RP’s sanitation and sewerage problem among the worst in Asia

Among the worst in Asia lang ba? In my view we’re among the worst in the world.

Sa tingin ko malabo nang mangyari na magkaroon pa tayo ng Sewerage System, kung ang Water Supply System nga natin hindi na maayos-ayos sa dami ng illegal connection. Ang mga tao kasi sa atin para na rin mga tae nila, kanya kanyang tapon, watak-watak at walang pagkakaisa, huli na ang lahat para pagkabit-kabitin ang mga tubo sa banyo at idaan sa iisang Sanitary line papunta sa Wastewater Treatment Plant. Kulang tayo sa mga Urban PLanners at Sanitary Engineers, kung meron man malamang nasa ibang bansa na, at marami ang hindi nakakaalam at walang pakialam sa Sanitation Code of the Philippines.

Tips na lang sa mga magpapatayo ng bahay, para kahit man lang papaano makatulong tayo kay Inang Kalikasan.

1)Kung maglalagay ng septic tank (ano pa nga ba, wala naman tayong sewerage system) Siguraduhing nasa tamang disenyo, hindi masyadong malaki at hindi masyadong maliit, depende yan kung ilan ang nakatira sa bahay. “Anaerobic Bacteria” (meaning absence of oxygen) ang kumakain ng dumi, kaya dapat nasa tamang sukat din ang kanilang bahay.

2) Huwag ikakabit ang tubo ng lababo at paliguan sa septic tank. Ang mga mantika, sebo, at sabon ang pumapatay sa mga bacteria na dapat mga dumi lang ng tao ang kinakain. Kaya naman maraming septic tank ang barado at umaapaw dahil sa mga sebo na nakabara.

3) Kung deep well pa rin ang gamit nyo, itayo ang septic tank 25 meters away, at huwag ilalagay kung mababa sa Water table (level ng tubig sa ilalim ng lupa)

4) Routine Maintenance, may mga sludge pa rin na maiipon sa tangke, kung ayaw nyo ng amoy ipatawag si Malabanan.

scud, Your tips are fantastic!!! ryebosco, I share your being impatient.

I think, aside from politics, one of the reasons why Pinas is nagkakaletse-letse is brain-drain. Ang magagaling ay nasa abroad at naiiwan and mga kalabusong kumakandito at inihahalal. Kaya sila ang nagpaplano (o walang plano) o nagpapatakbo ng gobyerno na uma-apekto sa ating kabuhayan at kapaligiran. Ano ang maaasahan mo kung ang mga taong ‘iyon ay nasa Row 8 (last row) o Section 10 (last Section) noong sila ay nag-aaral pa? Di kabobohan!!!
To cite as an example:
When I was growing up, our town is a First Class municipality with commercial districts, etc. because it is ably run by intellectual people. Then later, when working abroad became a fad, these intellectuals started migrating or going abroad leaving the bobos behind. Some of them became mayors because the voters have no choice anyway since the contest is actually between Bobo vs. Bobo.
When I came to visit my town after about 18 years of absence, I almost dropped dead when the conductor announced we are already in the town. I thought the conductor was joking. The town retrogressed completely such that I can’t even recognize it anymore.
Pinas today is parallel to my town. The problem is how can we stop brain-drain when even our doctors are taking up nursing desperately just to go abroad? ( but let’s not despair… I know there is a solution. how? let’s figure it out together .)

si scud naman, paano pa makakapagpatayo ng septic tank 25m away eh yung lote mo 50m2 lang at dikit-dikit pa (low-cost housing)? at tsaka wala pang linya ng mwss.so makikita mong halos lahat ng mga bahay ay magkadikit lang ang deep well at septic tank (kung meron man dahil yung mga nasa tabing dagat ay diretso tapon na sa dagat). the best solution of course is for the local govt to provide for the sewage collection system.ang tanong, saan naman kukuha ng perang pantustos dito? but sa isang third world country (na nagpapanggap maging first world), eto ay hindi kataka-taka at tingin ko ay isang realidad.

siyanga pala. ang malabanan ay tinanggalan na ng lisensiya. alam mo kung bakit? nahuli yung isang trak nila tinatapon yung nasipsip nila na dumi sa isang imburnal sa daan. it turned out unsanitary rin etong practice ng malabanan. matagal na sigurong ginagawa ngayon lang nahuli.

Btw, I’m still looking for the Singaporean to give him his drink.

Sorry about my criticisms on my kabayans.
I got carried away by my emotions witnessing public officials who are more concerned about what’s the next day’s “pulutan” than the welfare of the people they supposed to serve and forgot that I was also in Row 8, Section 10! Sorry!!!!

Tongue, narinig ko nga yan ganyang linyang “If you don’t see your dirt, it’s not your problem anymore”. Ang pinaka pilosopo namang narinig ko “The solution to pollution is dillution”, lahat na itinapon sa dagat.

