Leni Robredo is a Leftist
Analysis and Opinion
By JoeAm
The Left is a segment of the political spectrum that tilts toward workers and the disadvantaged, either by poverty or social stigma (religion, ethnicity, landless, disability, and so forth). The Right tilts toward special interests, deregulation, corporations, military might, prominent people, and accumulation of wealth and power. The tensions between the two is what drives a lot of political argument and fighting around the world.
The Left in the Philippines is a peculiar group, prominent but largely powerless for always choosing to remain outside the system unless they can control it. Vested interests (corporations, military) don’t want them to control it, so they help keep them locked out. The moderate Left does choose to work within the system, does have representation in the Legislature, and does influence thinking. The hard Left and the Rebel Left (NPA) seem to put a priority on destabilization as an avenue to influence. That’s what led them to align with President Duterte early in his term, until that arrangement blew up. The erratic (hothead) nature of Manila Mayor Moreno is probably what attracts them to him. They see a guy they can manage.
They don’t see that in Vice President Robredo.
Yet, if you look at Robredo’s work, interests, and proposed policies, they are Leftist. They are PEOPLE centric. They are for workers, poor citizens, and disadvantaged groups. One of her prominent policies is to end the contractualized labor that keeps workers indentured with poor benefits and few long-term assurances. It is probably the most impactful “leftist” policy on any table, right up there with ending red-tagging.
The Philippines as a nation can’t build a future when its workers live day to day. She is one of few people of influence who understand that simple but powerful point. Everyone else is just dealing short-term, for their own interests. She sees a nation, with a future.
But VP Robredo is not hard left. She is conventional left, a realist. She works with businesses and the military and they respect her. No problem. They see an expanded economy and more investments, through stability.
Clearly, though, she is a Leftist.
That brings us back to the peculiar fact that prominent “hard” Leftist organizations have not endorsed VP Robredo.
They seem to be still locked into instability and control as their process, or the same kind of self-interested, short-term thinking that holds the nation hostage to users. Rather than builders. Builders who will lift workers up.
As VP Robredo is a Leftist, she is also a builder.
She, among all presidential prospects, is most likely to build a modern Philippines. Educated. Just. Economically strong. With careers rather than contracts.
If the hard and rebel Left endorse any other candidate, it seems to me they once again risk being put on the shelf, outside looking in, trying to find malleability and instability as an avenue to greater influence.
In her camp, they could expect to be highly engaged and influential as part of a bigger, conventional, Constitutional government.
But, as I said, the Left is peculiar to me. Peculiar means I can’t figure out the sense of what they are doing.
_______________
Photo from change.org
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Maybe this answers the questions of Micha or maybe it will lead to more questions.
The programs advertised by Lacson like the Education plus, Leni can do that too. The 10k per family of alan cayetano, Leni can do that too and more.
Yes she is caring to the ones in the laylayan or fringes or the gutters, but being president must be inclusive that means all.
the so called neolib policies can not just be abandoned, the oligarchs still provide jobs.
again the proper mix and balance is always the key.
Uncontrolled capitalism leaves too many people behind. The pure neolib doctrine is that everyone deserves the place he/she gets but it isn’t true as some have a silver spoon and others don’t – in Korea they say Golden spoon and dirt spoon, see the movie Parasite. Or in Squid Game those with dirt spoons “play” to entertain some, in the Philippines there is Wowowee where the middle class gets to laugh at the poor, no one is killed just ridiculed.
Communism is unfair too as it de facto distributed wealth – Eastern European experience but North Korea won’t be much different – to political cliques of self-dealers. Imagine how corrupt and brutal – plus inefficient – Communism Philippine style might be.
Some degree of welfare state plus capitalism to motivations people and the market to check for inefficiency and democracy to control power is the best possible balance. As people usually mess up utopias, being imperfect and easily tempted by money/power.
Thanks for the comprehensive answer.
karl, et al.
Imagine the World Ending, its coming… we gotta do something drastic ; stop everything, slam on the brakes !!! De-growth. What’s the best way to achieve De-growth, its do MMT and legislate UBI for all.
Say for US , $3,000/month , enough for rent, groceries, toiletries, etc. in Meatspace; but the rest will be used in Bitworld– where everyone will be sequestered, thus locked-down (voluntarily) here to play games, watch porn, make money, whateverz!
