the start of hell for lowly Filipino masses
Finally, after heated debates, temporary restraining order from the Philippine Supreme court and several bloody street protests, the controversial and deadly EVAT or simply the expanded value added tax that had been endorsed for so long by President Arroyo took effect Nov 1. Ironically, this very unpopular tax measure of the Arroyo regime which is supposed to make our very poor country suddenly rich(according to lower house of congress speaker De Venecia) was launched right on Halloween's day so it clearly underscores the horrifying havoc EVAT will cause on desperate lives of poor Filipino people
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
deepening crisis
The past few weeks have been so chaotic and hopeless as the whole Filipino nation continue to witness the ghasthly political and economic affairs of the Philippines. Still, the struggle for control of the national government between the Arroyo administration and the opposition is getting more intense as both sides manuever and field their shock troops to advance and protect the interest of the selfish few elite who are desperately jockeying for power.
Alas, we lowly Filipinos who are languishing in the poverty-ridden areas of our forlorn country can do nothing but watch in resignation and chagrin as high-level politicians swagger in the halls of power while the rest of the Philippines are falling in the abyyss of hopelessness.
Alas, we lowly Filipinos who are languishing in the poverty-ridden areas of our forlorn country can do nothing but watch in resignation and chagrin as high-level politicians swagger in the halls of power while the rest of the Philippines are falling in the abyyss of hopelessness.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
First transmission of this blog to inhabited outer space, together with millions of others, is scheduled on August 12, 2005
so for the meantime I'll try to fill-in bits and pieces about the latest events in my country and the world.
There is a sort of lull in the political struggle between the Arroyo administration and the collective opposition but we expect
of further destabilazation moves from the latter and maybe even a dreaded action by some impatient units of the fractitious
Armed forces of the Philippines. So far, the latest headline is the plan by Arroyo to set the motion for totally changing the form
of government from presidential to parliamentary system. The announced excuse as usual is economic progress being made
faster in parliamentary form since laws are passed without opposition in a unicameral governing body unit. But as most Filipinos
suspect, there is a hidden agenda in charter change-that is political monopoly of power by one ruling coalition.
As I have pointed out, and will continue to stress, the Philippines need improvement in values of our officials and most important
total changed of persons running the day to day affairs of our nation.
But there is no hope for us now except a benevolent mission of your advanced civilizations and rescue our planet from our
corrupt and inutile rulers.
Please do not fail us now. You are our only hope.
so for the meantime I'll try to fill-in bits and pieces about the latest events in my country and the world.
There is a sort of lull in the political struggle between the Arroyo administration and the collective opposition but we expect
of further destabilazation moves from the latter and maybe even a dreaded action by some impatient units of the fractitious
Armed forces of the Philippines. So far, the latest headline is the plan by Arroyo to set the motion for totally changing the form
of government from presidential to parliamentary system. The announced excuse as usual is economic progress being made
faster in parliamentary form since laws are passed without opposition in a unicameral governing body unit. But as most Filipinos
suspect, there is a hidden agenda in charter change-that is political monopoly of power by one ruling coalition.
As I have pointed out, and will continue to stress, the Philippines need improvement in values of our officials and most important
total changed of persons running the day to day affairs of our nation.
But there is no hope for us now except a benevolent mission of your advanced civilizations and rescue our planet from our
corrupt and inutile rulers.
Please do not fail us now. You are our only hope.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
is charter change the real solution to the Philippine problem?
Once again, those high officcials up there in imperial Manila are calling for a change in the governmental system in the Philippines. During yesterday's SONA or state of the address, Pres. Arroyo discussed the "importance" of a shift from the present presidential form to a parliamentary government. Explaining that a parliament system, being unicameral, will speed up progress for the whole country. Well, said and done. But what we need now is a complete changed in values of our officials and also a complete change of persons who are running key posts of the government.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
deeper into the quagmire
I wake up from a deep slumber and wished I'd just continue sleep and dream of all kinds of utupias that I can design of in my visions.
I can sense and know that all throughout the country and the world, parallel-minded individuals are dreaming my dreams, and designing their own utupias for the greater good of many.
