Posts tagged with economic crises
The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan called on Malacanang to explain the $20,000 dinner tab it allegedly incurred while dining in Le Cirque restaurant in New York during President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s.
News of the lavish dinner spending came in out in the August 7 edition of the New York Post. According to writer Richard Johnson, “the economic downturn hasn’t persuaded everyone to pinch pennies. Philippines President Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was at Le Cirque the other night with a large entourage enjoying the good life, even though the former comptroller of her country’s armed services, Carlos Garcia, was found guilty earlier this year of per jury and two of his sons were arrested in the US on bulk cash-smuggling charges. Macapagal-Arroyo ordered several bottles of very expensive wine, pushing the dinner tab up to $20,000.”
The short article appeared on the Eat and Drink section of Page Six of the NY Post online edition.
“Malacanang has a lot of explaining to do about this latest allegation which came out in an American paper. Who spent for the lavish dinner? Is it appropriate for a head of state of a Third World country like Mrs. Arroyo to wine and dine in such a manner, given that we’re in the midst of a crisis?”, asked Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.
“This is one dinner that certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth, at least for the rest of the Filipino people,” Reyes added.
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Sign the online petition of the youth against Con-Ass (Constituent Assembly) and Charter Change here.
We are today’s generation of Filipino youth, young, vibrant and spirited, transcending professions, cultures and boundaries, and to whom the hopes and aspirations for the nation’s future is bequeathed.
Together, we vehemently oppose all attempts by the ruling Arroyo clique and its cronies in Congress to tamper with the Constitution and perpetuate itself in power. We denounce in the strongest possible terms the blatant abuse of power and treachery that have come to characterize this regime.
The shameless display of arrogance and callousness of the Arroyo government sends for all patriotic and freedom-loving young Filipinos to dissent. The signs of times are rallying us to lives of involvement and action.
The youth have always played a pivotal role in ushering in significant changes and junctures in history. We have always been at the forefront of uprisings and revolutions every time the social, political and economic conditions in society become too intolerable for Filipinos to endure.
Today, we have a moral and sacred duty to perform. We cannot remain silent or with our arms crossed. We cannot remain indifferent while our own future as a people and a nation are being compromised for selfish political ambitions. The stakes are too high for us to take a pass.
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When Press Secretary Jesus Dureza prayed last November 18 in a Cabinet meeting that Gloria Arroyo will continue to lead the country “even beyond 2010,” he actually meant it. The President herself also meant it, even as she pretended to be embarrassed, as the events before and after the prayer indicate that the Charter change is set up once again for an Arroyo dictatorship beyond 2010.
After its failed attempt to use the MOA on Acestral Domain with the MILF to initiate constitutional amendments, the US-Arroyo regime is now more desperate than ever to clear the way for the Charter change express. Arroyo’s last ditch effort to extend her term is without the usual theatrics and pretensions – the danger of term extension is now staring us at the eye.
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[This is my simple contribution to Blog Action Day 2008.]
The most prevalent idea being perpetuated by mass media and other traditional establishments with regards to how poverty could be solved is the notion that it’s all up to the individual’s hard work and perseverance. Nasa sipag at tiyaga lang ‘yan. Kayod lang nang kayod. Mag-trabaho lang nang mag-trabaho. Dadating din ang asenso.
To reinforce this idea, it’s not seldom that we are made witnesses to countless life stories of individuals who rose from poverty rags-to-riches style. Just this weekend, over ABS-CBN, we are made audience to TV biographies of the country’s business tycoons and how they achieved their status through “hard work” and how they return to the poor their riches through humanitarian efforts and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects.
This, however, is the reality: anumang sipag at tiyaga ang gawin ng malawak na sektor ng manggagawa, karamihan sa kanila ay hindi talaga aasenso. Not in a prevailing order that thrives on the cycle of inequality that it perpetuates. The success stories we are being made to witness and admire are mere exceptions rather than the norm. Surely, if it’s all up to sipag at tiyaga, then most of our employees, workers and farmers, whom we pride to be hard-working, should be experiencing economic security. Don’t you ever wonder why such is not the case? After all, who benefits the most from the hard work of workers? We are simply being made to pin our hopes and be content with the way things are done and not strive or fight for something better.
Indeed, when it is not coupled with genuine reforms and changes in the core orientation of our economies and in how our governments are run, mere sipag at tiyaga will never be enough to lift the vast majority Filipinos, and even the rest of the world’s poor, out of poverty.
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I can’t seem to fulfill my plan to isolate myself and become a law school monk. Every once in a while I can’t help but turn the TV on and watch some entertainment or some shows off CNN. I would sigh at how pathetic some news commentators, short of sounding like capitalist paid hacks, spin the news of the global capitalist crisis into something barely positive. Every morsel of positive detail is being used to salvage the perception of capitalism’s inevitable collapse. It’s like everyone’s in denial. This was bound to happen because of this system’s inherent characteristic. France, Iceland, Singapore, Japan, even the USA is on recession. Those who speak of free market policies have suddenly now shut up and allowed state intervention to bail out greedy private financial institutions. What happened?
Okay. So even if I turn the TV off and go back to studying, I still end up losing my focus. Every half an hour or so I would get up from my study table and walk around the house trying to do something else. More often that not, I’d end up just playing with Tisay and watching cartoons with her.
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law student, film school graduate, student leader, youth activist, Kabataan Partylist legislative officer