Wexistence

On the front page today:

(Click to read full article)

See, I’m a big fan of Facebook/Twitter/the internet in general! Who says I don’t appreciate the power of new media?

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, Former DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman, Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto “TG” Guingona III
June 4, 2009 at the Ateneo de Manila University

The Constitution has not been violated — yet. According to Fr. Joaquin Bernas, Dean Emeritus of the Ateneo de Manila Law School and renowned constitutional expert, HR 1109 expresses the intent to “gang rape” the Constitution, but the actual violation has yet to occur.

Our 1987 Constitution states that constitutional amendments “may be proposed by congress” but it does not specify whether or not the House of Representatives (HOR) and the Senate must be in joint session. Fr. Bernas is of the opinion that “what the Constitution does not prohibit it allows,” therefore with or without HR 1109, the HOR already is a Constituent Assembly. As such, it can propose amendments at any time. However, Fr. Bernas stressed that any amendments proposed by the HOR must be approved by the Senate.

HR 1109 stipulates that the HOR and the Senate would vote jointly—not separately—to amend the 1987 Constitution. Clearly, the HOR seeks to render the Senate useless, because the larger House membership could override any Senate objections to proposed amendments. Is this constitutional? Could the HOR actually proceed without the Senate?

Fr. Bernas says it could, but only if the Supreme Court is complicit. In which case, it would play out this way: The HOR would bring the amended Constitution to COMELEC for a plebiscite. A case would be brought before the Supreme Court. Supreme Court would rule that the proposed amendments were valid even without Senate approval. The plebiscite would proceed and the Filipino people would vote on the amended Constitution.

The approval of HR 1109 has sparked outrage from multi-sectoral groups all over the country who fear that charter amendments could pave the way for the Arroyo administration to remain in power. How real is the threat of term extension? Sec. Dinky Soliman described four possible scenarios:

• …The Supreme Court decides that a Senate less CONASS is valid. Plebiscite continues, it is a yes victory and the election of May 10, 2010 is an election for a parliamentary form of government. GMA runs on a district in Pampanga. She wins and becomes eventually the Prime Minister.This scenario assumes that the outraged and protest from the citizenry is weak.

• …The Supreme Court declares that Congress is a bicameral body therefore the Senate is needed. Election fever catches up. A presidential election is held in May 10, 2010.This scenario assumes that there is significant citizen’s lobby to stop CONASS and chahcha. The citizen’s actions is a major influence in the assessment and judgement of the justices in the Supreme Court.

• …There is building outrage from the citizens and more street actions are undertaken. Malacanang rides on the anger of the people and organizes violent incidents that will then be the basis for emergency rule. This scenario assumes that citizen’s actions are not organized and disciplined which creates the conditions for infiltration and manipulated violence from the enemies of democracy.

• …The debate and deliberation in the Supreme Court takes a long time and it gets overtaken by election on May 10, 2010. GMA runs for Congress in Pampanga she wins, the administration candidates win too. They get the Supreme Court go ahead and convenes a Constituent Assembly, converts Congress into a parliament and GMA is elected as Prime Minister. This scenario assumes that the 2010 election is dominated by the allies of GMA and her candidates wins. This scenario assumes that transactional politics was the dominant practice and cheating, vote buying and killing will be the norm in the election of 2010. This means the citizen’s action was weak and we failed to educate and mobilize active citizenship.

Fr. Bernas emphasized that term extension would only be possible with the cooperation of the Supreme Court and the military.

When asked if there was any indication which way the Supreme Court would rule, Sec. Soliman replied that presently the justices are being very careful. They know the implications of their decision and cannot be seen as having a position. Political analysts have raised the question, will “utang na loob” prevail in a decision made by GMA-appointed justices? Based on past decisions, Sec. Soliman said that the Supreme Court has shown that it is independent.

Sec. Soliman was less optimistic about the military. AFP Chief Lt. Gen. Delfin Bangit’s loyalties clearly lie with GMA. He served as her PSG commander and she is an adopted member of his PMA Class (Class ’78). It does not seem unlikely that Gen. Bangit would be complicit to a repeat of the 2004 presidential elections in which ranking military officers participated in massive election fraud or to emergency rule.

According to Rep. Guingona, right now there is a lot of confusion in the House. Even the proponents of the HR 1109 are all saying different things, no one seems to know what will happen next. What is clear is that (1) HR 1109 is the first overt step to change the constitution; and (2) There is a mastermind behind all this.