The assumption here is just like what we saw in the Gamestop fiasco, where a bunch of high school kids made a lot of money playing the stock market or in this case crypto for Web 3.0, anything crypto, money/wealth that’ll make its way to the Fixing the World and stuff portion,
which we can again slap into the fiat world, Meatspace, for clean or green infrastructure, etc.
The Philippines thanks to DU30 (pls. give the old guy credit for this) can now partake in this because of faster internet,
all VP Leni & Inday Sara have to do is to continue to expand the internet so Filipinos can take part in Web 3.0. NFT, crypto, investments, token this and that, Bitcoin, whatever, then
convert that to real estate, but practice de-growth and healthy stewardship of the ecosystem, and the world.
Here’s my graph, I still need to make that an NFT, but that doggie makes it a LCPL_X original, karl… 😉 (that should be my new avatar, LOL!)
Cayetano and Lacson have UBI proposals…sort of.
Maybe Leni will lead it to the legislators, maybe it will directly or indirectly proposed on one of her infommercials.
You know legislation proposals: you collect, select and own.
The way you have been writing about de-growth and UBI, you are that picture, Lance. I like the blocks spelling ECONOMY/ ECOLOGY. I saved the picture in my Directory Folder, “Picture Speaks Thousand Words.” Speaks a lot about the world’s imperatives, among others.
The leftist tag applied to Leni is just the opening that trolls are waiting for. Let’s see them bite the bait.
Gosh, Robredo fans worry about trolls a lot. Yet she doesn’t. The idea I should not write provocative pieces because trolls might use the material seems really really really weak to me. Really.
One on Twitter called VP Leni a Social Democrat. That comes close as her policies are not too far from those of Senator Risa Hontiveros – whose party Akbayan BTW is called “too liberal” by many a Filipino Leftist.
“SocDem” was once used as a derogatory term by many a Filipino Leftist. But Social Democrats in Germany for instance were an important factor in securing many of the rights workers in Western countries enjoy nowadays.
Filipino classic Leftists are like labor union leaders who call unions that work together with management to find constructive solutions “yellow” and want to strike instead of finding ways to keep the company moving which finally pays people’s wages.
Social Democrats as well as unions that work to ensure worker’s rights within capitalism are better for me than the state-owned firms of failed Eastern European Communism, run by mostly corrupt apparatchiks. Imagine classic Filipino Leftists with similar power.
They would probably mostly be oligarchs within 1-2 generations much like in Russia. Or they would go from state university intellectuals disgruntled because they earn much less than Ateneo or La Salle folks – or corporate people – to anti-communist dissidents.
Academics in the Soviet Union often became dissidents. I guess them earning as little as factory workers while a political and technocratic elite whose maneuverings were unfettered by any bottom line or democracy ran things and lived exceedingly well.
Imagine the idealistic UP intellectuals as dissidents and the politically wily UP types as apparatchiks who jail the dissidents and you know what a horrible place a Communist Philippines would be. Imagine Harry Roque dressed and acting like Kim Jong Un.
The left is too convoluted for me to grasp, so I avoided names or anything but the generalized terms. I’m confused by their confusion on who to endorse for president. Are Moreno, Pacquiao, and Lacson leftish? Not in my book. Can Leody win? No. Do they thing Go is the way to go? OMG. I’m pro-leftist but, golly, there’s no sense to them.
Ninotchka Rosca is a huge exception as she has always supported VP Leni. She even supports Trillanes, unusual for Filipino Leftists who tend to hate the military. In fact she even shares Joeam articles at times, so she isn’t anti-American by reflex.
But I do think having been in NYC so long, after having fled the Marcos regime that jailed her, made the difference. She is not parochial like many of the Leftists who stayed.
This is what Miyako has to say.
There are other Leni is not leftist she is centrist post from her, but I pick this.
karl, I find it interesting that people who I read on Twitter and consider discerning are also prone to statements like that [ if the tweet was made in response to Joe’s one-liner tweet which referenced the current TSH blog].
To add to the phraseologies — communist-capitalist, left-right, etc — I suggest,
* People-caring-focused (PCF)
* Money-making-focused (MMF)
[Thanks partly to the MMFs a country’s economy is lifted — with its trickling down effect; this latter qualification is, of course, debatable, but that is another story.]