Minsan may nagtanong sakin kung ano daw magandang kunin na kurso na madaling magkapera, i said lahat ng mag kinalaman sa Public Health, Sanitation and Environment gaya ng Sanitary eng’g, Solid Waste Management, Pollution Control, Safety and Occupational Hazard, Heating Aircon & Ventilation (HVAC), Public Health, Plumbing and pipelaying, Sewage Disposal, Recycling etc. At kung makakuha na ng tamang kaalaman lumabas ng Pilipinas dahil hindi mo magagamit yan sa ating bansa (sorry nagpapakatotoo lang), tatawanan ka lang at sasabihing banidoso. Mas mabuti pang pumunta sa mga bansang istrikto sa pagpapatupad ng kanilang Environmental at Sanitation Laws gaya ng Canada, Switzerland, Belgium..mabaho nga at maduming trabaho, pero ang kapalit nyan malaking pera..hindi bababa ng $25/hour

Sanitation and Sewage projects are not among our politicians’ list of top priorities which easily includes basketball courts, waiting sheds, road beautification, street lights, gov vehicles… and other projects on which they put their names and advertise on big billboards: ” This is another project by our Hon. Kurakot”

I was once invited for a meeting at Batasan, with a Congressman’s CoS to help plan for the district’s Country-wide Development Fund (pork barrel). They want the Cong’s name all over the place. All I can say is, too many are too corrupt.

Our sewage problem is only a manifestation of what’s in us, in our leaders, our system, our gov’t. That’s worse and more difficult to clean up.

Ben Eijbergen’s report just put words into a stunning reality.

I agree may mga policy implications, lalo na duon sa investments. His report showed that 97 percent of investments on water goes to water supply (generation?) and only 3 percent goes to sanitation/sewerage. Reflective talaga of national realities. Parang budget tug-of-war ng share of education vs. defense.

Olarte’s report said it: “Eijbergen said the national government and local government units have not been prioritizing the issue of sanitation and sewerage. Moreover, the government has not been investing for the proper maintenance of these systems”.

I agree with the idea that this country could not fix its sewerage and sanitation problem (if its identifed by our national policy makers as a problem at all) because even our Water Supply System is not fixed (Was it one of Scud’s comments?)

Pero sa tingin ko pa rin Eijbergen’s study reduced the Philippines into what’s going on only in urban areas especially Metro Manila (in terms of sanitation and Sewerage). Although not too bad because he also recognized that “outside Metro Manila (which includes our Mindanao), access to sewerage network is almost non-existent”. He needed no much basis for this. But its worth showing also what the LGUs have done regarding Sanitation and Sewerage.

Yung ginamit ngang data sa access sa sewerage is on select cities lang, which included Manila in the Philippines. Is Manila = Philippines? Anyway, I know he used other bases. Besides, I admit di ko pa rin masyadong na-digest ang buong kwento.

For a start, dapat siguro isali yan sa criteria ng “Clean and Green” contests around the country? Puro lang naman cosmetic ata ang nasa program na yan eh.

Isali rin kaya sa mga bagay na titingnan in the release of Internal Revenue Allotment? (is there a leeway?)

Indeed, it’s a big headache.

Water Treament Facility design consist that of a large holding tank capable of handling/receiving about 50 million lpd. There will be several sewage pumping stations to pump these sewage water into the holding tank. The holding tank is divided into 4 stages, incoming sewage water, solids-sewage water separation stage, sewage water breakdown to methane gas thru anaerobic method and remaining water is chlorinated and cleaned for return to the river or reuse as drinking water, and solids are decomposed. Methane gas is pumped into gas power plant to produce electricity and a methane gas tank for use as an LPG. Decomposing solids becomes organic fertilizer.

As for storm drain systems (flood control) similar to sewage treatment plant but more in eco-water shed system integrated design in that storm drains are redesigned to produce several undergound gravity drains to separate solids from liquid and from liquid into finer treatment for reuse. Solids that are trapped are re-routed and pushed by gravity to a cental location where it can be hauled or trapped in another holding tank for furhter waste-power generation or being recycled. Also, very important that all cities vulnerable to flooding have balanced landscape and watershed design vs. hardscape (all-concreted). These landscape and watershed design are calculated (measured) to withstand rainfall absorption of say 3-10 cm during rainy seasons. These are inexpensive alternative, in that most consist of planting trees and grass/flowers/bushes. Landscape and watershed designs can be contoured based on architectural significance.

Freshwater delivery infrastructure (pipes/piping) are altogether in desrepair. In this case, an alternative system can be put in place. My idea on this scenario would be setting up of a Multicooperative in each sector. These multicooperative would then become the peoples’s alternative access to freshwater system since sectoral participation and membership earned each one a vote to provide solutions to these issues. Where are the new freshwater is going to come from would be incorporated in a feasibility studies. Treated fresh water source would be coming from several route. One concept design I was working on is the twin benefit of direct ocean-power technology where freshwater can be extracted, pumped, and routed to these sectors. Because several multisectors or multicooperative put in place a highly efficient system thru feasibility studies, everyone benefits, operating costs are minimal, rates should be at 0.1% of monthly wage earner. The systems when implemented, are designed to provide a low cost rate of no more than 0.1% based on minimum wage. Example, at a monthly minimum wage of P7,000, the average monthly household of 4 with 2 incomes should be paying about 0.1% x P14,000 = P14.00 per month. So average household of 4 monthly water biil would be no more than P14.00.

