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Restoration and Rehabilitation for Bohol, Cebu and Negros Oriental

October 31, 2013 12:21 pm / Leave a comment





SIXTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC       )
OF THE PHILIPPINES                                             )
_________ Regular Session                                        )
SENATE
S.B. No. __________
Introduced by Senator Ferdinand R Marcos Jr
EXPLANATORY NOTE
The provinces of Bohol, Cebu and in recent past, Negros Oriental, Philippines suffered massive, extremely dangerous earthquakes. Such disasters left deep, indelible imprints on the national psyche and upon people all over the world thus the incidents demand our undivided attention.
Pursuant to Section 4, Article II of 1987 Philippine Constitution providing, “The prime duty of the Government is to serve and protect the people”, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 (RA 10121) was enacted into law. With this, Philippine DRRM Plan 2011-2028 was adopted to ensure that the government shall establish and strengthen capacities of communities to anticipate, cope and recover from the negative impact of emergency occurrences and disasters. The DILG as the Vice Chair for Preparedness of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) issued a Memorandum Circular No. 2012-79 to implement the Seal of Disaster Preparedness. The aimed at recognizing and incentivizing local governance performance in institutionalizing disaster preparedness, and to assess performance gaps, link gaps to policy or program intervention and monitor improvements on disaster preparedness. In the recent Bohol-Cebu calamity, the resulting effects from the earthquake, are as follows:
1.            Fatalities: more than 218 persons dead
2.            Missing: more than 8 persons unaccounted for as this time
3.            In Bohol lone, more than 120,000 persons displaced and evacuated.
4.            Civilians Injured in Bohol province alone : 760
5.            More than seventy nine (79) designated evacuation centers in Bohol-Cebu were filled to the brim with displaced persons.
6.            Loss and damage to property estimated at more or less in the range of 10 billion pesos with a cost of reconstruction reaching up to 20 billion pesos
Thus said, the recent calamity that hit Bohol and Cebu City resulted in enormous loss to the people in terms of structures. Ground shift, water retreat from the affected areas’ sea lines, these are merely some of the effects of the disaster in Bohol, Cebu and continue to be suffered by the population in Negros Oriental that in recent past also suffered a massive earthquake. Infrastructure damage is estimated at not less than fifteen billion Philippine Pesos (PHP15-B) in all three areas of Bohol, Cebu and Negros. These assessments form part of the early findings only on the overall worth of the destruction brought about by the calamity.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) office in Bohol-Cebu, according to its Officer-in-Charge, Allan Rommel R. Labayog, suffered intense shaking in the PHIVOLCS seismic vault that subsequently damaged the earthquake sensor equipment of Phivolcs in the area. This makes the Phivolcs now handicapped to monitor earthquakes in said area in the immediate future and needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
In paragraph 2, Section 23, Article VI of the Philippine Constitution, it is stated that “in times of war or other national emergency, the Congress may, by law, authorize the President, for a limited period and subject to such restrictions as it may prescribe, to exercise powers necessary and proper to carry out a declared national policy. Unless sooner withdrawn by resolution of the Congress, such powers shall cease upon the next adjournment thereof.” In paragraph 2, Section 26 Article VI it states, that “No bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its Members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency. Upon the last reading of a bill, no amendment thereto shall be allowed, and the vote thereon shall be taken immediately thereafter, and the yeas and nays entered in the Journal.
And in Section 17, Article XII of the Philippine Constitution, it states that. “In times of national emergency, when the public interest so requires, the State may, during the emergency and under reasonable terms prescribed by it, temporarily take over or direct the operation of any privately-owned public utility or business affected with public interest.”

This proposed bill seeks to put in place a Bohol-Cebu-Negros Rehabilitation Commission (BCNRC) that will be responsible for developing, formulating and implementing a Bohol-Cebu-Negros Rehabilitation and Development Plan at the quickest and soonest possible time. In Negros Oriental, a group, Centre Humanes et Societas, Inc. through its network of organizations in the province, has enjoined the forming of a Standing Conference on Negros Oriental Rehabilitation and Development. This Standing Conference has formulated the comprehensive plan for rehabilitating Negros Oriental in the post-earthquake period and the results of their work will be used in the course of the work of the Commission that is the subject of this Act. This measure emanates from a series of consultations with various stakeholders.  Confident of their noble intentions and breadth of knowledge in the matter involved, the immediate enactment of this proposed measure into law is most fervently enjoined.

FERDINAND R MARCOS JR

The Author: Senator Bongbong Marcos

Zamboanga Rehabilitation

October 30, 2013 1:40 am / Leave a comment





SIXTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC     )
OF THE PHILIPPINES                                             )
_________ Regular Session                                        )



SENATE
S.B. No. __________
_____________________________________________________________________

by Senator Grace L. Poe
_____________________________________________________________________


NOTE

The country’s recent experiences when twin calamities hit Zamboanga City – the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) 20-day Siege of Zamboanga City and the flash floods that hit the City after the hostage-taking and burning of villages were dire experiences that merit national attention. On September 9, 2013 armed elements staged an attack, on Zamboanga City notwithstanding the presence of the AFP Western Mindanao Command at Barangays Baliwasan, Calarian and the Philippine National Police’ Directorate for Integrated Police Operation-Western Mindanao and the Police Regional Office Region IX, PNP Maritime Group headquarters at Barangay Sta. Barbara.
The MNLF armed band has ties to both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf. Severely affected were Barangays Sta. Catalina, Sta. Barbara, Kasanyangan, Mariki and Rio Hondo. This was precluded by the arrest a day earlier, on September 8, 2013 of six (6) Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) by Zamboanga City Public Safety Company at Brgy. Rio-Hondo yielding two cal .45 pistols, ammunition and six sets of camouflage uniforms, The attack was perpetrated by heavily armed men of MNLF Misuari Faction in military fatigue uniform that landed in Zamboanga City led by Commanders Habier Malik, Ustadz Esmael Dasta, Hadjirin Handji Amin, Bas Arki, Asamin Hussini.
Their primary intention was to actualize their call for jihad vs. the infidel government, capture the City Hall of Zamboanga City and raise the MNLF Flag to highlight the demand of a Bangsamoro homeland. More rebels later landed in Brgy. Mampang and proceeded to Bgy. Sta. Barbara. The MNLF was blocked by security forces resulting in intense gun battle with MNLF taking civilian hostages as human shields. At gunpoint, hostages’ hands were tied and were made to line up at the frontline while the gun battle was raging. The hostages were used to make government forces stop firing. Armed MNLF rebels held fort in different places in aforementioned Barangays of the City. The MNLF relentlessly engaged government forces in gun battle resulting in several casualties from the sides of both government and rebels as well as among the civilian population and volunteers from outside of Zamboanga. MNLF burned residential houses and commercial buildings, causing damage to infrastructures, loss of valuable property and livelihood. The attack paralyzed, and caused widespread fear and panic among the residents of the, City.
Resulting from the Siege, are as follows:
1.  More than 120,000 persons displaced and evacuated.
2.  More than seventy nine (79) designated evacuation centers in the City were filled to the brim with displaced persons.
3.  Loss and damage to property estimated at more or less in the range of billions of pesos (further compounded by the recent coming of flash floods following the 20-day siege)
4.  Killed on MNLF side: 183
5.  Captured on MNLF side: 292
6.  Killed on the government side: 25
7.  Wounded on the government side: 184
8.  Civilians Killed: 12
9.  Civilians Wounded: 70
10.  Untold losses to Zamboanga-based and other agencies and private sector business establishments