If the tweet was Leni Robredo is PCF or People caring focused there would have been no quibble from the ultra-protective supporters of Leni but from the other side — such as saying that she makes money too or that she gives less priority to the important overall needs of the country, etc.
Thanks.
Have you seen this movie, Joe? title: Long Shot. Your blog reminded me of this scene.
Hah! “I’m a racist, you’re a Republican, WTF is goin’ on?” Terrific. Yes, it’s that screwed up. Leftists don’t even see the leftist in front of them, bright pink!
LOL! looks like DU30 is also pro- VP Leni , Joe! hahahaha…
tatay is probly hurting a lot. his daughter kasi prefers to run around with cocaine boy instead of doing what tatay told her to do. tatay has invested so much on daughter pa naman, has pinned most of his high hopes on her. and what did daughter do? turn her back on tatay with nary a backward glance!
if tatay really want to hurt cocaine boy, the one time big fund donator of tatay’s previous presidential campaign in 2016, tatay should now reconsider rescinding the privilege of cocaine boy’s daddy’s internment, have daddy dug up and sent back to previous.
and if tatay is truly adventurous, he can campaign to have cocaine boy’s candidacy made null and void on the ground of cocaine boy’s previous tax conviction.
tatay is pro bong go until thy kingdom come and supports only bong go, bong go, bong go.
and if leni inadvertently benefits from cocaine boy’s mishap, I think, all other presidentiables may well inadvertently benefit as well. one less hurdle for them all.
That both Inday Sara and DU30 have made a deal with VP Leni seems more likely, kb.
BBM is done.
VP Leni wins.
Inday Sara new VP.
kiko for vice president!
yeah Kiko for VP but I am sure Leni woould not give a cold shoulder if Sara or any other candidate wins but if they foul up then that is a different story.
if comelec disqualifies bong marcos, another marcos may take over his candidacy and that could mean imee. imee for president, sara for vp.
Before anything can be done to those that were mentioned, patay, este ‘tatay’ should first prove his allegation of BBM as a cocaine user.
Of course, he’s hurt that his daughter chose to run with a candidate not of his choosing. Can’t blame her, he is such an embarrassment. Imagine, having a political history with lots of deaths and plenty of corruption along its path? The daughter, understandably, wants no part of that. I’ll not be surprise if, unlike you, she do not call her ‘tatay’.
Digong is for Bong Go. Why? Go is a hand puppet. And everybody knows who’s hand is inside the puppet. 🤓
Nice and instructive definition of terms and their variations to frame the discussion of the headline. Thanks, Joe.
I can imagine the sensitive or knee-jerk reactions to the use of the words left, leftist, right, rightist. It is interesting that without those labels the ideas are there and subject to some reactions of course but not subject to such magnified reactions.
I note that the desired “balance” necessary for a well-functioning and forward-looking country has already been commented on by Irineo and karl, and impliedly too in Joe’s blog, among others.
One last item on this, my first comment of the blog topic — the matter of the label “center:” center, centrist, left of center, right of center. The center is obviously a variable item across many countries. Take the US and the PH. The force of the relatively heavier — population-wise — rightists in the US makes its center to the right of the PH’s center because of the relatively heavier pull of the leftists in the PH — again population-wise.
It is my contention that Leni Robredo ranges in the PH’s left-right spectrum as a centrist to left-of-center. Or more precisely, since the center is mathematically infinitesimal, she is left-of-center, or leftist — if one only considers the left camp and right camp. Haha, much ado about a mathematical point.
She actually defies labels. She discerns best interest and works on it. The article is really not about VP Robrdo as much as it is about leftists. It’s all a build-up to the last line. But Pinks are a bit fired up, so the label bugs those who don’t read the article. As near as I can tell, they want my starting point on articles to be “What will trolls do with this?”
Firing up the pinks to work more passionately will be good for Leni-Kiko’s camp — more oxygen for their efforts. I suppose knee-jerk reactions or those who are fired up negatively will come from some of the yellows and others.
I like the picture you used for the blog.
