ambivalence and directions

"We believe that politics is the way you live your life, not who you support. It's not in terms of rallies or speeches or political programs. It is in terms of images and in terms of transforming people's lives."

-ABBIE HOFFMAN, 1968-

labo...

• US$329M worth of NBN-ZTE Deal
• 65 million Filipinos or 80% of the population are struggling to survive on the equivalent of US$ 2 a day. Based on the current exchange rate, thats around P 80/ day. (Ibon, Mar 2007)
• Poverty treshold is pegged at PhP 41 per person per day for food and non-food needs(NSCB, March 2007). This means if you have more than PhP 41 per day, you are not considered poor. Let's say you are a balut vendor who earns around PhP 100 a day, you are not poor.
• Almost 1 out of 2 Filipinos see themselves as poor.
• 46% of Filipinos families (estimated 8.1 million families or about 40.5 million Filipinos out of the 2007 projected population of 86 million) see themselves as poor.
• The cost of living is PhP 158 per person per day for food and non-food needs (NWPC, July 2007)
• PhP 792 is the dailly cost of living for a family of 5 living in the National Capital Region
• Minimum wage in the Philippines is PhP 362 a day. A large percentage of the work force earn below minimum wage.
• 1 in 10 Filipinos has never gone to school (6.8 million) (Education Network Quick Stats, 2003)
• 1 in 6 Filipinos is not functionally literate (9.6 million)
• 4.1 million Filipinos are complete illiterate.
• 1 in 3 children/ youth is not attending school(11.6 million)
• 12 Filipinos die of dirty water daily (Cebu Daily News citing USAID, November 7, 2006
• More than 90% of all sewage in the Philippines is untreated (Cebu Daily News citing the World Bank, November 7, 2006)
• 10 Filipino women die daily from childbirth-related complications because they do not have access to emergency obstetric care. We have among the highest maternal mortality rate (estimated at 162 per 100,000 live births) in Asia and the world. (FIES, 20063,300 workers leave the country daily (Ibon, Mar 2007
• Income of top 10% of the income decile is equivalent to 19 times that of the poorest 10 percent. (2006 FIES)
• 3.5 million families or the top 20% of the income decile account for 52.8% or more than half of the total family income, while the remaining 47.3% was shared by the poorest 80% or 13.9 million families. (2006 FIES)
• 7 out of 10 peasants still do not own land while less than 1/3 of landowners own more than 80% of agricultural land (Ibon, 2006)
• Oil companies earn PhP 110 million a day in 2006 (Ibon, 2007)
• 16.1 million Filipino workers or more than 50 percent of the labor force (in 2005) earn wages around Php5,000-8,000 (wages that hover around the poverty threshold), which translates to PhP33-53 per person per day (6.1 M farmers and fisherfolk and 10 M laborers and unskilled workers) (pegged at PhP41 per person per day).
• 4.1 million Filipinos * (or 7.3% of the total labor force) are unemployed (NSO, 2005-2006
• According to Cielito Habito, this is based on the new definition of unemployment which was introduced in 2005. Under the old definition, the current number of Filipinos unemployed is about 4 million.
• 7.47 million Filipinos are considered underemployed (or 13.4% of total labor force). Despite the slight improvement from 2006 to 2007, the average annual unemployment rate is still posted at 10.8%, just a little lower than the previous year at 11 percent. (NSO, 2005-
• 861,000 (NSO 2005-2006) jobs were created by the government at the end 2007 but revealed the following:
  142,000 household help or kasambahays
  116,000 in transport, storage and communication 111,000 in wholesale and retail trade o what we called the ambulant vendors
  103,000 construction workers
  34,000 in unpaid family labor
• Every Filipino owes about PhP 44,000.00. (Debt Quick Stats, Freedom from Debt Coalition)
• The total debt of the Philippines as of December 2006 is $118.19 billion.
• Debt service is allocated PhP612.8 Billion in the 2008 National Budget.
• 25 % of the Annual National Budget ends up in corruption. (PS Link)
  Philippines is the most corrupt in Asia (PERC, 2007)

You do the math. Question. Think. Analyze. Make a Stand. Be Heard.

We posted gang badoy's blog entry here at Dakila's site to give you an insight on the latest blockbuster blunder on the zte scandal and the decency of a simple man caught in the crossfire of thieves - moderate and otherwise.