Rep. Guingona recounted the events at the House on June 2: “We were supposed to take up land reform. They did not continue… And you could feel their battering ram, like a railroad, you could feel the pressure. Let’s do this, let’s do this. They were ramming it on us… Imagine, this is changing the Constitution. And after four measly hours of debate, of interpellation, suddenly somebody stands up and moves that we close the debate and go into voting… Terrible, sickening, disheartening.”

“It is true, there was a threat. Those who would go against this charter change would receive no pork barrel,” said Rep. Guingona. “The CDF… is what is being used to control the congressmen and their votes.” Neither the CDF nor the funds for various pump-priming projects have been released.

HR 1109 is clearly just the tip of the iceberg. It is part of a much larger plot, but at this point no one is sure what that plot is. Term extension is a possibility, but there may be others that have not yet been identified. All we know is that it represents an insidious threat to our democracy.

What can we ordinary citizens do? We can be informed and be vigilant. We can express an opinion and make our voices heard. We can write our congressmen or write letters to the editor. We can raise awareness and educate others using our mobile phones, our blogs and our social networks. We can engage our families, our friends and our communities in dialogue. We can get involved with groups and organize rallies, concerts, foras and various other activities.

We cannot afford to sit back and be passive observers; there is too much at stake. If we want to live in a democratic society we need to fight for it. Now is the time to make our stand.

From the Gusto Ko Magrehistro, Gusto Kong Bumoto forum last Thursday:

COMELEC Commissioner Rene Sarmiento and Juana Change

The audience (photo stolen from Mark’s Facebook album)

ABS-CBN covered the event as part of their “Boto Mo Ipatrol Mo” series and asked the students and young professionals who attended why they were going to vote in 2010. If you spoke in front of the camera, you got this shirt:

I declined an interview (less because I was busy manning the registration table and more because I’m like a deer in headlights in front of a TV camera) but I would like to share my two centavos on the matter. English is my first language but since the question was asked in Filipino, I will attempt to answer it in Filipino:

Boboto ako dahil ito ay aking karapatan and katungkulan bilang mamayang Pilipino. Ang pakikilahok ng bawat mamamayan ay ang puso at budhi ng demokrasya. Kung gusto nating maging tunay na demokrasya ang ating bansa at kung gusto nating lutasin ang sakit ng ating lipunan, kailangan nating kumilos.

Ang pagboto sa 2010 ay unang hakbang laman tungo sa pagbabago at magandang kinabukasan. Ang katungkulan natin sa ating bayan ay hindi nagtatapos sa paghulog ng ating balota. Kailangan nating bantayan ang ating boto at tiyakin na malinis at tapapat ang pag bilang nito. Pag naluklok na sa puwesto ang ating mga kandidato, kailangan nating pasagutin sila sa kanila mga kilos at gawa. Ipatupad natin ang kanilang mga pangako at subaybayan nating ang pag ganap ng kanilang tungkulin. Iparinig natin ang ating mga boses at puwersahin nating silang aksyonan ang mga isyung mahalaga sa atin.

Ang kinabukasan ng bayan ang nasa kamay ng mamamayang Pilipino. Ang pagbabago ay hindi nangagaling sa itaas, mula sa pamahalaan. Ang pagbabago ay nagsisimula sa mga karaniwang tao tulad natin.

Upang magbago ang Pilipinas, kailangan munang magbago ang Pilipino. Hindi lang naman ang “trapo” ang korupt. Kapag nag hahanap tayo nang lusot sa batas, kapag nangaabuso tayo nang ibang tao, kapag iniisip lang nating ang sariling kapakanan — wala tayong pinagkaiba sa kanila.

Sikapin nating maging bayani sa ating pang araw-araw na pamumuhay. Maging sino man tayo, may kakayahan tayong paglingkuran ang ating bayan. Hindi natin kailangang maging mayaman o makapangyarihan upang makilahok sa ating mga komunidad and tumulong sa ating kapwa. Wag nating baliwalain ang ating mga malilit na kontribusyon – pag pinagsama-sama natin ang mga ito magugulat tayo sa kaya nating gawin. Taglay natin ang kapangyarihang baguhin ang landas ng ating bayan. Maniwala ka!

My notes from a talk Vida and I gave last year to high school seniors in LSGH, and then some. Relevant to some points I want to make in a later post.