Yes, rather perfect, I agree. It jumped off of google and grabbed me by the eyeballs.
yay! from the cornfields to the boardroom, vp leni sure gets around, busy, busy, busy.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/11/18/21/robredo-gathers-retired-generals-seeks-ways-to-stop-china-harassment
Out of topic, but he’s getting nailed after seemingly untouchable for so long.
quiboloy is not in america and probly hiding in philippines. kaso, there is extradition treaty between america and our country. hence the son of god may well be taken to america and called to account.
dabaw is where sinners hide, lol! pharmally bigwigs were also hiding in dabaw in route to kuala lumpur, but got caught.
more on quiboloy: https://interaksyon.philstar.com/politics-issues/2021/11/19/204861/u-s-announces-sex-trafficking-charges-against-quiboloy/
There should be “Filipino Pastors Matter” movement.
such aberration! there, natuto tuloy ako ng bagong term, abberation, lol! in the philippines, pastors be they cultists got to decide who’s who in politics by the sheer number of their block follower voters, plus the billions they raked in tru’ fake charities, their prime real estate holdings, their luxury cars and private jets, the mansions they owned, etc. they are such celebs here and even got police escorts and private armies on their employ. those americans probly have so much to learn, lol!
just wait when pacman becomes president, he already said, he’ll appoint the ‘godly’ to his admin. alleluia!
kb,
I’m pretty sure the televangelical bs was exported from here.
The Catholic church is old school. No need for all that crying.
Forgive me lord!!! LOL!
(for getting caught).
tears matter! including crocodile’s, lol! already looking forward ako to quiboloy’s court appearance sa america, in sack clothes pls as oppose to designer ones.
Off-topic
It is amazing to watch the creativity of the passionate volunteers/ supporters of Leni Robredo — and they are very current on the news of the day.
A blind item from Duterte about a presidential candidate using cocaine quickly gives rise to memes, etc. Poor fellow, his trolls have to divert their forces to control the fire raging from that area. Not to forget the troll forces needed to fight the DQ fire which others suggest the President is encouraging. Too many battles on different fronts. Reminds me of the German forces in WW2 fighting multiple fronts.
A sampler of the current news being followed and commented on.
JoannaPilipinas Retweeted
Sonny Trillanes IV @TrillanesSonny
Marcos Jr. helped create this socmed monster that made a lot of unsuspecting people easily believe in every word that duterte says. Well, it is now biting them in the ass, bigtime!
This is also quite funny, from Senatorial candidate Teddy Baguilat:
🙂
My and my wife’s type of coke too.
Further to this item about the cocaine-using presidential candidate, we have these interesting comments (I am paraphrasing) :
Ping Lacson: It is not me; I will say no more.
Leni Robredo: if there is evidence, charge the person; let us not do it this way [through a blind item from the President].
Leni gets it right almost every time.
BBM: I did not feel alluded to.
OMG!
🤣
lallallllal, cocaine boy was probly high and could not give coherent answer to comelec’s query on time, hence the extension asked. of course, cocaine boy did not feel alluded to, his reality is altered na; cocaine made it so.
lawyers the best money can buy will be defending cocaine boy vs disqualification.
on the subject of moral turpitude, maybe cocaine use can be added on top of cocaine boy’s previous conviction, thus showing depravity, lol!
Off-topic
Manila Bulleting conducted a Twitter Survey. I consider this as under the category of “one swallow does not a summer make” because compared to Facebook, Twitter is more of a thinking person’s socmed. That said with 2 days to go for the survey but getting 45,498 votes, here are the results:
Bong Go 1.9%
Bongbong Marcos 40.2%
Leni Robredo 56.5%
Isko Moreno 1.4%
That totals 100% — the survey did not include the names of Lacson and Pacquiao. I wonder why. Nevertheless with Bong Go and Isko Moreno getting those low numbers, probably both Lacson and Pacquiao would have gotten numbers in the neighborhood of those low numbers if their names were included in the survey, I believe.
Guess who I voted for. 🤣
This may be uncharitable of me but even the 40.2% that Marcos Jr got may contain a significant fraction coming from his army of trolls or more precisely troll accounts handled by a fewer number of persons.
possible, possible. who knows? maybe majority of trolls are based in other countries like india and china, and have other extracurricular activities, netting them more money. and boy with good muscles coordination may not be their only client, but one of many. if boy wants to be given priority over others, he would have to up his bidding and pay more.