Following the MNLF attack, an enormous flash flood brought the City to her knees. More major damages were observed resulting from this disaster. Several lives were lost to the enormous floods and among the populace, many suffered injuries. Zamboanga City infrastructure suffered damage in the aftermath of the floods of nearly One Hundred Million Philippine Pesos (PHP100-M). The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) office in Zamboanga City, according to its Officer-in-Charge, Allan Rommel R. Labayog, suffered flooding in the PHIVOLCS seismic vault and damaged the earthquake sensor equipment. These assessment form part of the early findings only on the overall worth of the destruction brought about by the calamity. This proposed bill seeks to put in place a Zamboanga Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Commission (ZRRC) that will be responsible for developing, formulating and implementing a Zamboanga City Rehabilitation and Development Plan. This measure emanates from a series of consultations with various stakeholders.  Trusting their conscientious intentions and depth of knowledge in the issues involved, the immediate enactment of this proposed measure into law is earnestly sought.
                                                                                            GRACE L. POE

Banking Woes in the Philippines

October 24, 2013 2:02 am / Leave a comment

The article below is from the website of QCFC an advocacy group based in the Philippines for change and reduction of graft and corruption. It is a lament over the lack of sensitivity of the banking sector in the Philippines to the needs of enterprise.

Inevitably, a major revamp, or policy regime change is needed in the banking system in the Philippines as admonished in the site called www.qualitychange.org. There is hardly any more time to waste. The economies of Asia have undergone major upheavals, yet the Philippine economy is still in severe doldrums. The government does not have the political will to spur change, with its penchant for stealing taxpayers’ money for personal aggrandizement.

Politicians maximally utilize persons like Ms. Janet Napoles who divert Philippine peso skims to the United States in suitcases without fear of the Anti-Money Laundering laws, Mr. Zaldy Co (who even ran for Congress himself and won), and many other fund fixers later masquerading as filthy rich financiers (outside of the Forbes List) to steal billions of money from the national treasury.

Much of the thievery is done through the pork barrel – discretionary public funds that are hardly accounted and form part of political accommodations, horse trading between the Executive branch and the Legislative, including the Judiciary.

With a public sector motivated by greed and wanton plunder of the national coffers often with the quiet collusion of members of the banking sector, there is absolutely no way for the government to censure and reform the banking industry simply because it has no moral ascendancy at all.

The Philippine President, Mr. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino 3rd, does not want the pork barrel to be abolished, as evidenced by his own recent statement over national media in defense of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) that is a creative new name for pork barrel. Mr. Aquino the 3rd is adamant that he announced the DAP two years ago. Therefore, since the 3rd made a public disclosure of this benign, saintly kind of pork barrel, the spending thereof has to really be just and fair but only for all the horrible looking money making ogres concerned, the 3rd not excluded.

There is nothing in this sanitized, beatified, canonized pork barrel for the small entrepreneurs who need money for developmental projects.

Any intervention that must be done to change the way things are being done in the banking system will be initiated by the citizenry as well as well meaning members of the private sector. The issue is not all about simple patriotism, love for country, but the obligation of the creatures sitting in comfortable niches to return to their host country a share of what they have amassed over the years and decades of siphoning the hard earned money of ordinary people in whose names the Philippine bonds and treasury bills are created, among other debentures that average citizens of the Republic are bound to pay for during their maturity.

No banker will not acknowledge this fact, but they close their eyes due to their all-consuming greed and insatiable lust for more and more money, without looking back to where they came from and who are the source of the incomes they derived from their very expert manipulation of currencies, notes, bonds, bills and all the shit in banking.
Philippines: Every average businessman in this country has to go through the eye of a needle to be accommodated by the banks. Businessman Mr. G. Go, actively engaged in small scale financial services for both big and small entrepreneurs says:

“There is an exception. You can always borrow big amounts from banks but you have to have pedigree. If you don’t have pedigree forget about borrowing big even from the biggest banks. They won’t even look at your loan application. How stupid is that?”

That about translates to this: Bankers look at clients as dogs, cats and cows. Those with pedigree are instantly good clients. and must be given service de luxe and with haste. Those without are immediately considered bad clients and cannot be serviced for big transactions ever.

In Masinag, an officer of RCBC Savings Bank, Ubaldo Sadiarin would go out of his way to offer something to drink to all his visiting customers. Mr. Sadiarin cannot look at his clients as animals, since animals normally don’t take coffee, black, with or without sugar or milk. This banker does not only offer coffee, tea or juice. He painstakingly helps you obtain your loan and helps you be able to access the money at the fastest possible time. The fellow must not be the ordinary, brain damaged banker. However, this trait of said banker should not impel his own banking institution to think ill of him. In fact this bank manager should be pirated by the Department of Finance or the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Except for Maybank Philippines, very few banks through their run-of-the-mill branch managers, mid-level officers and workers will even offer you water, juice or coffee. How much more a big loan?

Among the brainless, idiotic and impractical policies of banks is imposing quota performance on their bank managers. Whereas there is very meager creativeness among many top bank management officials in promoting their respective bank product brands, to attract clientele, this strict policy of quota is ruthlessly rammed upon the throats of the helpless bank managers and all the bank workers below these managers.

This leads to the great inadequacy of the banking system in pump priming of the economy through the promotion of brisk and dynamic exchanges between and among local business as well as with the rest of the world.

Such a noteworthy posture could be done by not limiting the distribution of the bulk of bank investments, credit, to billionaires like Andrew Tan, Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, Jaime Ayala, Eduardo Cojuangco, Eugenio Lopez, Ramon Ang, Washington SyCip, John Gokongwei, or big time criminal thieves like Janet Lim Napoles, Zaldy Co, jueteng collectors Yolanda Ricafort, Tony Santos, notorious drug dealers like the Lim clan of Malabon-Navotas of the Chinese Triad, Li Lan Yan aka Jackson Dy, Li Tan Hua, Hanson Young (ordered killed by his Chinese Godfather Mr. Stephen Hui while in police detention) among many other dregs of society.