If interested, you may contact me or discuss more on these topics.

High rate of Filipinos are below poverty and therefore excluded from gainful economic activites and in most case, thru no fault of their own nor thru gaovernment failure. Below are my solutions to these persistent problems:

The Philippines is endowed with abundance of both natural and mineral resources, in fact, if fully utilized, has potentials 1,000 times the Japan’s economic miracle. (Japan lacked both of these natural and mineral resources). In addition, the Philippines possessed respectable talents and creativeness from her population. Her population has suffered so much that they become hardened and accustomed to dire living and living on the edge. Japan now suffered and is bleeding economically for pursuing export for dollars policies as one among many of its foremost economic objectives. Lessons from Japan in the past 50 years, and of late South Korea demands a closer look of what had happened. We knew that Japan’s traded securities dropped significantly to 30%. And that Japan, as a sovereign creditor whose only reliance to US Dollar accumulation thru deposits to US Federal Treasuries and bonds, otherwise heavily dependent onto only the productivity of her population thru corporate performance can only be sustainable by being part of the fiat US Dollar. Few countries today heavily rely on Chartalist theory, of money claims, that government, by virtue of its power to levy taxes payable with government-designated legal tender, does not need external financing. Accordingly, sovereign credit enables the government to finance full employment economy even in a regulated market economy. The logic for Chartalism reasons that excessively low tax rate will result in a low demand for currency and that a chronic government fiscal surplus is economically counterproductive and unsustainable because it drains credit from the economy continuously. Thus, according to Chartalist theory, an economy can finance with sovereign credit its domestic developmental needs, to achieve full employment and maximize balance growth with prosperity without any need for sovereign debt or foreign loans or foreign investments, and without the penalty of hyperinflation. But Chartalist theory is operative only in predominantly closed domestic monetary regimes! Countries operating and participating in neo-liberal international “free-trade” under the aegis of unregulated global financial and currency markets cannot operate on Chartalist principles because of the foreign-exchange dilemma. Any government printing its own currency to finance legitimate domestic needs beyond the size of its foreign-exchange reserves will soon find its convertible currency under attack in the foreign-exchange markets, regardless of whether the currency is pegged at a fixed exchanged rate to another currency, or is free-floating. Thus all non-dollar economies are forced to attract foreign capital denominated in dollars even to meet domestic needs. But non-dollar economies must accumulate dollars reserves before they can attract foreign capital. Even with capital control, foreign capital will only invest in the export sector where dollar revenue can be earned. But the dollars that exporting economies accumulate from trade surpluses can only be invested in dollar assets, depriving the non-dollar economies of needed capital in domestic sectors. The only protection from such attacks on domestic currency is to suspend full convertibility, which then will keep foreign investment away. Thus dollar hegemony, the subjugation of all other fiat currencies to the dollar as the key reserve currency, starves non-dollar economies of needed capital by depriving their governments of the power to issue sovereign credit for domestic development.

Under principles of Chartalism, foreign capital serves no useful domestic purpose outside of an imperialistic agenda. Dollar hegemony essentially taxes away the ability of the trading partners of the US to finance their own domestic development in their own currencies, and forces them to seek foreign loans and investment denominated in dollars, which the US, and only the US, can print at will with relative immunity.

The Mundell-Fleming thesis, for which Robert Mundell won the 1999 Nobel Prize, states that in international finance, a government has the choice among (1) stable exchange rates, (2) international capital mobility and (3) domestic policy autonomy (full employment, interest rate policies, counter-cyclical fiscal spending, etc). With unregulated global financial markets, a government can have only two of the three options.

Through dollar hegemony, the United States is the only country that can defy the Mundell-Fleming thesis. For more than a decade since the end of the Cold War, the US has kept the fiat dollar significantly above its real economic value, attracted capital account surpluses and exercised unilateral policy autonomy within a globalized financial system dictated by dollar hegemony. The reasons for this are complex but the single most important reason is that all major commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars, mostly as an extension of superpower geopolitics. This fact is the anchor for dollar hegemony which makes possible US finance hegemony, which makes possible US exceptionism and unilateralism.

So, how can the Phillipines solve these insolvable financial and monetary crisis?

**All Filipinos ought to unite with only one goal: Make the Philippines Achieve Its Fullest Economic Development Potential.

How so?

