Crisis and Change Focus on the Philippines 2008 Yearbook FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH Crisis and Change: Focus on the Philippines 2008 Yearbook FOCUS ON THE PHILIPPINES YEARBOOK rounds up the year’s key issues and events, providing sharp, ti mely, relevant CContentsontents Contributors research, commentary, reports, and Walden Bello, Jenina Joy Chavez, analysis on important themes in the Julie Delos Reyes, Herbert Docena, Philippines. FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL Aya Fabros, Mary Lou Malig, Introduction /1 SOUTH Philippines Programme hopes Mary Ann Manahan, Joseph Purugganan, Raff y Simbol, Moving Forward, Looking Back: Revisiting the year of to contribute to politi cal and economic Rene Raya, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, crises and ‘change’ debate and discourse in the country Rufa Cagoco-Guiam, Soliman M. Santos, through its regular publicati ons, the Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, Octavio Dinampo, Aya Fabros /1 FOP Yearbook, FOP Policy Review Eric Guti errez, Leonor Briones, Isagani Serrano, Rene Ofreneo, and the monthly FOP E-Newslett er. Kanlungan Center, 2008 in Figures /6 Freedom from Debt Coaliti on FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH Crisis /11 Photos In the Shadow of Debt: The Sad but Sobering Story Focus on the Global South is a non- Carlos Paredes, Visayan Daily Star, profi t policy analysis, research and Aison Garcia, Arkibong Bayan, behind a Quarter-Century of Stagnation campaigning organisati on, working in Magkaisa Junk JPEPA, Walden Bello /11 nati onal, regional and internati onal Freedom from Debt Coaliti on, coaliti ons and campaigns, and with social Welga ng Kababaihan movements and grassroots organisati ons On the Rice Crisis on key issues confronti ng the global Editor Mary Ann Manahan /26 south. Focus was founded in 1995 Aya Fabros ([email protected]) and is att ached to the Chulalongkorn How to Manufacture a Global Food Crisis: University Social Research Insti tute Editorial Assistant (CUSRI) in Bangkok, Thailand. It has Gabrielle Dominique Garen How “Free Trade” is Destroying Third World Agriculture— programs in the Philippines and India. and Who’s Fighting Back Layout Gaynor Tanyang Walden Bello /30 Notes on the Oil Crisis Crisis and Change: Focus on the Philippines 2008 Yearbook Walden Bello /39 Published by Focus on the Global Filipino Families and Government South Philippines Programme Spending Less on Education Quezon City, Philippines Rene Raya /41 January 2009 Continuing Political Crisis: ‘Executive Privilege’ Timeline The contents of this report can be freely Raffy Simbol /45 reproduced and quoted on the conditi on that the source be menti oned. Focus would appreciate receiving a copy of the text in which the report is menti oned or cited. To publish fi gures not The Buzz in Congress belonging to Focus on the Global South, please coordinate with the owners for permission. Joseph Purugganan /48 For more informati on about this and other Focus publicati ons please contact: The Future of Agrarian Reform Hangs in the Balance Qiqo Simbol - Focus Philippines Mary Ann Manahan /54 IT/Knowledge Management [email protected] Lourdes Torres - Focus Philippines Administrati ve Offi cer Status Symbol: The Status of Visiting Forces Agreement [email protected] with Australia is Up for Ratifi cation at the Senate #19 Maginhawa St. UP Village, Diliman, Quezon City 1104 PHILIPPINES Herbert Docena /57 Tel (632)433 3387, (632)433 1676; Fax (632)4330899 htt p://ph.focusweb.org [email protected] Printed on recyclable and acid free paper Focus on the SONA /62 Trade /164 Eight-Point Memo to Address the Economic Crisis The Road to JPEPA: How the Philippine government Herbert Docena and Jenina Joy Chavez /62 negotiated the controversial trade deal with Japan Goebbels’ Disciple Joseph Purugganan /164 Walden Bello /70 How Doha Died: A Ringsider’s View Let Them Eat ‘Spin’ (Qu’ils Mangent de la Merde): Walden Bello /176 National Social Welfare Program, Noah’s Ark, and So-Called Strategic Responses to the National Crisis Meltdown /182 Aya Fabros /73 A Primer on the Wall Street Meltdown Politicizing the Bureaucracy, Recycling Political Allies Walden Bello /182 Mary Ann Manahan /80 Protecting the poor Gloria’s 8th SONA and the ghosts of past controversies Leonor Magtolis Briones /194 Joseph Purugganan /84 The Need for a Debt Moratorium: Increasing Fiscal Mindanao /89 Spending, Ending Fiscal Dictatorship The US and the Bangsamoro Struggle: Freedom from Debt Coalition /198 Selfi sh Determination vs Self-Determination Herbert Docena /89 Migration /206 Muddling up Mindanao Are OFWs Falling Through the Cracks?: Between Aya Fabros /102 Unwieldy Regulation and the Middle Men of Migration Julie de los Reyes /206 Making and Unmaking Mindanao Miriam Coronel Ferrer /108 Did the Global