Preferred clients therefore are billionaires, criminals, jueteng collectors, drug lords – not necessarily in that order. Certainly, there are Senators, Senate fixers, Congressmen, Batasan complex arrangers, Governors and their Vice, Mayors and Vice, Board Members, Barangay Chairmen and Boards, appointed officials among a few other money grubbing species.

Gallery of favored bank clientele:

Philippine Billionaires

Charing Magbuhos, and some from drug lords shown below
Drug Lord Li Lan Yan aka Jackson Dy
Drug Lord Li Tan Hua, son of a Chinese General

Most certainly, there is no need to justify the extremely laughable overriding need to meet headquarter’s quota for each and every bank branch manager to merely accommodate deposits, loan applications and other bank requirements from big businessmen and criminals alike at the expense of allowing the majority of transactions in the country to proceed with a positive momentum and spur the economy onwards.

The all-consuming greed of bank founder-owners has given birth to the cross-eyed policies constricting the Philippine banking system. This kind of pernicious culture has even pervaded onto the rural banks and thus created misery after misery from the metropolis to the countrysides.

Therefore, instead of promoting business and helping entrepreneurs to shine, the Philippine banking community has an invisible declaration of war against any businessman who registers his or her enterprise – if and when that hapless creature does not have the pedigree of billionaires, drug lords, jueteng lords, big time thieves of government taxes, among many other obnoxious animals. The big question is why the Philippines’ Department of Finance, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the entire economic cluster of the public sector as a whole, would not lift a finger to change this kind of situation.

Whatever functions the Department of Finance assigns to its officers, it is admonished that before the Philippines slides down to the lowest ranking in world economies or the country experiences more and more difficulties with the onslaught of unnatural occurrences like shortages and devastations from disasters like the Boholindol – Cebulindol, gestures with a semblance of bringing reforms to the banking sector should be started as soon as possible.

No self-respecting public sector finance agency in the age of the AMLA should allow this lopsided situation where only billionaires, drug lords, gambling lords and thieves are given preferential treatment. The time for best banking sector practices should be put in place is long overdue. While it is not quaint to say the planet, the entire globe is too unstable for the country to expect to survive the next few hundred years, the worst that could happen without reforming the unfair practice of bankers in the Philippines is for the country to perpetually be a supply economy.

As it is, even our human resource is being supplied all over the world and very few complain.

There is no rice to export, no trees and forests to log over, little trickles of gold to mine with the banks benefiting from all the harvest without giving back good banking service to their host: the people of the Philippines. That includes the entrepreneurs within the population.

The credit cards Metro Bank and foreign credit institution VISA, (e.g. Unionbank Prepaid Visa, BPI Prepaid, PNB Prepaid, PSBank Prepaid, Security Bank Prepaid among many others) promotes credit that is already prepaid before you spend a cent for purchases.

A large number of law firms and collection agencies all over the country have benefited up to 45% commissions share for recovering long lost debts for credit card companies and banks.

The question is, when all over the world especially in the US Army, people start shying away from using credit cards because it buries one in serious perpetuating debt burdens, more if you are not scion or heir to the tycoons in Forbes’ List, Philippine banks are obsessed with selling that product: the plastic money.

And 99% of members of the Bankers’ Association of the Philippines are racing against each other in selling insurance and pension plans without letting the entrepreneur class to succeed. These locos must have lard as brains.

Why can’t the Philippines’ bankers offer various products, differing types of credit and pretend their bank managers understand how to use the SWIFT transmission, letters of credit, bank guarantees, term notes, and all other kinds of debentures without concentrating only on the Philippine Government as creditor?

Banks buy and buy treasury bills, government bonds and rediscount the bills and bonds at a fat profit but they cannot lend back with a smile to the people of this country.

The Philippine banking system cannot perpetuate this kind of situation where the only valued customers are the rich, the close friends and relations of bankers, lumped together with the drug lords, public fund thieves (Janet Napoles, Zaldy Co, et al), jueteng lords and other criminals.

This is not a country only of billionaires, millionaires, friends and bankers’ close relations as well as the shit, waste and rejects of society such as heinous criminals. This is a country of nearly 100,000,000 Filipinos with millions of enterprising ones engaged in business in both the formal and informal economies of scale.

Colombia and Mexico of the famous illegal drugs, Switzerland, Singapore, Hongkong and the Caymans, among a few other havens of those with money that are mostly dirty and stained with the blood of millions, may be thriving from accommodation of unclean funds but the banking communities in these places do not necessarily just favor the Sys, Tans Ayalas, and their ilk, or their counter parts in the Underworld. They service legitimate businessmen more than the Philippine banking system does and do help their economies to grow, one way or another.

Thus there must be loose screws somewhere in the brains of the owner-founders of our local banks for they cannot foresee a Philippines with a thriving entrepreneur class, vibrant and alive, competing with the rest of the world while offering Filipino-style world class products and services.

As the website www.qualitychange.org declares:

Policy regime change is needed in the business and especially in the finance sector. The old paradigm of the Philippines and selected vassal type states with supplier economies, must be revolutionized. This will depend mostly on the act of the young, emerging, up-and-coming captains of industry.

The history of Philippine finance has been that of subservience and excessive docility towards superior super powers or stronger industrial economies. This cannot be the case any longer. Even with the excursion of individuals or groups like Enrique Razon to foreign frontiers, Ayala and other entrepreneurs – Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., Lucio Tan, Henry Sy, John Gokongwei to foreign enterprise destinations or missionary ports such as New Zealand, Australia, China, Latin America, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, among many others, much has to be repaired in the Philippines.

Benevolent jump-starting credit from both the public and the private sector is close to non-existent, breeding unsophisticated but widespread corruption within the private sector; the government is most of all helpless to stem this kind of graft and corruption within the world of Philippine business. The doctrine of trust as the most important item for purchase in the Philippines is extremely prostituted to nauseating proportions. At the end of the day, private enterprise becomes the receiving end of chastisement and censure for entering into haphazardly concocted schemes that bleed the public treasury dry or siphon the blood of the average consumer publics.

While banks deprive the vast majority of the country of credit, the financial sector lends indiscriminately to public sector institutions that simply steal the borrowed funds or connive with private business groups or ghost, or shell non-profit service providers to divert the loans and bank the same in private accounts.

