the US economy and 30 percdent drop on Wall Street with massive consequences for the world.

Well, America was almost there. Sailing to calmer straits by the passage of the debt bill nonetheless left quite a considerable dent. The S & P backlash is seen to lead to loss of business confidence, market panic, a potential recession in the US and probably the same effect in the world.

The loss of topnotch credit status means the government will be paying investors higher interest rate on borrowings. The US share market would be vulnerable to an exodus of nervous investors opting for safer locations to place their money. What may be brewing during the interim lull is something to watch for with great discernment.

Some words of US President Obama bear pondering. "There are a lot of crises in the world that we can't always predict or avoid - hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, terrorist attacks. This isn't one of those crises. The power to solve this is in our hands," the world's most powerful human said of the near debt default.

Is a recession - or worse, depression, attended by a financial and industrial debacle of massive scale something that the aging capitalist superpower - the United States, has the means to deflect? Or is it the inevitable fate of the political-economic system that has ruled mankind for a very long time?

The recent crisis in the US that threatens to unleash an economic tsunami all over the globe comes only a little more than a couple of years after the subprime mortgage crunch here toppled giant financial institutions and sent market tremors cascading across Europe and Asia. 

Are the two depressing phenomena coming after a very short interval not signs presaging the end times for capitalism?

The deadlock in Capitol Hill over the debt fiasco hides the bigger picture of the deadlock in the globalized economic order. It is a picture of the grip of transnational financial oligarchies running into contradiction with the designs of the free-market economy. It is also a picture of the monopoly of wealth by a few depriving ultimate markets for industry.

Is President Obama exactly correct in saying "the power to solve is in our hands?" The new strain of the problem threatening the same scenario of global recession - the US debt crisis, comes on the heels of a preceding crisis in 2008 that posed to send the global community into the dark ages.

The solution picked at that time was the massive bailout of banks and investment houses to the tune of more than a trillion dollars. Nearly three years down the road, the cure would breed another more deadly disease: the danger of bankruptcy of the American government with no more money in the coffers to pay debts and public expenditures.

It was a $14-trillion question that saw the world's largest economy tottering on the precipice of a collapse.

Ano bang pakialam natin sa krisis sa Tate?

Tinutukoy natin dito ang palalang krisis ng pagkakautang ng America at pagbagsak ng credit rating nito kailan lang. Dalawang yugto ang isinasaad ng mga nabanggit na kaganapan.

Una'y ang utang ng Estados Unidos na ngayo'y $14.3 trilyon na. Bibigyan lang natin ng diin ang salitang trilyon, at sa laki ng pigurang ito'y baka di na kayang kwentahin ng karaniwang calculator.

Umabot sa sukdulan ang paglala ng problema ng America kung saan, dahil sa mahigit $3 trilyong alkanse sa badyet ng gobyerno at pagkasaid ng pondong pampubliko, ay naminto ang kinatatakutang di pakabayad sa bayaring utang. Isang napakalaking dagok sa pinakamayamang bansa sa mundo kung mangyayari ito.

Kaagad na epekto ang kagulohang idudulot sa sistemang pampinansya ng Amerika lakip na ang buong mundo. Tataas ang interes ng pautang, mababawasan ang kita, babagal ang ekonomya, maraming kumpanya ang magsasara, milyon-milyon ang mga mawawalan ng trabaho, sweldo at malamang pa pensyon.

Sa di pakabayad ng utang ng Estados Unidos o debt default, nagbabadya ang isang dambuhalang krisis pangekonomya na raragasa sa buong mundo. Ito na rin ang puweding pagmulan ng iba pang kagulohan, tulad ng mga riot sa lansangan, at paggiwang ng katayuan ng maraming lipunan kabilang na doon ang Amerikano.

Ang lumalabas na susi ay ang pagkakaayos ng Democratic at Republican Party sa kongresong US - mababa at mataas na kapulongan, para isabatas ang kaukulang hakbang, kagaya ng pagputol sa mga gastusin ng gobyerno, at paglikom ng dagdag na pera sa pamamagitan ng mga karagdagang buwis.

Pero ang pinakakagyat na hakbang ay ang pagpasa ng resolusyong pataasin pa ang pinapayagang antas ng pagkakautang para makapangutang muli, at matostosan ang mga kakulangan.

Dito na nagkaroon ng political gridlock o aberiya. Tutol ang mga mambabatas na Republican, at sa pang-uudyok ng dulong kanang Tea Party movement, sinagkaan ng mayoryang oposisyon sa US House of Representatives ang pag-angat ng debt ceiling, at mga pangmatagalang tugon para maisaayos ang badyet.

Nagmuntik-muntikang lumagpas ang gobyerno sa taning na Agosto 2, para maisalin ang kapalit na pera para sa mga gastosin sa kwartera. Naipasa ang panukalang pagtaas sa antas ng pangungutang sa tonong apat na trilyong dolyares, halos sa nakatakdang deadline na mismo, sa makapigil hiningang pagtatapos.

Inulan ng batikos and US, partikular ang mga politikong Amerikano sa pagiging iresponsable at rekles. Isa sa nagbitiw ng maanghang na puna ang Tsina, na pinakamalaking tagapagpautang ng America at pangunahing kasosyong pangkalakalan nito. Makapanindig balahibo ang pagbitin ng mga Amerikano sa usaping utang.