Taken at approximately 545am today. Feb 7, 2008. Crucial witness to the scandal-ridden National Broadband Network deal, Rodolfo "Jun" Lozada finally gets some rest from the tornado he was in.Making a public narration of his inter-actions with former-Comelec Commissioner Ben Abalos, Jun Lozada flew home from HK to testify before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. Lozada narrates that Abalos kept insisting for him to tweak deals on the NBN transactions between ZTE-China and the Philippine Government. As an IT consultant, Engineer Lozada stated that this deal should be done through bidding of private companies but Abalos, according to Lozada, kept insisting otherwise. So ang nangyari, naging government loan ang arrangement dito. (this loan was signed in China a few months after -- witnessed by President Arroyo herself) An additional (approx) 130Million USD was added to the project cost. Abalos was to keep a huge kick-back from this deal. "protektahin natin ang 130Million ko..."-Abalos) Lozada said in his statement, "When I quit the project, the project cost was $262 million. So it was approved. I don’t know what happened then. I’m not imputing anything now. But when it was approved, it was already approved at $329 million." On the day he was supposed to testify before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, Lozada flew to HK to avoid it. Subsequently, Sen. Enrile moved that a warrant of arrest be given out to Lozada for him to show up and narrate to the people what he knew while working with the project group in charge of the NBN-ZTE deal. After a few days, Lozada got a phonecall from Atienza saying that he should just come back to the Philippines but they will take care of him. (whatever that means) Right when he flew in from HongKong, Lozada was sneaked out by men who claimed to be sent by DENR Sec. Atienza. (Atienza later denies that he sent this order saying perhaps his name was just used) Lozada said his family was waiting for him outside but the men insisted in taking him anyway. Fearing for his life, he went with them and they drove him to the outskirts of Manila. They just drove around the SLEX, the C5 and finally they dropped him off to meet his family. According to Lozada, the men received orders thru a phonecall or a radio transmission that said, "Masyado nang mainit sa media, ihatid nyo na lang siya sa pamilya niya." After realizing that Jun was not going to come out from the airport after his flight, naturally his family filed official complaints and was covered by the media as his wife, Violet gave her impassioned plea to surface her husband. He finally got in touch with the religious groups (the combined association of religious orders) and requested for safety. Glad that he's safe now, Lozada told me this morning that he truly feared for his life when the men took him from the tube so he just followed them out. After a presscon at the La Salle Greenhills chapel with Bro Armin Luistro, FSC (President of the La Salle schools) he left for the Senate surrounded by nuns of different religious orders. He said all that he had to say. Everyone gaunt from fatigue, we convoyed the Senate's Sgt-at-Arms van that picked him up from the LSGH presscon. I was able to go all the way into the room that held him first, (another blog entry for how I managed to do that) we were escorted deep into the Senate building, far from the mob of the media. We were met by Senators Cayetano, then Aquino and 2007 FilmFest best actor Jinggoy Estrada. In any case, he sat down on the couch, ate quietly, watched himself on TV while quietly saying, "...sorry ah low-batt na ako." I asked him what he wanted to tell the young people while he's going through this. He said, "Wag niyong papayagan mangyari ang mga ganito............mahalin ninyo ang bayan...at ang bayan ay hindi lang iisang pamilya...basta ...wag papayagan ito...wag...naku, pagod na ako..."I asked the staff of Sen Cayetano to dim the lights of his office and lower the volume of the TV as I knew most of them were exhausted. As soon as they did this...the nuns and Lozada started nodding off. I left the room and took one last photo of this brave man and his veiled security guard. Rock Ed will keep working on making these issues known. I "live-googled" this info for all of you to see the human face behind what goes on. And the torment honest men face when faced with the multitude of the greedy powerful men and women in government. Rock Ed is still politically non-partisan, but it will continue to focus on making civic issues more interesting to the young. Political sides should be the personal choice of the person participating in Rock Ed's spirit. But on a personal note, this administration will have to explain this scandal soon, own up, and amend --otherwise I will take it that -- it has officially declared itself my enemy. (more photos on an album in my photos link above entitled, "Jun Lozada, witness")

Gang Badoy7Feb2008728amKatipunan Road

2008

ON FREEDOM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Oppression comes in many forms.

It is not just about policemen marching down the street with water hoses, truncheons, and guns. It is not simply about unmarked vehicles and goons whisking away idealistic young men in the middle of a busy mall. Nor does it take the dark shapes of military and government officials lying through their teeth. Or when the so-called arbiters of public taste and morality slap an X mark on a small film that finally expresses the sentiment of the increasingly disgruntled majority.

When the highest leadership of this country brazenly believes that they can purchase fealty with cash bags like some small-town hoodlum, they are not only insulting us. It is an act of oppression.

When the president’s minions come to her defense with lies and excuses that are bigger insults to the people’s intelligence, they are oppressing us. They are trampling on our fundamental human right— the right not to be treated like intellectual cockroaches.

It is clear now that this moral center of this country’s leadership—of questionable nature to begin with— has finally crumbled. Government has lost all moral authority. We are ruled by deception, arrogance, and the bottomless appetite for power. The impunity by which evil is waged is simply astounding.

A government that disrespects its people has no right to hold power.

Now is not the time to assume neutral positions.

Like the concept of “oppression,” freedom also wears a multitude of masks. It is urgent that we recognize what those masks are, how they look like, and how to create them, and ultimately, how to destroy those masks.

And the first one we must destroy is our own. Because when we remove our masks we realize that we are profoundly angry, dissatisfied, and hurt. Also, because when we remove our masks we ultimately reveal what is truly noble and beautiful in all of us.

DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism calls on every one that now more than ever is the time to shred our masks and step up to be heroes of our times, to be noble, to be DAKILA.

*The statement was released during the launch of DAKILA's Out of the Box Project on Peace and Human Rights last October 26, 2007 at Penguin, Malate.