The simple equation in this situation ultimately involves government and the people. If small entrepreneurs decide to boycott the entire Philippine banking sector, there will be a small dent on the earnings of the sector. With the interlinked interests of those at the top levels of government and the banking system, the public sector cannot give up easily on its support for the banking industry. But a compassionate government will at least admonish the bankers that a sufficiently acceptable new tack should be taken to uplift the economy much, much higher than its present peak performance.

Something has to give and it has to be soon. The Philippine government must become more responsive to the needs of the entrepreneurs of this country so that revenues coming therefrom will improve. And show a little more compassion to its constituents instead of completely being devoid of it for the sake of mindless smoke belching and skirt chasing.

When the floodgates open sometime soon enough, it will be difficult to stem the tide.

As it is, natural phenomena have wrought untold disasters in this nation of beautiful and hospitable people. Together with man-made disaster, bankers will have no safe place to turn to. Furthermore, no banker can take his money or his safety vault to the grave, unless his resting place in his hole six feet below the ground is spacious enough to accommodate his riches.

Then again, the so-so practical-minded bankers will simply fart and twit the question: So if I’m dead, who cares? I lived a great Life fully as a Banker and I am happy. If I go, I go. That’s how it is. Then Mr. and Ms. Banker excretes just a teeny weeny little sweat and a foul sigh, and its over for the worry.

If all Philippine Bankers are like that, do you really have to place your trust therein ever if they treat you like shit and wouldn’t change their view towards you unless you joined the league of Forbes Lists and the Underworld?

Related articles:

Assessment of the problems of the Philippine financial sector
Issues and challenges facing the banking sector

QCFC – Philippine Banking Sector Must Reform

October 23, 2013 11:54 pm / Leave a comment

Philippines: Every average businessman in this country has to go through the eye of a needle to be accommodated by the banks. Businessman Mr. G. Go, actively engaged in small scale financial services for both big and small entrepreneurs says:

“There is an exception. You can always borrow big amounts from banks but you have to have pedigree. If you don’t have pedigree forget about borrowing big even from the biggest banks. They won’t even look at your loan application. How stupid is that?” 

That about translates to this: Bankers look at clients as dogs, cats and cows. Those with pedigree are instantly good clients. and must be given service de luxe and with haste. Those without are immediately considered bad clients and cannot be serviced for big transactions ever. Click here for the rest of this article.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Gallery of favored bank clientele:
Philippine Billionaires
Drugs Money, Jueteng Money from Yolanda Ricafort, Atong Ang,
Charing Magbuhos, and some from drug lords shown below
Drug Lord Li Lan Yan aka Jackson Dy
Drug Lord Li Tan Hua, son of a Chinese General

Banking Woes in the Philippines

October 23, 2013 3:21 pm / Leave a comment

The Philippines is indeed beset with a myriad of banking woes. Even the public lending sector, consisting of Government Owned Financial Institutions like Land Bank of the Philippines, the Quedan Corporation, Export-Import Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines have very stringent policies but favor the top, most moneyed entrepreneurs in this country.

Quedan Corp. The Quedan Corp. charges enormous interest rates as well as horrific penalties from small time borrowers – most of them in the rural areas. A loan release of less than One Million Pesos, in case of minor defaults together with interests, the borrower must return at least Three Million Pesos.

Effectively this means this government lending agency stands to gain a usurious 200 percent interest on the loan. Amazing, if this is not the Philippines. Quedan does not upstage the equally criminal Bumbay (local term for mostly illegally staying foreigners from India) who bleed small scale and medium scale entrepreneurs by charging them a stupendous 20% per 30-45 days credit or a total of 180% – 240% per annum.

Shark Financing – An Alternate Hell: Umbrella Wielding Indians. The Bumbays, have been extra-legally doing business in the Philippines without registering their lending enterprise and thrive in the business because the unconscionable banking industry does not take care of local borrowers for the furtherance of private commercial and industrial activities. Instead, the industry promotes short term and low-budget lending for consumption purposes, an anathema to finance managerial experts.

Such practice buries the average Filipino borrower in debt until he or she is dead, so the loans can be merely written off as bad debts. At least in the company records, the small credit limit of 20,000 that was maxxed will reflect a debt of no less than 500,000 to 1,000,000 in a few years as long as the fugitive borrower keeps on reneging to pay the debt. This practice is a hell of contribution to make to a country that has hosted the banking industry and from which taxes the industry has greedily enriched itself with no compunction.

Land Bank. A company that received a Letter of Credit worth several millions of United States Dollars through the Land Bank of the Philippines. Land Bank officials simply declared non-receipt. As paid officers of government where the culture of corruption is visibly pervasive, the Land Bank people must have been expecting to gain advance skim from the beneficiary owners of the Letter of Credit.
The transaction for which the Letter of Credit was intended, purchase of the mothballed plant of the Reynolds conglomerate in Cavite, Philippines, did not push through with.
Because as the article below from Quest for Change tells of a private banking system that is oppressive to small people and favors only the Forbes Listed billionaires, Land Bank and other government banks allows these oppressors to hold hostage the taxpayers’ money for government lending windows for large scale developmental projects.
The Land Bank and Pagibig Fund (Home Mutual Development Fund) lends in the form of Stand-by Letter of Credit (SBLC) to construction companies, among other borrowers.
Instead of lending out cash, Land Bank and Pagibig Fund instructs the borrower who is issued the SBLC to go to any reputable Bankers’ Association of the Philippines member bank. and borrow again from the commercial banking sector. Not only Land Bank and Pag-ibig Fund are engaged in this multi-step lending scheme. But in the end, it becomes tedious; if the revenues are not enough, the schema simple becomes the stepping stone to stealing from the government or private sector and engaging in other forms of corrupt, illegal practices that ensure a snowballing of revenues from the twice borrowed capital.
Small wonder that small time figures like Janet Lim Napoles, Zaldy Co and his ilk have become big time magnates due to the cornering of billion pesos worth of contracts from the government. They were among the borrowers of this kind of public sector lending scheme. But the money was not used for developmental projects at all, instead it became a bait for large scale plunder of the Philippines’ national treasury.
In effect the borrower is punished with loan interests twice and not once. This is a grave miscarriage of fiscal justice. Quest for Change laments the state of disrepute that the Philippine banking community has gotten itself into below:
Philippines: Every average businessman in this country has to go through the eye of a needle to be accommodated by the banks. Businessman Mr. G. Go, actively engaged in small scale financial services for both big and small entrepreneurs says:

“There is an exception. You can always borrow big amounts from banks but you have to have pedigree. If you don’t have pedigree forget about borrowing big even from the biggest banks. They won’t even look at your loan application. How stupid is that?”