1. The Philippines needs to activate its domestic market to balance its foreign trade.

2. The Philippine economy can benefit enormously by the aggressive deployment of sovereign credit for domestic development and growth, particularly in northern Luzon, Leyte, Samar, Negros and Panay Provinces, and most importantly, Mindanao.

3. Sovereign credit can be used to stimulate domestic demand by raising wage levels, improve farm income, promote state-owned-enterprise restructuring and bank reform, build needed infrastracture, promote education and health care, re-order the pension system, restore the environment and promote cultural renaissance, while exchange control continues, the Philippines can free its economy from the dictate of the dollar hegemony, adopt a strategy of balanced development financed by sovereign credit and wean itself from excess dependence on export for dollars. Sovereign credit can finance full employment with rising wages in the Philippine economy of 87 million population and project it towards one of the largest economy in the Far East within say, 5 years short time!

The expansion of Philippine domestic economy will enable the Philippines to import more, thus allowing to correspondingly export more without persistent excessive trade gaps. There are much that can be done more to fully develop the full potentials of the Phillipines economy but exporting for US dollars, foreign investment to earn dollars, working abroad to earn dollars, outsourcing to fill unemployment and transnational corporate supplants are not the way to do it. Unless the Philippine inhabitants allow themselves to become fully embracing and compliant to dollar hegemony and financial re-colonization, then it is irreversible.

CREDIT OR DEBT, WHICH ONE DRIVES AN ECONOMY?

Credit drives an economy, not debt! Credit and debt are opposite but not identical. Credit and debt operates in reverse relations. Credit requires a positive net worth and debt does not. One can have good credit and no debt. High debt lowers credit rating. When one understands credit, one understands the main force behind finance economy, which is driven by credit and stalled by debt. Debt distorts marginal utility calculations and rearranges disposable income. Debt turns corporate shares into Giffen goods, demand for which increases when their prices go up.

From a monetary economics viewpoint, a government-issued money as a sovereign debt instrument with zero maturity, historically derived from the bill of exchange in free banking is valid only for a specie of money, which is a debt certificate that can claim on demand a prescribed amount of gold or other specie of similar value. But a fiat money issued by a sovereign government is not a sovereign debt but a sovereign credit instrument. Sovereign government bonds are agency debt , but not sovereign debt, because local government, while they possesed the power to tax, cannot print money, which is the exclusive authority of the US Federal government. When money buys bonds, the transaction represents sovereign credit canceling private or corporate debt.

The relationship between assets and liabilities is expressed in credit and debt, with the designation determined by the flow of obligation. A flow from asset to liability is known as credit, the reverse is known as debt. A creditor is one who reduces his liability to increase his assets, which include the right of collection on the liabilities of his debtors. Sovereign debt is a fake game to make private monetary debts denominated in fiat money tradable.

The Philippine sovereign state, representing all her Filipino citizens, owns all assets of the nation not assigned to the private sector. This is true whether the Philippines operates on a socialist or capitalist principles. Thus, the Philippines’ assets is the national wealth less that portion of private sector wealth after tax liabilities, plus all other claims on the private sector by sovereign right. High wages are the key determinant of national wealth. Privatizations generally reduces the Philippines’ wealth, while it may increase tax revenue. As long as a sovereign state exists, its credit is limited only by the national wealth. If sovereign credit is used to increase national wealth, then sovereign credit is limitless as long as the growth of national wealth keeps pace with the growth of sovereign credit.

When a sovereign state issues money as legal tender, it issues a monetary instrument backed by its sovereign rights, which includes taxation. A sovereign state never owes domestic debts except by design voluntarily. When a sovereign state borrows in order to avoid levying or raising taxes, it is a political expedience, not a financial necessity. When a sovereign state borrows, through the selling of sovereign bonds denominated in its own currency, it is withdrawing previously-issued sovereign credit from the financial system. When a sovereign state borrows foreign currency, it forfeits its sovereign credit privilege and reduces itself to an ordinary debtor because no sovereign state can issue foreign currency.

Government bonds act as absorbers of sovereign credit from the private sector. US Government bonds, through dollar hegemony, enjoy the highest credit rating, topping a credit risk pyramid in international sovereign and institutional debt markets. Dollar hegemony is a geopolitical phenomenon in which the US dollar, a fiat currency, assumes the status of primary reserve currency in the international finance architecture. Architecture is an art the aesthetics of which is based on moral goodness, of which the current international finance architecture is visibly deficient. Thus dollar hegemony is objectionable not only because the dollar, as a fiat currency, usurps a role it does not deserve, but also because its effect on the world community is devoid of moral goodness, because it destroys the ability of sovereign governments beside the US to use sovereign credit to finance the development their domestic economies, and forces them to export to earn dollar reserves to maintain the exchange value of their own currencies.