“It is time to move the debate about globalization forward … we can to a large extent pick and choose between the bits of globalization we like and those we don’t … Our challenge is to grasp the opportunities that globalization offers while taking the sting out of its threats.” ¹

Economic Globalization

Some view globalization as a key to future world economic development. In theory, removing barriers to trade should bring immense benefits to everyone. It will lead to greater specialization and division of labor as each country concentrates on producing goods and services in which they have a competitive advantage. Freer trade leads to greater efficiency and cheaper products.

Other regard it with hostility and even fear, believing that it increases inequality within and between nations, threatens employment and living standards and thwarts social progress. The increased integration of markets and the free flow of capital and labor across borders can result in greater social instability. Local economies are made more vulnerable to external shocks in the wider economy and local industries are threatened to be run out of business by their more competitive counterparts elsewhere.

The benefits of globalization are real, yet so are its dangers. It is up to countries to strike a balance between the two, to “grasp the opportunities that globalization offers while taking the sting out of its threats.”

Sovereign nations can manage the rate and pace of globalization by the laws they make, the policies they adopt and the international agreements they enter. International institutions such as the WTO exist precisely so that the nations of the world can come together to discuss and negotiate the “bits of globalization that they like and those they don’t.”

There are no international laws that tell nations precisely how they should go about globalization. There is no manual on globalization, there are no easy steps 1, 2 and 3. Globalization can be viewed as a game: nations are the key players, international institutions like the WTO are the referees, and the rules are negotiable and are made up as they go along.

Free Trade vs. Fair Trade

Some people may hold the false notion that the WTO is for free trade at any cost. Beyond free trade, the WTO is for fair trade. The WTO seeks to establish an equitable trading system among developed and developing countries. This means implementing rules that will ensure that trade is fair, stable, predictable and transparent. Within this framework, countries can come up with policies and agreements that will allow them to benefit from globalization while cushioning themselves from the negative effects.

The WTO has nearly 150 members, accounting for over 97% of world trade. The legitimacy of the WTO is unquestionable.

The WTO puts order where there would otherwise be anarchy. According to microeconomics, markets are not effective in producing “public goods” and unrestrained competition can lead to “public bads”. When the market fails, the state intervenes to generate collaboration rather than competition. In the international political economy, there is no “super-state” to force sovereign states to collaborate instead of compete. Economic globalization can lead to global market failures such as trade barriers and ruinous competition . The WTO is essential in promoting equitable trade practices and in settling disputes.

The WTO system is intended to facilitate the flow of trade. It seeks to establish an equitable trading system among developed and developing countries. This means implementing rules that will ensure that trade is fair, stable, predictable and transparent.

The WTO provides the forum for negotiating liberalization. It also provides the rules for how liberalization can take place, and a venue for dispute settlement. Guided by the rules of the WTO, member countries bargain with each other on how low trade barriers should go. Their negotiating positions depend on how ready they feel they are to lower the barriers, and on what they want to obtain from other members in return.

Over three quarters of WTO members are developing or least-developed countries. Freer trade means great adjustment costs for these countries. Thus, all WTO agreements contain special provision for them, including longer time periods to implement agreements and commitments, measures to increase their trading opportunities and support to help them build the infrastructure for WTO work, handle disputes, and implement technical standards. The provisions are intended to help local producers adjust to the demands of freer trade.

A WTO committee on trade and development, assisted by a sub-committee on least-developed countries, looks at developing countries’ special needs. It is responsible for the implementation of the agreements, technical cooperation, and the increased participation of developing countries in the global trading system

In sum, the WTO system aims to be:

• Non-discriminating — a country should not discriminate between its trading partners (they are all, equally, granted “most-favored-nation” or MFN status); and it should not discriminate between its own and foreign products, services or nationals (they are given “national treatment”).
• Freer — with barriers coming down through negotiation
• Predictable — foreign companies, investors and governments should be confident that trade barriers (including tariffs, non-tariff barriers and other measures) should not be raised arbitrarily; more and more tariff rates and market-opening commitments are “bound” in the WTO.
• More competitive — by discouraging “unfair” practices such as export subsidies and dumping products at below cost to gain market share.
• More beneficial for less developed countries — by giving them more time to adjust, greater flexibility, and special privileges.