That about translates to this: Bankers look at clients as dogs, cats and cows. Those with pedigree are instantly good clients. and must be given service de luxe and with haste. Those without are immediately considered bad clients and cannot be serviced for big transactions ever.
In Masinag, an officer of RCBC Savings Bank, Ubaldo Sadiarin would go out of his way to offer something to drink to all his visiting customers. Mr. Sadiarin cannot look at his clients as animals, since animals normally don’t take coffee, black, with or without sugar or milk. This banker does not only offer coffee, tea or juice. He painstakingly helps you obtain your loan and helps you be able to access the money at the fastest possible time. The fellow must not be the ordinary, brain damaged banker. However, this trait of said banker should not impel his own banking institution to think ill of him. In fact this bank manager should be pirated by the Department of Finance or the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Except for Maybank Philippines, very few banks through their run-of-the-mill branch managers, mid-level officers and workers will even offer you water, juice or coffee. How much more a big loan?

Among the brainless, idiotic and impractical policies of banks is imposing quota performance on their bank managers. Whereas there is very meager creativeness among many top bank management officials in promoting their respective bank product brands, to attract clientele, this strict policy of quota is ruthlessly rammed upon the throats of the helpless bank managers and all the bank workers below these managers.

This leads to the great inadequacy of the banking system in pump priming of the economy through the promotion of brisk and dynamic exchanges between and among local business as well as with the rest of the world.

Such a noteworthy posture could be done by not limiting the distribution of the bulk of bank investments, credit, to billionaires like Andrew Tan, Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, Jaime Ayala, Eduardo Cojuangco, Eugenio Lopez, Ramon Ang, Washington SyCip, John Gokongwei, or big time criminal thieves like Janet Lim Napoles, Zaldy Co, jueteng collectors Yolanda Ricafort, Tony Santos, notorious drug dealers like the Lim clan of Malabon-Navotas of the Chinese Triad, Li Lan Yan aka Jackson Dy, Li Tan Hua, Hanson Young (ordered killed by his Chinese Godfather Mr. Stephen Hui while in police detention) among many other dregs of society.

Preferred clients therefore are billionaires, criminals, jueteng collectors, drug lords – not necessarily in that order. Certainly, there are Senators, Senate fixers, Congressmen, Batasan complex arrangers, Governors and their Vice, Mayors and Vice, Board Members, Barangay Chairmen and Boards, appointed officials among a few other money grubbing species.

Gallery of favored bank clientele:
Philippine Billionaires
Drugs Money, Jueteng Money from Yolanda Ricafort, Atong Ang,
Charing Magbuhos, and some from drug lords shown below
Drug Lord Li Lan Yan aka Jackson Dy
Drug Lord Li Tan Hua, son of a Chinese General
Most certainly, there is no need to justify the extremely laughable overriding need to meet headquarter’s quota for each and every bank branch manager to merely accommodate deposits, loan applications and other bank requirements from big businessmen and criminals alike at the expense of allowing the majority of transactions in the country to proceed with a positive momentum and spur the economy onwards.
The all-consuming greed of bank founder-owners has given birth to the cross-eyed policies constricting the Philippine banking system. This kind of pernicious culture has even pervaded onto the rural banks and thus created misery after misery from the metropolis to the countrysides.
Therefore, instead of promoting business and helping entrepreneurs to shine, the Philippine banking community has an invisible declaration of war against any businessman who registers his or her enterprise – if and when that hapless creature does not have the pedigree of billionaires, drug lords, jueteng lords, big time thieves of government taxes, among many other obnoxious animals. The big question is why the Philippines’ Department of Finance, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the entire economic cluster of the public sector as a whole, would not lift a finger to change this kind of situation.
Whatever functions the Department of Finance assigns to its officers, it is admonished that before the Philippines slides down to the lowest ranking in world economies or the country experiences more and more difficulties with the onslaught of unnatural occurrences like shortages and devastations from disasters like the Boholindol – Cebulindol, gestures with a semblance of bringing reforms to the banking sector should be started as soon as possible.
No self-respecting public sector finance agency in the age of the AMLA should allow this lopsided situation where only billionaires, drug lords, gambling lords and thieves are given preferential treatment. The time for best banking sector practices should be put in place is long overdue. While it is not quaint to say the planet, the entire globe is too unstable for the country to expect to survive the next few hundred years, the worst that could happen without reforming the unfair practice of bankers in the Philippines is for the country to perpetually be a supply economy.
As it is, even our human resource is being supplied all over the world and very few complain.
There is no rice to export, no trees and forests to log over, little trickles of gold to mine with the banks benefiting from all the harvest without giving back good banking service to their host: the people of the Philippines. That includes the entrepreneurs within the population.
The credit cards Metro Bank and foreign credit institution VISA, (e.g. Unionbank Prepaid Visa, BPI Prepaid, PNB Prepaid, PSBank Prepaid, Security Bank Prepaid among many others) promotes credit that is already prepaid before you spend a cent for purchases.
A large number of law firms and collection agencies all over the country have benefited up to 45% commissions share for recovering long lost debts for credit card companies and banks.
The question is, when all over the world especially in the US Army, people start shying away from using credit cards because it buries one in serious perpetuating debt burdens, more if you are not scion or heir to the tycoons in Forbes’ List, Philippine banks are obsessed with selling that product: the plastic money.
And 99% of members of the Bankers’ Association of the Philippines are racing against each other in selling insurance and pension plans without letting the entrepreneur class to succeed.
These locos must have lard as brains. Why can’t the Philippines’ bankers offer various products, differing types of credit and pretend their bank managers understand how to use the SWIFT transmission, letters of credit, bank guarantees, term notes, and all other kinds of debentures without concentrating only on the Philippine Government as creditor?
Banks buy and buy treasury bills, government bonds and rediscount the bills and bonds at a fat profit but they cannot lend back with a smile to the people of this country.
The Philippine banking system cannot perpetuate this kind of situation where the only valued customers are the rich, the close friends and relations of bankers, lumped together with the drug lords, public fund thieves (Janet Napoles, Zaldy Co, et al), jueteng lords and other criminals.
This is not a country only of billionaires, millionaires, friends and bankers’ close relations as well as the shit, waste and rejects of society such as heinous criminals. This is a country of nearly 100,000,000 Filipinos with millions of enterprising ones engaged in business in both the formal and informal economies of scale.
Colombia and Mexico of the famous illegal drugs, Switzerland, Singapore, Hongkong and the Caymans, among a few other havens of those with money that are mostly dirty and stained with the blood of millions, may be thriving from accommodation of unclean funds but the banking communities in these places do not necessarily just favor the Sys, Tans Ayalas, and their ilk, or their counter parts in the Underworld. They service legitimate businessmen more than the Philippine banking system does and do help their economies to grow, one way or another.
Thus there must be loose screws somewhere in the brains of the owner-founders of our local banks for they cannot foresee a Philippines with a thriving entrepreneur class, vibrant and alive, competing with the rest of the world while offering Filipino-style world class products and services.