Money issued by sovereign government fiat is a sovereign monopoly while debt is not. Anyone with acceptable credit rating can borrow or lend, but only sovereign government can issue fiat money as legal tender. When sovereign government issues fiat money, it issues certificates of its sovereign credit good for discharging tax liabilities imposed by sovereign government on its citizens. Privately-issued money can exist only with the grace and permission of the sovereign, and is different from sovereign government-issued money in that privately issued money is an IOU from the issuer, with the issuer owing the holder the content of the money’s backing. But sovereign government-issued fiat money is not a debt from the government because the money is backed by a potential debt from the holder in the form of tax liabilities. Money issued by sovereign government by fiat as legal tender is good by law for settling all debts, private and public. Anyone refusing to accept dollars in the US for payment of debt is in violation of US law. Instruments used for settling debts are credit instruments.

Buying up sovereign bonds with government-issued fiat money is one of the ways government releases more sovereign credit into the economy. By logic, the money supply in an economy is not government debt because, if increasing the money supply means increasing the national debt, then monetary easing would contract credit from the economy. But empirical evidence suggests otherwise: monetary ease increases the supply of credit. Thus if fiat money creation by sovereign government increases credit, money issued by sovereign government fiat is a credit instrument.

Economist Hyman Minsky rightly noted that whenever credit is issued, money is created. The issuing of credit creates debt on the part of the counterparty; but debt is not money, credit is. Debt is negative money, a form of financial antimatter. Physicists understand the relationship between matter and antimatter. Einstein theorized that matter results from concentration of energy and Paul Dirac conceptualized the by-product creation of antimatter through the creation of matter out of energy. The collision of matter and antimatter produces annihilation that returns matter and antimatter to pure energy. The same is true with credit and debt, which are related but opposite. They are created in separate forms out of financial energy to produce matter (credit) and antimatter (debt). The collision of credit and debt will produce annihilation and return the resultant union to pure financial energy un-harnessed for human benefit. The paying off of debt terminates financial interaction.

NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION AND DOLLAR HEGEMONY ROOT CAUSES
OF GENOCIDAL PROPORTION OR ARE THEY MANKIND’S SALVATION?

The foreign-trade strategies of all trading nations in recent decades of neoliberal globalization have contributed to the destabilizing of the global trading system. It is not possible or rational for all countries to export themselves out of domestic recessions or poverty. The contradictions between national strategic industrial policies and neoliberal open-market systems will generate friction between the US and all its trading partners, as well as among regional trade blocs and inter-region competitors. The US engages in global trade to enhance its superpower status, not to undermine it. Thus the US does not seek equal partners as a matter of course. With economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy, the US has been preventing, or trying to prevent, an increasing number of US transnational companies, and foreign companies trading with the US, from doing business in an increasing number of countries deemed rogue by Washington. Trade flows not where it is needed most, but to where it best serves the US national security interest.

Neoliberal globalization has promoted the illusion that trade is a win-win transaction for all, based on the Ricardian model of comparative advantage. Yet economists recognize that without global full employment, comparative advantage is merely Say’s Law internationalized. Say’s Law states that supply creates its own demand, but only under full employment, a pre-condition supply-siders conveniently ignore. After two decades, this illusion has been shattered by concrete data: poverty has increased worldwide and global wages, already low to begin with, have declined since the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and by 45 percent in some countries, such as Indonesia.

Yet export to the US under dollar hegemony is merely an arrangement in which the exporting nations, in order to earn dollars to buy needed commodities denominated in dollars and to service dollar loans, are forced to finance the consumption of US consumers by the need to invest their trade surplus dollars in dollar assets as foreign-exchange reserves, giving the US a rising capital account surplus to finance its rising current account deficit.

Furthermore, the trade surpluses are achieved not by an advantage in the terms of trade, but by sheer self-denial of basic domestic needs and critical imports necessary for domestic development. Not only are the exporting nations debasing the value of their labor, degrading their environment and depleting their natural resources for the privilege of running on the poverty treadmill, they are enriching the dollar economy and strengthening dollar hegemony in the process, and causing harm also to the US economy. Thus the exporting nations allow themselves to be robbed of needed capital for critical domestic development in such vital areas as education, health and other social infrastructure, by assuming heavy foreign debt to finance export, while they beg for even more foreign investment in the export sector by offering still more exorbitant returns and tax exemptions, putting increased social burden on the domestic economy. Yet many small economies around the world have no option but to continue to serve dollar hegemony like a drug addiction.

Japan provides the perfect proof that even a dynamic, successful export machine does not by itself produce a healthy economy. Japan is aware that it needs to restructure its domestic economy, away from its export fixation and upgrade the living standard of its overworked population and to reorder its domestic consumption patterns. But Japan is trapped into helplessness by dollar hegemony.

Japan sees its sovereign credit rating lowered by international rating agencies while it remains the world’s biggest creditor nation. Moody’s Investor Service downgraded Japanese government bonds by two notches recently to A2, or one grade below Botswana’s, not to mention Chile and Hungary. Japan has the world’s largest foreign-exchange reserves: $819 billion in July 2004; the world’s biggest domestic savings: $11.4 trillion (US gross domestic product was $11 trillion in 2003); and $1 trillion in overseas investment. And 95% of its sovereign debt is held by Japanese nationals, which rules out risk of default similar to Argentina. Japan has given Botswana, where half of the population is infected with the AIDS virus, $12 million in grants and $102 million in loans.