Forum on Migration and Development Really Address Migrants’ Issues? POVERTY IN ARMM Mary Lou Malig /214 Focus on the MOA-AD /114 In the Service of Filipino Workers Notes on Mindanao and the MOA-AD Kanlungan Center Foundation /218 Aya Fabros /114 Towards a memorandum for self-determination Herbert Docena /120 A Climate Justice Deal in Copenhagen? Isagani Serrano /223 On the botched MOA-AD: Lessons never learned Rufa Cagoco-Guiam /135 Agrarian Reform /230 The MOA is dead! Long live the MOA! Standing on Tenuous Grounds: The Battle for CARP Atty Soliman M. Santos /140 Extension and Meaningful Reforms What Muslim Mindanao Really Means to Arroyo Mary Ann Manahan /230 Nathan Gilbert Quimpo /146 Subverting Reform by Raising Wrong Development What Now and Where To? Policy Choices Prof. Octavio Dinampo /152 Rene E. Ofreneo, Ph.D. /238 Southern Philippines Confl ict: Violence to Intensify as Land and Territorial Disputes Worsen Eric Gutierrez /156 IIntroductionntroduction MMOVINGOVING FFORWARD,ORWARD, LLOOKINGOOKING BBACK:ACK: Revisiting the year of crises and ‘change’ The word of the year is change. It’s the most frequently used term in the media and the Internet in 2008. For some reason, the word change came up – in the news, in shows, in posts, arti cles, interviews and blogs - in such a striking way this year, compared to any other word in the English language. If you crosscheck the fi ndings of predicti ve quanti ty propriety algorithm and do a simple googlesearch of key words, you get: god (498,000,000 results), government (609,000,000), sex (746,000,000), porn (16,900,000), food (814,000,000), and change (1,110,000,000 results). Questi on: What does this fascinati ng fi nding mean? What makes change this year’s it word? Or bett er yet, what makes 2008 the year of change? In the Philippines, changes this year mostly sprung in the context of sudden swings, vacillati ng positi ons, shocks and downturns. Think Mindanao and the government stance on the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain or MOA-AD, the whole episode shift ing from forging a breakthrough agreement for peace to the resumpti on of violence and warfare. (For more on Mindanao and the MOA-AD, see Docena, p. 89; Fabros, p. 102; Ferrer, p. 108; Fabros, p.114; Docena, p. 120; Cagoco-Guiam, p. 135; Santos, p. 140; Quimpo, p. 146; Dinampo, p. 152; Guti errez, p. 156) Think Chacha and the positi ons of politi cians who push on and then pull back. The call for Charter Change (Chacha) was a recurring theme throughout the year, and although it’s been cropping up for several years now, the recent 1 Focus on the Philippines Yearbook 2008 move really has nothing to do with changing things and everything to to alarming trends even before the global fi nancial meltdown, Focus do with ensuring that things are kept the way they are. stressed the need for strategic soluti ons that systemati cally change the way the economy is run. The global economic crisis further Of course, for this year, the key area rocked with swings and shocks highlighted major contradicti ons in the Philippine economy. Majority would be the Philippine economy, which swung from a year of ‘historic of Filipinos have not benefi ted from periods of steady growth and growth’ (7.3 percent in 2007) to a slump that dropped below the have been dealt with the harshest blows of the economy’s swings and average 5-6 percent level registered in recent years. This downturn shocks—with poverty and hunger rising instead of falling, jobs lost at the start of the year came with a major food and rice ‘shortage’, rather than created, incomes dwindling rather than growing, where as well as an energy and oil crisis, which led to sharp spikes in prices. income and asset distributi on remain highly unequal. Infl ati on rose each month from an average of 2.8 percent last year to double-digits, with the price of key commoditi es like rice, shooti ng up As early as April, Walden Bello wrote about the puzzling ‘growth’ of to as high as 60.5 percent in some areas. (see 2008 in Figures) the stagnant Philippine economy, linking 25 years of stagnati on and underdevelopment to a ‘crisis of investment’ due to debt prioriti zati on Our vulnerability to global price fl uctuati on has been traced back to and trade liberalizati on. (Bello, p. 11) By the last quarter of 2008, initi al policies that made the Philippine economy so extensively linked to tremors of the global fi nancial crisis begun to manifest in decline in global producti on and trade, even when it comes to basic commoditi es exports and investment, with reports of order cancellati on, shut like food. Walden Bello linked the food crisis to structural adjustment downs and massive lay off s rising. (For more on the meltdown and and trade liberalizati on in ‘How to Manufacture a Global Food Crisis’ proposed measures, see Bello, p. 182; Briones, p.