The WTO can be beneficial to countries, but it requires their participation. Negotiation is the game. The countries are the players. The WTO is the referee. The referee cannot do anything if the players refuse to play. But nothing fruitful will come about if countries refuse to come to the negotiating table. When talks collapse, it does not mean that there is something wrong with the game or with the arbiter. It only means that the players are not very good at playing the game.

Issues to Consider:

Equalization of Production Costs

Free trade promotes greater capital and labor mobility. According to the Heckscher-Ohlin model, free trade will cause nations to export goods that use their most abundant factors of production and import goods that use their scarce factor of production.

An important implication of the Heckscher-Ohlin model is that trade equalizes factor prices across different countries. It tends to increase the demand for factors of production in relative abundance and decrease the demand for factors of production relatively scarce in a country.

As trade increases, the demand for capital-intensive goods increases in a capital-intensive country, and the price of capital will rise. As the demand for capital rises, the demand for labor will decrease, causing the price of labor to fall. The process happens in reverse in labor-intensive countries.

Adjustment Costs

Freer trade will cause a dislocation of workers in an industry in a country that does not have a comparative advantage relative to another country in that industry. The workers from these firms face job loss as production of their product shifts to another country. These workers can be retrained for a different industry, but this takes time and is difficult for older workers near retirement.

To soften the blow countries have tended to phase out trade barriers. The transition is made slowly over time, so that workers from the declining industry can retrain or retire over time, and so that firms will not go bankrupt at the initiation of free trade.

For example, AFTA has a scheme called the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT), which aims to lower tariffs in stages. In some cases, tariffs will be cut 25% after one year, 50% after 5 years, and 100% after 10 years. This gradual phasing out of tariffs will allow production to shift from one industry to another more slowly. But phasing in free trade also has a cost. It will take years to gain all of the benefits of free trade. This period of transition may be necessary politically, but it does have an important disadvantage.

Infant Industries

It is argued that temporary trade restrictions are required to protect infant industries from foreign competition while they are establishing themselves. Old mature industries argue that they need time to restructure. However, in most cases, these industries simply want permission to continue business as usual. Greater levels of competition will force firms to either become more efficient or to shut down. To many firms, neither of these options are desirable.

Political and Social Issues

Political and social issues make further trade liberalization in both advanced and developing countries difficult. Unemployment is a major concern. To become more efficient and to save on costs, firms are trying to cut down on labor. Many workers are being laid off. As firms grow and GDP increases, the rate of unemployment also increases. The number of newly unemployed due to rationalization will outweigh the number of newly employed due to the growth of firms. This is the so-called “growth without employment increase”. Naturally, workers will lobby against free trade and politicians will become reluctant to liberalize it.

The problem of unequal distribution of welfare gains is another matter that generates concern. On one extreme there are people who want to secure the equality in opportunity, and on the other there are people who want to see the equality in results. From the social stability point of view, there is a need to compromise and decide the appropriate combination between the two. The combination will depend on the values and priorities of each nation and is a matter which politicians will have to resolve.

Politicians may have vested interests in protecting certain industries. They may protect those which receive great social sympathy for the sake of social and political stability

Protectionist policies are sometimes necessary to help countries make the difficult transition to free trade. They're not necessarily intended to prohibit or reduce trade but are sometimes adopted as temporary measures to deal with adjustment costs and give infant industries a chance to modernize and be competitive. Trade agreements must be negotiated to keep trade barriers within reasonable limits, and powerful economies must not retaliate against weaker economies whose trade barriers stay within agreed limits.

Oligopolistic Competition

Free trade, the reduction of transportation cost and the progress of information technology has increased the incidences of oligopolistic competition. More and more multinational corporations are being formed as the number of new mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships between companies increases. Domestic companies in developing countries are more likely to be assimilated by multinationals. Mergers between domestic companies are also being formed to help domestic more oligopolistic. companies compete with multinationals. In this way, the market is becoming In such situation, trade may not be mutually beneficial to all countries involved. Some countries may lose from trade. Oligopolistic competition increase the possibility that workers will suffer. The distribution of value added between capital and labor will tend to move in the unfavorable direction for labor.

Increased Instability in the Regional (and World) Economy

The combination of trade liberalization, capital investment liberalization, and revolution in the information technology increases the instability of the world economy.

Trade liberalization has brought about greater interdependence among nations. Thus, small countries can be adversely affected by the economic shocks elsewhere. Free capital transaction, the quick acquisition of common knowledge through Internet and the financial engineering based on information technology are being blamed to a considerable extent for the Asian financial crisis.