Dahil sa mga nangyari, natiyak ang pagdausdos ng sovereign rating ng bansa, bilang isa na ring pagkastigo nito. Wala pang isang linggo, ibinaba ng Standard and Poor ang credit status ng US mula sa AAA hanggang  AA+.  Ito ang pangalawang yugto.

Maaring hindi lubos na napagtanto ng mga astig na Amerikano, lalong-lalo na ng mga pulitiko ang kalubhaan ng epektong dulot ng pagkawala ng tiwala ng mga mangangalakal. Mapeligro ito sa numero unong ekonomya ng mundo. Nangibabaw ang pagmamalaki, at pagkabulag sa makasariling adyenda.

Tatlong araw lang kasunod sa pagtigpas ng tripleng A rating ng Amerika, sa dumating na Lunes, sumadsad ang pamilihang Wall Street. Ito ang pinakamababang pagdayb ng halaga ng shares mula nang pampinansyang tsunami noong 2008. Agad tumawid ang katayan sa mga mayor na pamilihan sa Europa at Asya.

Ang pagkatakot sa malapit nang di-pakabayad ng America sa mga obligasyon nito, ang pagdausdos ng tiwala ng iba't-ibang sektor sa katayuang pinansyal nito, at ang pasabog na ring kalagayan ng pagkakautang ng mga bansang Europa ay patuloy na yumayanig sa mga mauunlad na ekonomya ngayon.

Sa anomang malalim pang kadahilanan, namamayagpag ang isang malalang krisis sa Estados Unidos na kinatatampokan ng malamang na pagkalusaw pampinansya  at pagkalugmok ng ekonomya nito.

Tinatanaw ng mga nabanggit na kaganapan ang isang malawakang resisyon o paghina ng produksyon at kalakalan sa pandaigdigang larangan. Isinasaad ng kaayusang globalisasyon na walang bansang ligtas.

Sa katanungang ano ba ang pakialam natin sa mga nasasabing kaganapan? Simple lang ang sagot: hindi kailanman makaiiwas tayo sa mga unos na dulot nito. Pinaguusapan nalang ang saklaw at tindi nila.

Ang paggana ng ekonomya sa bansa, o ang batayang pagtugon sa mga pangangailangan ng bawat pamilya, ay lubhang nakasalalay pa rin sa puhunang labas na nakapailalim sa pandaigdigang sistemang pampinansya. Ang pagkawindang nito ay siyang puputol sa daloy niyaon.

Dapat lang tandaan na maging ang balangkas ng pangkalahatang badyet ng gobyerno ay nagsasaad pa rin ng depisit o kakulangan sa nariyan nang pondo. Ang pagkalugi na ito'y umaabot sa daan-dang bilyong piso. Lahat ng ito'y tinutustosan ng utang na ang pinakamalaking bahagi ay utang panlabas.

Sa kabilang dako naman, patuloy na sumasandig sa dayuhang pamumuhunan ang anomang ambisyon ng pagpapalago ng ekonomya sa bansa, sampo ng mga kaakibat na kabuhayan: mapasa industriya, sektor ng serbisyo, o malawakang ekonomyang batay sa agrikultura. Yan ngayon ang nasa panganib na mawala.

Hindi naaampat ang umiiral na krisis pangkabuhayan, simula't sapol. Isa sa kongkretong mukha nito'y ang nagpapatuloy na malawakang kawalan ng trabaho, kung kaya't napakahalagang haligi ng ekonomya ang pagluluwas ng lakas paggawa sa mga banyagang lugar gaya ng Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai at Singapore.

Lubhang apektado ang merkado ng export labor o Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) ng pagkitid at pagsadsad ng pandaigdigang ekonomya, lalo na sa mga mauunlad na lipunan. Idinudulot nito ang pagkawala ng pamilihan ng mga produkto't serbisyo, pagsara ng negosyo, at kawalan ng mapagtratrabahoan.

Nagbabadya ng malakihang disempleyo na tatama sa mga OFWs ang pag-urong ng pinansya at mga pamilihan bilang tampok na katangian ng patinding krisis pangkabuhayan sa US at buong daigdig.

Apektado rin ng husto ang kalakalang eksport ng bansa, tulad ng pagluluwas ng mga furniture, sugpo, saging, kopra, mga prinosesong pagkain, mga produktong handicraft, at iba pa. Ito'y dahil sa pagbaba ng halaga ng dolyar na nagbubunga ng pagbawas ng kita sa bentahang panlabas.

Ang pagikli ng kita sa kalakalang eksport ay maaring tuluyang magpasara ng mga kompanyang nakabase rito dahil sa hindi na pagkabayable ng kanilang negosyo. Karugtong ng ganitong kaganapan ang paglubha pa ng kawalan ng trabaho, at lalong pagkadestabilisa ng isang kalagayang palapit sa pagsabog.

Hindi dapat maliitin o balewalain ang mga hagupit ng krisis na nagsisimula palang mag-ipon ng ibayong tindi at pinsala sa darating na mga araw.