Why does the New York-based rating agency prefer Botswana to Japan? The Botswanan government budget is controlled by foreign diamond-mining interests to protect their investment in the mines. Botswana does not run any budget deficit to develop its domestic economy or to help its poverty-stricken people. Thus Botswana is considered a good credit risk for foreign loans and investment. Japan, on the other hand, is forced to suffer the high interest cost of a low credit rating because its responsive government attempts to solve, through deficit financing, the nation’s economic woes that have resulted from excessive focus on export. Dollar hegemony denies a good credit rating even to the world’s largest holder of dollar reserves.

The Asia-Pacific trading system has been structured to serve markets outside of Asia by providing low wage manufacturing. This enables the US to consume more without inflation and without raising domestic wages. All the trade surpluses accumulated by the Asian economies have ended up financing the US debt bubble, which is not even good for the US economy in the long run. Low-price imports allow the US to keep domestic wages low without dampening consumer power and contribute to a rising disparity of both income and wealth within the US where purchasing power comes increasingly from debt supported by capital gain rather than rising wages. The result is that when the equity bubble of inflated price-earning ratio finally bursts, wages are too low to keep the economy from crashing from a collapse of the wealth effect.

After thoroughly impoverishing the Asian economies by making possible financial manipulation of crisis proportions, dollar hegemony now works to penetrate the remaining Asian markets that have stayed relatively closed: notably Japan, China and South Korea. Control of access to its markets has been Asia’s principal instrument for its sub-optimized trade advantage and distorted industrial development. This strategy had been practiced successfully first by Japan and copied in various degree of success by the Asian Tigers. Protectionism will survive in Asian economies long after formal accession by these economies to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Globalization is not a new trend. It is the natural policy for all empire building. Globalization under modern capitalism began with the British Empire, marked by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, five years after the Opium War with China, and two years before the Revolutions of 1848. Great Britain embarked on a systemic promotion of free trade and chose to depend on imported food, which gave a survivalist justification to economic empire. France adopted free trade in 1860 and within 10 years was faced with the Paris Commune, which was suppressed ruthlessly by the French bourgeoisie, who put to death 20,000 workers and peasants, including children. Despite a backlash movement toward protective tariffs in Britain, Holland and Belgium, the global economy of the 19th century was characterized by high mobility of goods across political borders. As Europe adopted political nationalism, international economic liberalism developed in parallel, until 1914. World War I, the 1929 Depression and World War II caused a temporary halt of free trade. The US “Open Door” policy for pre-revolutionary China, proclaimed by John Hay in 1899, was part of a globalization scheme to preserve US commercial interests by preventing the partition of China by European powers and Japan, after the US became a Far Eastern power through the acquisition of the Philippines. The Open Door policy was rooted in the most-favored-nation clause in the unequal treaties imposed on China by Western imperialist powers.

Like the United States now, Britain was a predominantly importing economy by the close of the 18th century. Despite the Industrial Revolution’s expanded export of manufacturing goods, import of raw material, food and consumer amenities grew faster in value than export of manufacturing goods and coal. The key factor that sustained this trade imbalance was the predominance of the British pound, as it is today with the US dollar and its impact on the trade finance. British hegemony of sea transportation and financial services (cross-currency trade finance and insurance) earned Britain vast amounts of foreign currencies that could be sold in the London money markets to importers of Argentine meat and Canadian bacon. International credit and capital markets were centered in London. The export of financial services and capital produced factor income that served as hidden surplus to cushion the trade deficit. To enhance financial hegemony, the British maintain separate dependent currencies in all parts of the empire under pound-sterling hegemony. This financial hegemony is now centered on New York with the dollar as the base currency. When the Asian tigers export to the United States, all they get in return are US Treasury bills and corporate bonds, not direct investment in Asia. Asian labor in fact is working at low wages mainly to finance the expansion of the dollar economy.

Market fundamentalism, a modern euphemism of capitalism, is thus made necessary by the finance architecture imposed on the world by the hegemonic finance power, first 19th-century Great Britain, now the United States. When the developing economies call for a new international finance architecture, this is what they are really driving at. Foreign-exchange markets ensure that the endless demand for dollar capital by the poor exporting nations will never be met. British economist John A Hobson identified the surplus of capital in the core economies and the need for its export to the impoverished parts of the world as the material basis of imperialism. For neo-imperialism of the 21st century, this remains fundamentally true.

