Duterte's Reforms and Development: Change or Counterreaction?
(Or the continued adherence to neoliberal framework
hidden beneath the desire for national development and socioeconomic change,
and the people's clamour for genuine, patriotic, and progressive change and development)
At first, one would say that it is truly agreeable that president Rodrigo Duterte hath treated each and every matter, as well as entity, as chess pieces enough to support his "lofty" ambition.
For as everyone noticed how he mingled with personages from both left and right, and its acceptance of each and every thought being offered, the regime's intent seemed to be clear that in using the word “unity” or "inclusion" is actually trying his best to consolidate- even at a time wherein he is getting a barrage of criticisms due to his actions done “out of imposing justice”.
And just like his idol, for sure he or his apologists insist that the regime’s view of change as “in fact a continuation of a revolution from the poor”. In fact, during the Duterte administration’s first year, there was all the hype about aiming for inclusiveness from every sector, as well as championing the common Filipino family’s dream for a comfortable life.
By means of it they would say that Filipinos, in its desire for “change”, are attempting through disciplined vision to dismantle the old and replace with new structures of power as if from there “it democratises the wealth which commonly end centered in Manila and its urbanised counterparts”.
From there, this person thinks that if they truly adhere to change, be it in a form of free gruels to series of infrastuctures, mostly debt driven and be paid through taxes supposedly pointing at the rich yet still affecting the poor with rising costs of goods and services, of what good is this change the system, particularly in this present administration if it is not for the commoner? Yes it is, but in a long term wherein everything as made to impress, it goes no.
Admittingly speaking, this person, like others concerned, critically acknowledged how president Duterte tries to cultivate independence, self reliance, and development; however, knowing that he swore to upheld and maintain the old order, such changes are rather less taken seriously and rather benefits the few; if not showing how barely changed the way the economy was run and instead saw the nation deteriorating further.
TRAIN: a tax journey to nowhere?
In the case of the “Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act” (TRAIN), the president tries to “create a new middle class” by freeing some from tax burdens- by making it "simpler, fairer, and more efficient". And like any other once-campaign promises, that act tends to make the rich having a bigger contribution while the poor benefiting more from the government’s programs and services.
However, in spite of its intent and its benefits such as decreased personal income, estate, and donation taxes, the act also increases the tax on certain passive incomes, documents (documentary stamp tax) as well as excise tax on petroleum products, minerals, automobiles, and cigarettes; as well as imposes new taxes in the form of excise tax on sweetened beverages and non-essential services (invasive cosmetic procedures) and removes the tax exemption of lottery and other sweepstakes winnings amounting to more than P10,000.
Also to think that the overwhelming majority of Filipinos do not get any income tax benefits from that tax reform act. As most of the country’s total 22.7 million families do not pay income tax because they are just minimum wage earners or otherwise in informal work with low if not erratic incomes. And even if that tax reform act reduces income taxes paid by most of the reported 7.5 million personal income taxpayers, it didn't address the problem the way it still leaves as much as 15.2 million families without any income tax gains.
Hence, in spite of its benevolent intent, the act fails to appease the people, particularly those who are indirectly taxed through expensive prices of goods and services (thanks to that Expanded Value Added Tax) if not failure to mitigate problems by increasing wages especially on blue-collar labourers.
With TRAIN as an example, one would say that in spite apologists insist that the reforms as beneficial, turns out to be an irony since prices of goods and services hath been successively increased due to neoliberal policies of deregulation and privatization. No amount of deceit by the regime’s economists can cover up the fact that prices will rise due to increased costs of transportation and other operational costs in importation and production of local businesses. News reports even stated that a group of UV Express operators last January 17, 2018 sought regulators approval for a P2.00 per kilometer fare increase, citing higher operating costs and the impact brought by the act.What more that the people themselves are aware that this is to offset the state’s lost revenues as it gives tax exemptions to the country’s richest families and their corporations, as well as to fund its counterproductive expenditures and pay off its debts.
Remember, no amount of economic growth spurned by neoliberal policies peddled by the system and its economists, what more of its multinational institutions supporting can support nor able to salvage his regime from growing skepticism if not criticism. Thinking that contrary to the idea that the said act benefits a growing middle class and improves the existing, only the topmost of the society, through foreign multinational companies and their bureaucrat-capitalist cohorts will benefit from such immense growth.
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| by Leonilo Doloricon |
Another "legacy" the regime being babbled throughout is the "Build Build Build" infrastructure building program.
Like its predecessors with its pet projects of making series of infrastructures, Duterte's own pet project tries to be an example of an immense program that according to its initiators could generate jobs, as well as emphasising on government appropriations, rather than dependency on debt, in funding the so-called “golden age of infrastructure”.