The phenomenon of “herding” is particularly hazardous. Perfect information is not a realistic assumption, and most people and companies act based on limited information. Their sources of information are often secondary and not always reliable. In the case of Asian financial crisis, rating companies provided misleading information. Information exists in an asymmetric way in many cases. All these factors increase the instability of the regional – and world – economy.

Environmental Concerns

Free trade can have environmentally hazardous effects. The rapid industrialization through export promotion policies has increased air and water pollution in many developing countries. The exploitation of natural resources to meet high demand is damaging the different countries’ ecosystems. Also, free trade facilitates the mobility of environmentally harmful commodities. Fifteen of the fast track commodities under AFTA’s CEPT are environmentally harmful. Because economic development is often prioritized over environmental preservation and because the costs of environmental degradation is not factored into the price of products, free trade cannot address this problem. Thus governments must intervene with appropriate policies. These policies may take the form of trade tariffs or non-trade barriers such as the implementation of rules and regulations regarding standards.

Globalization and New Ways of Thinking About Security

Globalization has brought about the expansion of interaction processes, forms of organization, and forms of cooperation between both state and non-state actors. The conditions of interdependence and interpenetration have made national and global security more complicated than ever before. “Security decisions increasingly take place outside the traditional purview of sovereignty. Globalization creates an interpenetration of foreign and domestic issues that national governments must recognize in developing policy.”¹

The traditional approach to security is concerned with the protection of a state’s territorial integrity, political independence and sovereignty against “external” military threats under state control. The current security discourse, however, goes beyond state-centric analysis and military threats and examines the political, economic, social and environmental dimensions of security as well as the many linkages between them. It considers such issues as the plight of children in armed conflict, terrorism, trafficking in arms, narcotics and people, the spread of infectious diseases, and cross-border environmental depredations. This approach, which considers a wide range of human challenges, is known as the non-traditional approach.

The non-traditional approach is a critique of the traditional approach, but it is not necessarily in opposition to state sovereignty and national security. The state remains the central provider of security in ideal circumstances. The approach does, however, suggest that traditional security does not necessarily correlate with all the dimensions of the security of people, and that over-emphasis upon statist security can be detrimental to human security needs. Traditional conceptions of state security are a necessary but not sufficient condition for human survival.²

Non-traditional security does not include all health, welfare and development challenges. These issues become security concerns when they reach crisis point, when they undermine and diminish the survival changes of a significant number of people and when they threaten the stability and integrity of society.³

Non-traditional security issues can blur the lines between internal and external security. Their effects can spill over territorial borders and cause a range of wider security threats and sources of instability or otherwise disrupt international markets. Thus, they are very much an international concern and require international cooperation among a range of actors, including non-state actors.

Global Interest vs. National Interest

The global interest can be understood as the common good of the international community. Environmental protection, freer trade, respect for human rights, peace and security are part of the common good, because they are in the interest of all members of the international community. Thus, there is no clash between the global interest and national interests. What is good for the international community is good for the nations that comprise it.

However, this is not necessarily true the other way around. What nations perceive to be in their national interests may not coincide with what is in the global interest. For example, when nations go to war, they perceive war to be in their national interest. War, however, is not in the global interest.

The global interest is difficult to achieve because nations have a wide array of interests, and some of them are in direct opposition to each other. The distribution of power among states in the international system is uneven, and some states have greater capacity to achieve their ends. Some gain at the expense of others. This arrangement could potentially lead to instability and conflict.

Nations can choose to align their policies with the global interest, or they can chose to pursue their interests single-mindedly. It is up to the state whether it wants to compromise or not. If the state chooses to ignore the global interest in pursuit of its national interest, then conflict will inevitable arise. Disregarding the global interest in pursuing national interests, however, can only be detrimental to the nation.

____________________
¹ Philippe Legrain, Open World: The Truth About Globalisation, Abacus, Great Britain, 2002
² Victor D. Cha, “Globalization and the Study of International Security”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3. (May, 2000), pp. 391-403
³ Ramesh Thakur, “Non-traditional security in Asia Introduction,” in Broadening Asia's Security Discourse and Agenda: Political, Social, and Environmental Perspectives eds. Edward Newman and Ramesh Thakur (New York: United Nations University Press, 2004)
⁴ Ibid.