But I snap and rise out to face a stark, grim reality of a country in deep trouble, of planet Earth dangerously slipping into anarchy as mankind face a new kind of war, a war that is so ugly, so brutal and merciless that the world had never experienced before. Global terrorism has gripped the whole world in all its boundless and barbaric savagery that even the most powerful nations like Russia, United States, Spain, and Britain are rocked out of their safe complacency. The message is clear. No one is really safe in this present world. Those bombs exploding even in the most secure corners of the globe sent deadly ripples of terror all over the civilized world and clearly affected precarious economies.
Just where are we present-era humans are headed to? I briefly reflect on the Philippines usual woes: the present political crisis that is threatening to break-up the country into several misguided republics at the whim of self-serving officials whose loyalties are clearly not for the nation but for one person-the present boarder of that curse-malacanang palace. Up to this time, there's no single Filipino who is really capable of saving the motherland from destitution and despair. The present crop of so-called "leaders" are nothing but gangheads and modernized kingpins who will only make matters even worse since not one among their pack can be considered a messiah. So once more, I air my plea to otherworldly intelligencies from outer space to race toward Earth as soon as possible and vaporize our existing rotten and corrupt bureacracy for good and install a real utupia in place.
I can sense and know that all throughout the country and the world, parallel-minded individuals are dreaming my dreams, and designing their own utupias for the greater good of many.
But I snap and rise out to face a stark, grim reality of a country in deep trouble, of planet Earth dangerously slipping into anarchy as mankind face a new kind of war, a war that is so ugly, so brutal and merciless that the world had never experienced before. Global terrorism has gripped the whole world in all its boundless and barbaric savagery that even the most powerful nations like Russia, United States, Spain, and Britain are rocked out of their safe complacency. The message is clear. No one is really safe in this present world. Those bombs exploding even in the most secure corners of the globe sent deadly ripples of terror all over the civilized world and clearly affected precarious economies.
Just where are we present-era humans are headed to? I briefly reflect on the Philippines usual woes: the present political crisis that is threatening to break-up the country into several misguided republics at the whim of self-serving officials whose loyalties are clearly not for the nation but for one person-the present boarder of that curse-malacanang palace. Up to this time, there's no single Filipino who is really capable of saving the motherland from destitution and despair. The present crop of so-called "leaders" are nothing but gangheads and modernized kingpins who will only make matters even worse since not one among their pack can be considered a messiah. So once more, I air my plea to otherworldly intelligencies from outer space to race toward Earth as soon as possible and vaporize our existing rotten and corrupt bureacracy for good and install a real utupia in place.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Filipinos' only hope: An otherworldly invasion
A plea to benevolent otherworldly civilizations
The past weeks have been a complete waste of our national resources due to political infighting among our inutile and self-serving officials(they cannot be called leaders, because they do not deserved such titles) Our poor country-the Philippines has been made the laughingstock of our planet because of the folly and corruption of most of our "elected" officials who serve no one but themselves. Our country has vast resources that can be harnessed to provide livelihood for our people but our government does nothing to improve our economy. Instead, our worthless officials encourage our women to sell their bodies to foreigners in order to attract monetary income.
May I then , a humble and obscure citizen of the Philippines, air a desperate plea to you to end our people's sufferings by sending as soon as humanly possible an armada of hope which will remove the present Arroyo administration and install in its place a benevolent mission which will work for the welfare of our nation and help us build great country.
The past weeks have been a complete waste of our national resources due to political infighting among our inutile and self-serving officials(they cannot be called leaders, because they do not deserved such titles) Our poor country-the Philippines has been made the laughingstock of our planet because of the folly and corruption of most of our "elected" officials who serve no one but themselves. Our country has vast resources that can be harnessed to provide livelihood for our people but our government does nothing to improve our economy. Instead, our worthless officials encourage our women to sell their bodies to foreigners in order to attract monetary income.
May I then , a humble and obscure citizen of the Philippines, air a desperate plea to you to end our people's sufferings by sending as soon as humanly possible an armada of hope which will remove the present Arroyo administration and install in its place a benevolent mission which will work for the welfare of our nation and help us build great country.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Philippines: The Slave Nation
By Alex Argote
Introduction
Rising out of the vast and turbulent Pacific ocean is archipelago of several thousand-island that were born under the most unfortunate of stars in the whole universe. These islands straddling the devil's place comprise a cursed nation that is forever maligned and reviled among the "enlightened and civilized" countries of the world.