Sounds optimistic it may be as these initators trying to assure the public that they are appeased from those series of proposals to be realised. But, with the passage of the tax reform package, as well as its avid push for market-driven measures, amendments to the Public Services Act, and easing restrictions on foreign ownership and participation will hugely benefit only oligarchs, foreign investors and their allies in the bureaucracy, while running over the poor majority who supposed to benefit from such loftiest programs.
To cite IBON foundation, it said that:
"the newly-enacted first package of TRAIN relieves the rich by lowering personal income, estate, and donor taxes. The second package, which Congress is set to tackle soon, will propose to lower corporate income taxes as well. But the poorest 10 million Filipino families whose incomes fall way below the family living wage of Php1,039 per day will soon bear the brunt of TRAIN-triggered higher prices of food and goods,and service fees, said the group. It noted that TRAIN’s measly Php200 monthly social protection is slated only for 2018 and will be insufficient to cushion the impact of added taxes on oil and sweetened beverages, electricity, and shipping."
And in relation to that, Foreign creditors will still gain more from Duterte's infrastructure plan (and of course most of everyone's taxes brought about by TRAIN will be towards debt servicing!). Contrary to the initiators's insistence that the program is funded by government appropriations (in turn coming from taxes especially VAT), the program, like its predecessors, will be funded by foreign and private sector loans, public-private partnerships (PPPs), and unsolicited proposals; with contracts stipulate that the State will ensure interest and risk guarantee payments to the lenders and corporations for largely transportation infrastructure. But on the other hand, the public will be obliged by the ‘user pays principle’ with the likes of higher toll fees and more expensive fares.
Again, in spite that the government as trying to be different, it goes the same as its predecessors. As said earlier, the TRAIN-funded "Build Build Build" appears to be benefiting the commoners, only to found out that the so-called oligarch, particularly those of the compradore and the corrupt bureaucrat will benefit from it-as well as the moneylenders whom forcing the commoners to pay debts via taxes intensified under TRAIN, what more that the commoners are being sidelined in decision making regarding those projects. Again, to cite IBON:
"It may be argued that infrastructure spending has to consider the nature and degree of economic activity, population density, geographic conditions, and a host of other considerations. But none of these detracts from how infrastructure spending is biased away from poor regions and, indeed, is biased away from the kind of infrastructure projects that the poor directly need and will be directly using."
Still, a bloodied outcome towards Farmers
(and still, the farmers' clamour for genuine agrarian reform
and rural development)
There are other ironies in which the system did: the passage of the free irrigation act did create applause from the farmers, who are burdened by costs of irrigation fees for their agricultural needs; however, reports about removing provisions involving foreign ownership (via Charter Change) may affect agrarian reform as farmers who desired for "land to the tiller" (since it is embedded in the constitution) be end dispelled by the system favouring foreigners, particularly multi/trans-national institutions.
It is also coupled by 110 cases of peasant killings, as well as series of arrests, detentions and the tens of thousands of human rights violations in the name of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) and Duterte’s ‘Oplan Kapayapaan.’ And according to the "Kilusang Mambubukid ng Pilipinas" (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines), the group underscores that most of these cases come from martial-law Mindanao.
Last January 20, according to news outlet "Manila Today", a staunch peasant activist and member of Peasant Group "Pederasyon sa Tanang Asosasyon sa mga Mag-Uuma ug Lumad sa Agusan ug Davao" (PAMULAD), named James Fores, was shot dead by an unidentified assailant. Also on that same day, a strafing incident was reported in a peasant community in Brgy. San Miguel, Las Navas, Northern Samar, wherein elements of the Philippine Army's 20th Infantry Battalion indiscriminately fired ammunition directed at a civilian community for 10 minutes. The said incident happened after a land mine reportedly detonated near the local village. Intense militarization continue in Batangas, and Quezon provinces, and other areas in Mindanao particularly in Caraga region, and in Northern Mindanao.
From these incidents somehow showed the system's half-hearted seriousness in its desire for agrarian justice. Months ago, they sidelined and fired concerned officials like Taguiwalo from the Social Welfare and Development Department, Mariano from Agrarian Reform, and Lopez in the Environment and Natural Resources; followed by Ridon from the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, and soon to be threatened others who happened to be activists. What more that the system, being stubborn to upheld interests, continued its culture of impunity, and be justified by a series of red-taggings especially from the Military and its apologists. “Farmers and peasant leaders killed under Duterte were red-tagged and accused as members and supporters of the New People’s Army. Those killed are farmers who are actively fighting for their land rights. They are civilians targeted by the AFP’s intense militarization,” Said KMP chairperson Danilo Ramos.