Then as now, the international economy rested on an international money system. Britain adopted the gold standard in 1816, with Europe and the US following in the 1870s. Until 1914, the exchange rates of most currencies were highly stable, except in victimized, semi-colonial economies such as Turkey and China. The gold standard, while greatly facilitating free trade, was hard on economies that produced no gold, and the gold-based monetary regime was generally deflationary (until the discovery of new gold deposits in South Africa, California and Alaska), which favored capital. William Jenning Bryan spoke for the world in 1896 when he declared that mankind should not be “crucified upon this cross of gold”. But the 50-year lead time of the British gold standard firmly established London as the world’s financial center. The world’s capital was drawn to London to be redistributed to investments of the highest return around the world. Borrowers around the world were reduced to playing a game of “race to the bottom” to compete for capital.

The bulk of economic theories within the context of capitalism were invented to rationalize this global system as natural truth. The fundamental shift from the labor value theory to the marginal utility theory was a circular self-validation of the artificial characteristics of an artificial construct based on the sanctity of capital, despite Karl Marx’s dissection that capital cannot exist without labor – until assets are put to use to increase labor productivity, it remains idle assets.

Mergers and acquisitions became rampant. Small business capitalism disappeared between 1880 and 1890. Workers and small businesses found that they were not competing against their neighbors, but those on other sides of the world, operating from structurally different socioeconomic systems. The corporation, first used to facilitate the private ownership of railroads, became the organization of choice for large industries and commerce, issuing stocks and bonds to finance its undertakings that fell beyond the normal financial resources of individual entrepreneurs.

This process increased the power of banks and financial institutions and brought forth finance capitalism. Cartels and trusts emerged, using vertical and horizontal integration to eliminate competition and manipulate markets and prices for entire sectors of the economy. Middle-class membership was mainly concentrated in salaried workers of corporations, while working class members were hourly wage earners in factories. The 1848 Revolutions were the first proletariat revolutions in modern time. The creation of an integrated world market, the financing and development of economies outside of Europe and the rising standards of living for Europeans were triumphs of the 19th-century system of unregulated capitalism. In the 20th century, the process continued, with the center shifting to the US after two world wars.

Friedrich List, in his National System of Political Economy (1841), asserted that political economy as espoused in England at that time, far from being a valid science universally, was merely British national opinion, suited only to English historical conditions. List’s institutional school of economics asserted that the doctrine of free trade was devised to keep England rich and powerful at the expense of its trading partners and that it had to be fought with protective tariffs and other devices of economic nationalism by the weaker countries. List’s economic nationalism influenced Asian leaders, including Sun Yatsen of China, who proposed industrial policies financed with sovereign credit. List was also the influence behind the Meiji Reform Movement of 1868 in Japan. Alexander Hamilton, by proposing the US Treasury using tax revenue to assume and pay off all public debts incurred by the Confederation in his 1791 Report on Public Debt, through the establishment of a national bank, provided the new nation with sovereign credit in the form of paper money for development.

The current breakdown of neoliberal globalized market fundamentalism offers Asia a timely opportunity to forge a fairer deal in its economic relation with the rest of the world. The United States, as a bicoastal nation, must begin to treat Asian-Pacific nations as equal members of an Asian-Pacific commonwealth in a new world economic order that renders economic nationalism unnecessary.

TODAY’S TECHNOLOGy ADEQUATE TO DEVELOP RP’S ECONOMIC POTENTIALS

Today’s fast technological breakthroughs should enable the Philippines achieved full development in 5 years time. There are two organizations that I think are viable. One is a Private/Public Corporation. However, past experiences provided dismal outcomes for these private/public corporations. Because it benefits the few owners/shareholders, none goes back to the community in terms of public good and welfare. It widens the haves and have nots and it drives communities to deep poverty and depletes community’s resources. Furthermore, private/public corporations can be subject to manipulations and could fail in short period of time. When profitable, derivative taxes by these private/public corporations are way low compared to the wealth generated by these corporations for its owners and shareholders who oftentimes do not deserve these wealth. The other is the Cooperative.

Below are benefits of a Cooperative vs. For-Profit Corporation:

Cooperative is an organization owned by the members who use its services. Cooperatives can provide virtually any product or service, and can be either a non-profit or for-profit enterprise.

Cooperatives exist in every sector of the economy and can touch every aspect of our lives. You can be born in a health care co-op and buried by a funeral co-op. In between you can work in a worker’s co-op, live in a housing co-op, buy your groceries, clothing and other items from retail co-ops, send your children to a child care co-op, do all your banking at a credit union, and purchase your insurance from an insurance co-op.

Cooperatives and credit unions provide consumers with a distinct values-based and community-owned and controlled alternative. Unlike the private, public, or voluntary sectors, all cooperatives around the world are guided by the same seven principles:

1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic member control
3. Member economic participation
4. Autonomy and independence
5. Education, training, and information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for community

Collectively there are over 10,000 cooperatives and credit unions in Canada providing products and services to over 10 million Canadians.

How do co-ops differ from other businesses?