It is a nation of a strange people that is continually at war with itself and made itself the laughingstock of the entire "civilized" world. If anything, the country and its confused people seemed to exist on a different plane, its citizen's collective thinking contradicts every aspect of the poor country's tragic and bloody history, in a sense, the whole national thinking and attitude is horribly immature and outrageously ungrateful.
As a Filipino, I write my first blog-novel with bitterness and heavy heart For it is about the misfortunes of my hapless country, The Philippines, otherwise branded as the nation of thieves and prostitutes and mail-order-brides. Indeed, our country is not shown respect anywhere in the world since we are already steriotyped as a sub-race fit to be just lowly servants and therefore no right to have national pride and honor. I dont expect to finish it, nor be able to expunge even half of the unasimillated ideas in my mind owing to my immediate personal concerns and problems. I'm just an ordinary and struggling workingman here in Mindanao eking out a desperate existence and gnashing in bitterness at the unfair circumstances of this world.
Is it my struggle or just the collective thinking of millions of marginalized Filipinos who are slowly emerging from the abyss of ignorance and pain and suffering to march in unison against the spoiled princes and royalty who are living in comfort and evil vice in their opulent palaces. I think and forever remind myself that all this iniquity and gap between the fithy-rich and the poor should one day end. This cannot go on forever, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many lives be lost, something must change and bring prosperity to the Philippines and good standard of living to every Filipino. Thus the main and sole of purpose of this novel is to try to stir the long-suffering masses to rise and unite in overthrowing the present governmental system which is inimical to national recovery and greatness.
As every patriotic Filipino knows and understands, our present system is totally ineffective and inutile in almost every aspect of governance. The painful truth is that the present Philippine government is at its best very oppressive to the poor, struggling masses and favorable to the wealthy elite and foreigner warlord/business/capitalists who hold sway over the lowly and wretched Filipino commoners. And we have one of the most corrupt bureaucracy in the world. Graft and corruption is so rampant that it just numbs the national mindset into utter shock and paralysis. From the corridors of power in the congress and Malacanang palace to the ranks of the armed forces and down to the smallest governmental units of town and barios there is wanton corruption going on even as I bash away my frustrations on the dusty keyboard of a computer terminal. Even the academic institutions are definitely not exempt from this national cancer that slowly gnaws and tears our already torn society away.
Only very recently the entire nation was rocked anew by scandals in the highest echelons of the Philippine military involving an official who aledgedly pocketed large sums of money intended for the procurement of military supplies and various other accusations. But everyone knows that it is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed the Philippine military is so riddled and weakened with corruption and graft that it is never in a position to effectively defend the country in the event of foreign invasion. Filipino soldiers are more often than not ill-equipped and can only go to battle with the most antiquated weapons and equipment. The Phillipine airforce only has vintage Tora-tora fighter planes which can never defend the entire archipelago from any aerial attack. The Navy is in no better shape to even counter a massive pirate raid on the shores of Palawan or the garbage-strewn Manila bay. To add insult to injury, there are allegations of Philippine navy vessels being used in the illicit drug trade and illegal logging by some enterprising entrepreneurs in uniform.
The entire bureaucracy is in an even degrading status. At present, the government is so plagued by fiscal crisis that is worsening day by hopeless day. It is because only the poor members of the workingclass honetly pay taxes while the spoiled wealthy elite do not. It is common knowledge that many BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) high officials enjoy unexplained riches that are not commensurate with their salaries and incentives. On the other hand, social security systems like SSS and GSIS use their members' hard-earned contributions to finance foreign-owned corporations that often shabily treat their low-wage Filipino employees who slave every day for mere pittance.
Given the above circumstances, it is understandable therefore that Filipinos by the hundreds of thousands struggle to out of our hapless to seek their fortunes in other unknown shores-and often come back in cold coffins. The country's country's economy is so depressed that it can no longer sustain the ever-increasing ranks of new graduates who will be seeking for work in cash-strapped companies and various businesses.