As the website www.qualitychange.org declares:

Policy regime change is needed in the business and especially in the finance sector. The old paradigm of the Philippines and selected vassal type states with supplier economies, must be revolutionized. This will depend mostly on the act of the young, emerging, up-and-coming captains of industry.
The history of Philippine finance has been that of subservience and excessive docility towards superior super powers or stronger industrial economies. This cannot be the case any longer. Even with the excursion of individuals or groups like Enrique Razon to foreign frontiers, Ayala and other entrepreneurs – Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. Lucio Tan, Henry Sy, John Gokongwei to foreign enterprise destinations or missionary ports such as New Zealand, Australia, China, Latin America, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, among many others, much has to be repaired in the Philippines. Click here for the rest of this article.
The Philippines has a long road to travel if it must correct the inherent flaws in its banking system.  Government can cause the enactment of new laws, but it must sternly warn against railroading of innovative legislation.
As in the practice in other societies, with some risk, the central bank can be turned over to the private sector but first there must be institutionalized safeguards against the manipulation of the national reserves agency for the benefit of only a few.
The most significant path towards re-engineering the financial-banking sector will be to encourage the sector to consistently pump the economy through aggressive lending to small and medium-scale entrepreneurs; the insane and extremely oppressive system of catering only to the Forbes List billionaires and members of the Underworld – as the QCFC calls it, must stop.
But there is no time to waste. It must start now. Otherwise, the only recourse is to drive away every individual banker in the country to Tonga, Papua or Timbuktu and start a new life there.

Land Grabbing by Multi Billionaire

October 19, 2013 5:44 am / Leave a comment

BIG GUNS WILL SCARE YOU if you try to get back your land that is grabbed by a the Multi-Billionaire mentioned in the post below.

If you try something stupid, those big guns will be trained on you and you might get shot.

They mean business when they steal your land. They will do everything, including killing you. Its like, I’ll take your property but don’t mess with me or my bullets will stop you. That pure f___k! Why can’t we drive these unscrupulous business microbes away?

A Time For Small Men

October 18, 2013 5:46 pm / Leave a comment

Original date of post August 10, 2010 under Asian Forum Journal

The time of the Small Men has arrived. The Great Men are in retreat and the Small Men have advanced and taken the Kingdom. They wield the power and placed the Great Men and their following on their knees. I have written about the Great Men and Small Men in the past.

Like vultures and parasites, the Small Men will feed upon the body politic, bleed the Kingdom (government) dry.

This is the time for Scavengers, Foragers, Thieves, Looters and Humiliators, Castigators, Vengadores, Executioners, Murderers, Throne Grabbers. It is the time of the Mad and ill-intentioned people working for the Nobles and Lords will turn against their Masters.

Take the case of the Philippine Air Lines, just last month, 25 pilots of the airline resigned! The pilots left nary a clue as to what they were about to do. The mass exodus of the most important manpower segment of an airline caused serious flight cancellations and passenger backlogs.

This was nothing to their employees’ union that even rejoiced over the hardships their employer, the Philippine Air Lines had to go through. The tremendous amount of money spent by precision companies like airlines, have been thrown down the drain by the pilots. PAL spends millions of pesos for the training and mastery of just one single pilot.

Surely, the airlines will post heavy losses over this action of its own people. But that is a bitter pill that the airline has to swallow on its own. Something as painful as that cannot be borne by devious Small Men.

True to form, the reign of the Small Men will wreak havoc in the Kingdom. With them traipsing around the Realm, everything will go haywire. When there are Troubles, expect the governance of the Small Men to become doubly strong, albeit unwieldy but forceful and strong!

We can expect more Troubles for companies already having disputes with Small Men under their payroll. Certainly, PAL will get more blows, backstabbing, batting and suffer embarrassment from the Small Men.

What it can do is to prepare for the worst, because the Small Men have their backing in the highest places. Whether PAL likes it or not, the Season of the Small Men now overshadows the Great Man and his Loyal Nobles and subjects.

This will ultimately mean, that if PAL is not braced to accept the hits and double whammies it will be getting from the Small Men, it will surely be shocked by what is about to happen.

Right now the entire country is in a state of shock and stupefaction. When this will wear off, will be the Time that the Small Men are prepared to make their get-away, bringing to their secret hideouts all the Loot and Valuables their Thievery and Criminal acts have produced.
Then the world turns full circle and the Great Men will reign again for their appointed tenure in the great Scheme of Things.

The Great and the Small Men

October 18, 2013 5:41 pm / Leave a comment

Originally posted under Asian Forum Journal August 23, 2006

By Fuqueng Warrior
In the ancient China of my friend’s forebears, nature, the environment is important in making a proper and enlightening assessment for a King of the Empire.
Among the means for making an assessment, is the use of the hexagrams of the I Ching.  It is a highly idea oriented and nature-based tool for making assessment.
By making use of the environment all around human society, it makes use of a peculiar manner of weaving and employing parallelisms, analogies that properly fit the occasion.
One of the I Ching’s perculiarities is in the description of a good King and his enemies.  A scrupulous, disciplined, righteous and uncorrupt King, is usually called in the I Ching, as one of the great or superior men, the lead superior man with a following of equally good and principled lieutenants.
On the other hand, the corrupt, unprincipled and unscrupulous ones are called the small men.
KIEH HEXAGRAM

In the state that is indicated by the Kieh diagram, the advantage will be found in the Southwest. If no further operations are necessary, there will be good fortune in coming back to the old conditions.  If some operations need to be done, there will be good fortune in the undertaking them early.
One will not commit error.
There will be hunting, three foxes, and obtaining the yellow (read : golden) arrows. With firm correctness there will be good fortune.
There is a porter with his burden, momentarily riding in a carriage. He will merely tempt robbers to attack him. However firm and correct he may try to be, there will be a cause for regret.
‘Remove your toes. Friends will then come, between you and whom there will be mutual confidence.
The superior man (read: The Ruler), executing his / her function of removing whatever is injurious to the idea of the hexagram, in which case there will he good fortune, and confidence in him will be shown even by the small men.
Finally, there will be a prince with his bow, he is shooting at a falcon on the top of a high wall, and hitting it.  The effect of his action will be in every way advantageous.
THUN HEXAGRAM

Thun indicates successful progress. To a small extent it will still be advantageous to be firm and correct.