Cooperatives and credit unions are driven by both economic and social concerns. They are community-based organizations that care not only about the bottom lines of their businesses, but about the needs of their members and the quality of life in their communities. Cooperatives and credit unions differ from other businesses in three key ways:

A Different Purpose: The primary purpose of cooperatives and credit unions is to meet the common needs of their members, whereas the primary purpose of most investor-owned businesses is to maximize profit for shareholders.

A Different Control Structure: Cooperatives and credit unions use the one-member/one-vote system, not the one-vote-per-share system used by most businesses. This helps the cooperative or credit union serve the common need rather than the individual need, and is a way to ensure that people, not capital, control the organization.

A Different Allocation of Profit: Cooperatives and credit unions share profits among their member-owners on the basis of how much they use the co-op, not on how many shares they hold. Cooperatives and credit unions also tend to invest their profits in improving service to members and promoting the well-being of their communities.

Why should you join a co-op?

If you want to belong to a democratic organization that is owned and controlled by the people who use its services, an organization that can successfully compete in the marketplace without abandoning the values and principles that set it apart from other businesses, and an organization that returns its profits to the community, then you share many of the same values and priorities as the millions of people around the world who are already members of cooperatives and credit unions.

Cooperatives and credit unions recognize the importance of people and communities defining their own needs and working together to meet those needs. They are a powerful and democratic way to put decision-making into the hands of those who need and use the services. Cooperatives and credit unions are directed locally and invested in locally. Surplus profits are returned to the members and, therefore, remain within the community.

So, in the current economic Philippine situation, a Cooperative is the most viable entity to setup in every barangays in the Philippines. These cooperatives must work within their communities to address all social and economic problems. What is missing are technological breakthroughs.

We begin with common problems within a community: affordable basic necessities, jobs, and capital. How a Cooperative addresses these are as follows:

1. Low cost (affordable) energy (electricity). My own designs would provide low cost energy using indegenous and local materials. Capital is within reach by any barangay members who will choose to become a member to their cooperative. Makes a barangay independent from electrical grid.

2. Low cost (affordable Freshwater). This will require cooperation and alliance of several barangay cooperatives to raise capital, possibly by Region. PVC/VFPVD piping can be manufactured by a Cooperative at low cost. Water distributions thru below-earth piping can be undertaken by another cooperative. Pricing and water fees will be set according to consumption, but these are usually extremely low price since capital involved is low. My concept designs will have the following direct benefits to ecosystems:

a. Freshwater extraction and distribution.
b. Reinforces biodiversity.
c. Expansion of Mariculture/aquaculture as a byproduct.
d. Cooling and refrigeration distribution.
e. Communication platforms, etc.

3. Sanitation. There are existing sanitation and sewerage design and alternatives which can be implemented by a Cooperative. Recycles of these using existing designs are doable and contributes to energy production and agricultural fertilization. This will partly eliminate pollution to rivers caused by human fecal discharges.

4. Machine Tools Design and Manufacturing. A Cooperative can setup a design center. One engineer can take design to manufacturing using simple and general purpose computer. My network designs of wiring these microchip from printed circuit boards to other printed circuit boards may look like a skeleteon but their computing power are adequate to synchronize several arrays of machine tools for manufacturing. No need to buy expensive computers and software programs. Though there are some software programs that are still needed to carry out designs to manufacturing. This should spur demands for electircal and mechanical equipment production for agriculture, power generation, water infrastructure, transportation, etc.

5. Alternative Steel Milling. Cost to setup steel mill ($500 million ) nowadays are prohibitively beyond the Philippine National treasury. My concept designs are worth putting into testing. With this kind of design, capital equipment required to control and liquefy iron ores are eliminated. Iron ores still needed to be crushed, though. But the crusher can easily be constructed using above Machine Design and Manufacturing. No need to lease or buy crusher equipment worth $5-10 million. A Cooperative can handle this project.

6. Plastic and Rubber Production. A simple design using similar techniques for an alternative steel mill can be implemened. However, a pure thermoset material derived from rubber/plastic processing plant can be manufactured nowadays using Rapid Prototype Manufacturing (RPM). Designs and manufacturing of plastics and rubber applications can be produced within 3 days time! A Cooperative should be able to handle this one as well.

7. Transportation both for market and public use. With a functional alternative steel mill and plastic/rubber production, it is now possible to design and develop engines and electric drives. My concept designs are fuel-free, no need for gas or oil. It uses an electric drive that can travel up to 50 kilometers. Several braking systems provides backup for recharging electricity. A Cooperative can take this as a project. Another future project is the Magnetically Levitated Transport System, uch cheaper than LRT/MRT (up to 50% cheaper), and up to 10% cheaper than an airplane.

Again, designs nowadays takes only 1-3 days, some manufacturing can produce products within 3 days time! These are the rapid breakthrough in technologies.

So, if anyone is interested, you may contact me to collaborate on several arrays of projects. Again, my preference would be in a Cooperative organization.

We’re interested to know more of your thoughts, sir. Thanks for dropping by.