Introduction
Rising out of the vast and turbulent Pacific ocean is archipelago of several thousand-island that were born under the most unfortunate of stars in the whole universe. These islands straddling the devil's place comprise a cursed nation that is forever maligned and reviled among the "enlightened and civilized" countries of the world.
It is a nation of a strange people that is continually at war with itself and made itself the laughingstock of the entire "civilized" world. If anything, the country and its confused people seemed to exist on a different plane, its citizen's collective thinking contradicts every aspect of the poor country's tragic and bloody history, in a sense, the whole national thinking and attitude is horribly immature and outrageously ungrateful.
As a Filipino, I write my first blog-novel with bitterness and heavy heart For it is about the misfortunes of my hapless country, The Philippines, otherwise branded as the nation of thieves and prostitutes and mail-order-brides. Indeed, our country is not shown respect anywhere in the world since we are already steriotyped as a sub-race fit to be just lowly servants and therefore no right to have national pride and honor. I dont expect to finish it, nor be able to expunge even half of the unasimillated ideas in my mind owing to my immediate personal concerns and problems. I'm just an ordinary and struggling workingman here in Mindanao eking out a desperate existence and gnashing in bitterness at the unfair circumstances of this world.
Is it my struggle or just the collective thinking of millions of marginalized Filipinos who are slowly emerging from the abyss of ignorance and pain and suffering to march in unison against the spoiled princes and royalty who are living in comfort and evil vice in their opulent palaces. I think and forever remind myself that all this iniquity and gap between the fithy-rich and the poor should one day end. This cannot go on forever, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many lives be lost, something must change and bring prosperity to the Philippines and good standard of living to every Filipino. Thus the main and sole of purpose of this novel is to try to stir the long-suffering masses to rise and unite in overthrowing the present governmental system which is inimical to national recovery and greatness.
As every patriotic Filipino knows and understands, our present system is totally ineffective and inutile in almost every aspect of governance. The painful truth is that the present Philippine government is at its best very oppressive to the poor, struggling masses and favorable to the wealthy elite and foreigner warlord/business/capitalists who hold sway over the lowly and wretched Filipino commoners. And we have one of the most corrupt bureaucracy in the world. Graft and corruption is so rampant that it just numbs the national mindset into utter shock and paralysis. From the corridors of power in the congress and Malacanang palace to the ranks of the armed forces and down to the smallest governmental units of town and barios there is wanton corruption going on even as I bash away my frustrations on the dusty keyboard of a computer terminal. Even the academic institutions are definitely not exempt from this national cancer that slowly gnaws and tears our already torn society away.
Only very recently the entire nation was rocked anew by scandals in the highest echelons of the Philippine military involving an official who aledgedly pocketed large sums of money intended for the procurement of military supplies and various other accusations. But everyone knows that it is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed the Philippine military is so riddled and weakened with corruption and graft that it is never in a position to effectively defend the country in the event of foreign invasion. Filipino soldiers are more often than not ill-equipped and can only go to battle with the most antiquated weapons and equipment. The Phillipine airforce only has vintage Tora-tora fighter planes which can never defend the entire archipelago from any aerial attack. The Navy is in no better shape to even counter a massive pirate raid on the shores of Palawan or the garbage-strewn Manila bay. To add insult to injury, there are allegations of Philippine navy vessels being used in the illicit drug trade and illegal logging by some enterprising entrepreneurs in uniform.
The entire bureaucracy is in an even degrading status. At present, the government is so plagued by fiscal crisis that is worsening day by hopeless day. It is because only the poor members of the workingclass honetly pay taxes while the spoiled wealthy elite do not. It is common knowledge that many BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) high officials enjoy unexplained riches that are not commensurate with their salaries and incentives. On the other hand, social security systems like SSS and GSIS use their members' hard-earned contributions to finance foreign-owned corporations that often shabily treat their low-wage Filipino employees who slave every day for mere pittance.
Given the above circumstances, it is understandable therefore that Filipinos by the hundreds of thousands struggle to out of our hapless to seek their fortunes in other unknown shores-and often come back in cold coffins. The country's country's economy is so depressed that it can no longer sustain the ever-increasing ranks of new graduates who will be seeking for work in cash-strapped companies and various businesses.
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