Retiring tail. The position is perilous. No movement in any direction should be made.
Holding one’s purpose fast as if by a thong made from the hide of a yellow ox, which cannot be broken.
One retiring but bound — to his distress and peril. If he were to deal with his binders as in nourishing a servant or concubine, it would be fortunate for him.
Retiring notwithstanding his real preference and determination. In a superior man this will lead to good fortune; a small man cannot attain to this.
Retiring in an admirable way.  With firm correctness there will be good fortune.
Retiring in a noble way.  It will be advantageous in every respect.

The ancient Chinese are wont to say, when the  SMALL MEN  get their way with things.  In Confucius’  belief, in their time, they were pretty convinced that not all the leaders are good and not all leaders govern as true leaders would or could.  (There is however nothing by way of an aside, or an exact statement, that says whether all leaders have the capacity for good, or that leaders that are good could turn bad, and vice versa.)
People that are unscrupulous, evil and corrupt, are called SMALL MEN.  They also have their occasions to rule.  At the opportune time, they create enormous trouble and grab the power from the GREAT MEN or SUPERIOR MEN.
The GREAT or SUPERIOR MEN obviously will be the sworn enemy of the SMALL MEN —  because they are exact opposite  — and proceed to plunder, lay waste and wretched the  society we live in.  This is a very radical departure from the sociology though, that we learn about in school.
This ancient kind of philosophy however, is very eye-opening revelation in many ways.  For indeed, didn’t we have that mustachioed president who thrived on slapstick but did the most heinous things — guaranteed privacy by his cordon sanitaire?  We struggled against that.  Raged and so did we overcome.
Then, the  SMALL MEN  bide their time and now, today, they think that it is the high tide and they shall sail for the capital.
If they sense and smell weakness, they will grab that opportunity to prop up their weaponry, their armies and ride in boats and in chariots and make a push toward the location of the SUPERIOR MEN in a Caravan.  When they reach the Great City, they the  SMALL MEN  will endeavor to dislodge the GREAT MEN and succeeding therein, will henceforth bring back barbarity into society once again.
Those amongst our communities then, who merely flow with the cycle, certainly will do nothing.  There are those who do not wish to be in a chaotic situation though, and with their sit-by-the-fence attitude, they usually just wake up that they are getting to be towed around by the SMALL MEN.
I am not even sure where I stand now.  (But most certainly, I will not prefer to be in the auspices of the THUN when superior men retreat in the face of the SMALL MEN.  If I had a choice, I would however, be happy to be in the auspices of the KIEH wherein I will take part in removing the menace of the SMALL MEN from the Kingdom.)
But back when the mustachioed idiot was President and yet was being bashed at every turn, I even tried to court sympathy for the bastard.  Until I realized that it was clearly difficult, even if I was under the employ of the Government, to be on the side of the SMALL MEN.
For heaven’s sake, to make things easier to swallow, they even offered me to be an Undersecretary even at that my age during that time (although by then I was already of qualifying age, by Civil Service and uniformed service standards)!
But I refused!  Even as the SMALL MEN  were very adamant about the offer, I stood my ground.  They raised their voices, showed contempt for him, still I refused.
It was war.  War against the  SMALL MEN.   War against everything they stood for.  War against them for placing our country in the pits.  In the quagmire.  The  SMALL MEN   had by then become the instant  Overlord  of the men and women behind dangerous drugs and substances, the Kuratong Balelengs, the illegal gambling geniuses like Atong Ang, illegal loggers and kidnapping for ransom gangs, among so many other criminal  minded  groups.
A  classic  representative  of  the  SMALL MEN  was  a lady who up to now is happily moving in the high circles.  She is also a familiar face at a University on Taft Ave.  During the reign of the SMALL MEN   she claimed she was extremely close to the mustachioed leader that she could go his bedrom anytime — even when he was asleep.  Lady says, she could wake the leader if the amount of collections she was offering was worth it.  She was obviously not only the dinner conference, weddings, baptism, etc. facilitator but also the collections facilitator of the leader.
She waited on a pretty lady and her beau for the sake of leader.  Lady and beau kept an office in a plush subdivision.  But beau, only happened to be one of the most wanted, most notorious men in Malaysia.  Moreover, the pretty miss and her beau were expectant parents of huge construction projects to be awarded by the leader to them.  Still, on the side, under the cool shade of their construction company, they managed to grab a young girl in Ilocos named Jacky and managed to kill her by accident or intent.
So now  you understand why it had to be War.  (It was the beginning of the auspices of a KIEH condition.)
Even if you had to brush elbows with thieves whom you would see ascend to the Palace gaily participating in the insane contest for the spoils of War…
That is why, whatever they say now, it will be the words of the  SMALL MEN   against those of the GREAT MEN.  I shall gladly defend the latter.  To the death.
Especially under the proper auspices of the KIEH conditions, were it possible.  And it appears so, now.
Description of the Kieh Hexagram
Kieh is the symbol of loosening, or unraveling a knot or resolving a complication; and as the name of this hexagram, it denotes a condition in which the obstruction and difficulty indicated by the preceding Kieh have been removed.
The objective of the philosopher author here is to show, as if from the lines of the figure, how this new and better state of the kingdom is to be dealt with.  In the Thwan of Kien for ‘the advantage to be found in the Southwest.’ If further active operations are not necessary to complete the subjugation of the country, the sooner that stability is restored, the better. The new masters of the kingdom should not be anxious to change all the old manners and ways.  Let them do, as the in historical China, the Duke of Kau actually did do with the subjugated people of Shang.  If further operations therefore are necessary, let them be carried through without delay.  Nothing is said in the Thwan about the discountenancing and removal of small men, — unworthy ministers or officers; but that subject appears in more! than one of the lines.
There is a weak line, instead of a strong, in the first place; but this is compensated for by its strong correlate in 4.
A scholar Ku Hsi says he does not understand the symbolism under line 2.  The place is even, but the line itself is strong; the strength therefore is modified or tempered.  And 2 is the correlate of the ruler in 5.  We are to look to its subject therefore for a minister striving to realise the idea of the hexagram, and pacify the subdued kingdom.  He becomes a hunter, and disposes of unworthy men, represented by ‘the three foxes.’  He also gets the yellow arrows, the instruments used in war or in hunting, whose colour is ‘correct,’ and whose form is ‘straight.’  His firm correctness will be good.
Line 3 is weak, when it should be strong; and occupying, as it does, the topmost place of the lower trigram, it suggests the symbolism of a porter in a carriage. People will say, ‘How did he get there? The things cannot be his own.’ And robbers will attack and plunder him. The subject of the line cannot protect himself, nor accomplish anything good.
What is said on the fourth line appears in the form of an address to its subject. The line is strong in an even place, and 1, its correlate, is weak in an odd place. Such a union will not be productive of good. In the symbolism 1 becomes the toe of the subject of 4. How the friend or friends, who are to come to him on the removal of this toe, are represented, I do not perceive.
Line 5 is weak in an odd place; but the place is that of the ruler, to whom it belongs to perfect the idea of the hexagram by removing all that is contrary to the peace and good order of the kingdom. It will be his duty to remove especially all the small men represented by the divided lines, which he can do with the help of his strong correlate in 2. Then even the small men will change their ways, and repair to him.
Line 6 is the highest line in the figure, but not the place of the ruler. Hence it appears as occupied by a Duke, who carries out the idea of the figure against small men, according to the symbolism employed.
Description of the Thun Hexagram
A retiring tail seems to suggest the idea of the subject of the lines hurrying away, which would only aggravate the evil and danger within the period in question.
‘His purpose’ in line 2nd line is the purpose to retreat.  The weak 2nd line responds correctly to the strong 5th line, and both are central.  The purpose therefore is symbolled as in the text.  The ‘yellow’ colour of the ox is introduced because of its being ‘correct,’ and of a piece with the central place of the line.
Line 3 has no proper correlate in 6 and its subject allows himself to be entangled and impeded by the subjects of the 1st and 2nd line. He is too familiar with them, and they presume, and fetter his movements;–compare Analects, 17. 25.  He should keep them at a distance.
Line 4 has a correlate in line 1, and is free to exercise the decision belonging to its subject. The line is the first in Khien, symbolic of strength.
In the Shu IV, v, Section 2. 9, the worthy I Yin is made to say, ‘The minister will not for favour or gain continue in an office whose work is done;’ and the Khang-hsi editors refer to his words as an illustration of what is said on line 5. It has its correlate in the 2nd line, and its subject carries out the purpose to retire ‘in an admirable way.’
Line 6 is strong, and with no correlate to detain it in the 3rd line. Its subject vigorously and happily carries out the idea of the hexagram.