(and still, the farmers' clamour for genuine agrarian reform
and rural development)
There are other ironies in which the system did: the passage of the free irrigation act did create applause from the farmers, who are burdened by costs of irrigation fees for their agricultural needs; however, reports about removing provisions involving foreign ownership (via Charter Change) may affect agrarian reform as farmers who desired for "land to the tiller" (since it is embedded in the constitution) be end dispelled by the system favouring foreigners, particularly multi/trans-national institutions.
It is also coupled by 110 cases of peasant killings, as well as series of arrests, detentions and the tens of thousands of human rights violations in the name of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) and Duterte’s ‘Oplan Kapayapaan.’ And according to the "Kilusang Mambubukid ng Pilipinas" (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines), the group underscores that most of these cases come from martial-law Mindanao.
Last January 20, according to news outlet "Manila Today", a staunch peasant activist and member of Peasant Group "Pederasyon sa Tanang Asosasyon sa mga Mag-Uuma ug Lumad sa Agusan ug Davao" (PAMULAD), named James Fores, was shot dead by an unidentified assailant. Also on that same day, a strafing incident was reported in a peasant community in Brgy. San Miguel, Las Navas, Northern Samar, wherein elements of the Philippine Army's 20th Infantry Battalion indiscriminately fired ammunition directed at a civilian community for 10 minutes. The said incident happened after a land mine reportedly detonated near the local village. Intense militarization continue in Batangas, and Quezon provinces, and other areas in Mindanao particularly in Caraga region, and in Northern Mindanao.
From these incidents somehow showed the system's half-hearted seriousness in its desire for agrarian justice. Months ago, they sidelined and fired concerned officials like Taguiwalo from the Social Welfare and Development Department, Mariano from Agrarian Reform, and Lopez in the Environment and Natural Resources; followed by Ridon from the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, and soon to be threatened others who happened to be activists. What more that the system, being stubborn to upheld interests, continued its culture of impunity, and be justified by a series of red-taggings especially from the Military and its apologists. “Farmers and peasant leaders killed under Duterte were red-tagged and accused as members and supporters of the New People’s Army. Those killed are farmers who are actively fighting for their land rights. They are civilians targeted by the AFP’s intense militarization,” Said KMP chairperson Danilo Ramos.
***
All in all, the regime who, in spite of its populism, is but same as its predecessors. No matter how it tries to differentiate one for another, yet being a stooge of the ruling class and its foreign overlords, thus dispel the idea that the regime as truly for the people.
The recent issues such as Charter Change, Federalism, alongside continuity of Martial Law in Mindanao, Oplan Tokhang, and a series of threats if not killings towards the poor; as well as threats to silence press freedom, shows that the regime steered away from its supposed "revolutionary promises" and instead becoming "conterreactionary" as it continues to blame the past administration for its mistakes and inconsistencies, yet still continuing that same past administration's neoliberal policies.
Again, this person and others concerned may have acknowledge his desire, but as he steered in a wrong direction one would ask why is he unbecoming a "man for the people" and instead a lapdog of the old order? Did his brand of change truly benefits the commoners especially those who hath voted for him? How come the drivers who once voted for him turned against him due to his cuss words against their vehicles instead of helping them in uplifting, if not forcing themselves not to continue in their usual journeys due to regime's threats of arrest? How come there are laborers who faced uncertainty due to issues such as contractualisation still prevailing amidst promises to having it addressed seriously? Will Federalism, Parliamentarism, or a series of Populist agendas and its brand of Orderism truly benefited the masses or the elites who afforded to make laws meant to consolidate their interests and be prodded by its foreign overlords?
The recent issues such as Charter Change, Federalism, alongside continuity of Martial Law in Mindanao, Oplan Tokhang, and a series of threats if not killings towards the poor; as well as threats to silence press freedom, shows that the regime steered away from its supposed "revolutionary promises" and instead becoming "conterreactionary" as it continues to blame the past administration for its mistakes and inconsistencies, yet still continuing that same past administration's neoliberal policies.
Again, this person and others concerned may have acknowledge his desire, but as he steered in a wrong direction one would ask why is he unbecoming a "man for the people" and instead a lapdog of the old order? Did his brand of change truly benefits the commoners especially those who hath voted for him? How come the drivers who once voted for him turned against him due to his cuss words against their vehicles instead of helping them in uplifting, if not forcing themselves not to continue in their usual journeys due to regime's threats of arrest? How come there are laborers who faced uncertainty due to issues such as contractualisation still prevailing amidst promises to having it addressed seriously? Will Federalism, Parliamentarism, or a series of Populist agendas and its brand of Orderism truly benefited the masses or the elites who afforded to make laws meant to consolidate their interests and be prodded by its foreign overlords?
Well, in the end, such nonsense brought about by an order who actually continues its centuries-old rottenness has bred its rivals particularly those who chose to fight out of principles.