hmes 2013: Support PHIVOLCS’ modernization please, now!

October 15, 2013 10:29 pm / Leave a comment

Source: http://www.hazmapping.com

From over 40 casualties, the death toll has risen to nearly 100 in the Carmen, Bohol Province-Cebu City earthquake. At that figure, the Carmen-Cebu tremor can qualify as a Killer Quake. Cebu and nearby areas has to be declared to be in a state of calamity. There are limited manuevers that aircraft can make at the Cebu airport due to the cracking and opening up of the airport’s runways.

The six million dollar question is: how many more incidents like those in Carmen, Bohol and Cebu City and the other ones in Leyte, Samar will we be expecting?

Were the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Philvolcs) prepared adequately enough with equipment to monitor ground movement, tectonic plate disturbance, the nearly 100 deaths could have been avoided. 27 Billion Philippine Pesos is earmarked for pork barrel in the 2014 General Appropriations Act out of a total expenditure program of 2.26 Trillion Philippine Pesos. Would it be difficult to allocate even half of that pork barrel budget for emergency preparedness, disaster risk reduction, equipment upgrade?

Past Warnings of Big Disaster

This site has been warning the public for more than four years since the time of the former President, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Due to the total torpedoing of the private sector (Corinthian Gardens, Forbes Park, Dasmarinas Village, the owners of high rise condominiums at the left side of EDSA southbound, among others), of the program for predicting highly lethal effects of a major tremor in Metro Manila and the replication of this effort in many urban areas in the country by the same sector in collusion with some corrupt officials in the government, a large disaster and environmental hazards summit was proposed to be supported by the Philippine Government and the United Nations, among other institutions from many other sectors – including the non-profit (minus the Napoles et al NGOs).

Wanting responses

It is reiterated that in the time of Mrs. Arroyo, only the then Administrator of the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), Ms. Elaine Bautista, now Mrs. Horn, had the small effort to make an email message to the proponents of the 2010 Disaster and Environmental Hazards Mapping Summit. And that was only because the United Nations Environment Programm (UNEP)  told the former Ms. Bautista to get in touch with HMES 2010 organizing group. At the time, concurrent to her post in MARINA, Ms. Bautista was considered a friend of UNEP and a significant point person for the Philippine Government in relation to selected UNEP concerns – particularly about emergency and assistance.

When Mr. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino 3rd became President, the organizing group wrote to Ms. Corazon Juliano Soliman of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and Gen. Voltaire Tuvera Gazmin. Ms. Soliman did not respond. It was noticed however that several days later, Gen. Gazmin, the Secretary of the Department of National Defense gave an interview to national media.

In that interview, when Gazmin was asked about what the people should do when a disaster strikes, he replied: “Run for your lives.”

Carrying the barest minimum luggage in their bodies, the poor, helpless people in above photos must have taken advice similar to that of Gen. Voltaire Gazmin’s to leave and forget belongings elsewhere and to “run for your lives.”

It will appear that the kind of response the government has given is exceedingly wanting in substance. It is hoped however that as a grandfather and parent, Gazmin to no fault of his own was merely showing his personal concern for the safety of the life of the average citizen. He was probably very well-meaning and was admonishing the people not to bring their television sets, beds, furniture, cash safety vaults, washing machines, cabinets, sofa, stoves with their fuel gas tanks, desk-stand-ceiling fans, air conditioners, desktop computers and refrigerators outside of their homes and instead to proceed to a more safe location and be saved in time of major catastrophe.
The head of the Philvolcs, Dr. Renato Solidum absolutely cannot be faulted and is blameless. For decades, had been ready to accept the support for equipment upgrade and modernization. Despite the billions of funds allocated to the departments of the government, the great oversight of perpetually forgetting to take care of the Philvolcs modernization programme has consistently been committed by this government.

Despite the billions lost for the personal enrichment of selected persons in our public sector and their intimate partners in very enterprising undertakings in the private sector, no one has shown keen interest in allowing the Philvolcs to finally get hold of the adequate funding for acquisition of hardware and software that will highly increase its forecasting accuracy and its earthquake trending studies and research on the major faults all over the country. Click here for more.

The many faces of synergy

October 13, 2013 1:29 am / Leave a comment

Synetic Industries: Epitome of synergy. Confluence and Convergence. Unifying and coming together. Joining people. Joining hands. Joining technologies. Joining systems. Linking networks. Merging applications. Connecting people and technologies in high synergistic mode. Combining energies.

The many graphic faces of synergy

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