Manila Bulletin separated the twitter survey for the three:
Ping Lacson 30.7%
Manny Pacquiao 14.1%
Leody de Guzman 55.2%
Note that the total votes from which those percentages were obtained as of this time are only
3,450 votes compared to the 45,498 votes for the four mentioned above.
Consolidating the two set of numbers for all seven presidential candidates, we have:
1.77% Bong Go
37.37% Bongbong Marcos
52.52% Leni Robredo
1.30% Isko Moreno
2.16% Ping Lacson
0.99% Manny Pacquiao
3.89% Leody de Guzman
Again the caveat: because of the nature of the survey, this comes under the category of “one swallow does not a summer make.”
Going hard left on policy platform is a winner. Leni shouldn’t hold back.
here one of leni’s to do list if voted president: https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/811711/robredo-to-ensure-coco-levy-fund-law-will-prioritize-farmers/story/
it is hoped that when leni made good of her promise and when coco farmers finally get their fair share of the levy, after their needs have been met and their wants long sated – that the coco farmers will give back to community and help those in need as well. sort of.
Per your link, the fund has now grown to 75 billion Php but not a single cent had been returned to the farmers in the from of dividend.
Duterte was making disingenuous claim in his last SONA when he stated that “We fulfilled our promise to coconut farmers. We returned the coconut levy fund to its rightful owners.”
What he merely did was set up a trust fund to be managed by cabinet members and only God knows how they’ll partition the gains from it. It is to be expected that small coconut farmers will be the last to benefit.
VP Leni was right to object to the provision of that trust fund law.
for a mind small as mine, the coco levy fund is one humongous mess, the trustees have gotten so powerful they’re almost untouchable. and if leni is to lock heads with them, I’m afraid to speculate what will happen.
coco farmers have waited and hoped for so long!
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2021/06/15/2105496/coco-levy-scamming-farmers-not-once-thrice
I posted the attached on Twitter. I noted the considerable change in the gap between Leni Robredo and BBM from about half to the final votes — 15.15% vs 8.13%. No such drastic change occurred in the other 5 candidates.
If the survey was conducted scientifically with random sampling (it was not), the total votes of 48,948 would have resulted in an error in the neighborhood of 0.5% so the gap difference of 7% is way out, hence the conclusion I made in the attachment.
Beware of the BBM army of Troll Accounts even on Twitter.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FExyh3DVQA4yxtu?format=jpg&name=medium
What we truly lack in Ph are the unionist as we called them here in the EU. Unionist are too strong for the govt to discard, they actually creating policies that the parliament must discuss en punto. In Ph everything are raw, having been pulled down by 20 years of martial law. We lost a generation for continuities to progress. We stopped being progressive on 1983 when debt moratorium was slapped on Marcos face. From then on we have been at the mercy of international financial institutions. Not many of our citizens even know that half of the salaries of all govt employees are loaned. We staggered because people have no idea on economics and the govt transparency is but nil.
Excellent points. I think the solution is in size and productivity, good old capitalism, run smart. Get rid of red tape. Upgrade agribusiness and manufacturing. Grow grow grow. 110 million workers coming on stream, or a lot of them. That’s Robredo’s direction.
More on Philippine capitalism.
https://www.bworldonline.com/capitalism-and-philippine-development/
From the same author.
https://www.fef.org.ph/calixto-chikiamco/capitalism-will-save-philippine-democracy/
Thanks for the two articles by Calixto V. Chikiamco.
welcome
The author is a genius. He is, by my estimation, 100% correct.
👍👍👍
“Rentier capitalism (or rent seeking capitalism) is a system wherein monopoly control leads to extraordinary or “super-profits” for a few without the system delivering any increased value or contribution to society. It’s also the non-market extraction of surplus — i.e., political connections, legal impediments to competition, government-granted privileges, and captured regulators — that is the basis for economic profit rather than innovation in serving the customer. It’s creating wealth for the rentier capitalist without creating wealth for society.”
Great reads , karl. thanks! it’s not Ecological/De-Growth Economic for sure, but I like it, as it explains Philippines perfectly. laway LOL!
If you know the writer personally, I’d like to hear his take on how Philippine internet went from slow to fast in just 4-5 years. I think some of what he’s talking about , was applied in the internet sector, but how exactly or what steps were taken, etc. it would totally make his point in those two articles , more tangible. Though I’m a fan of his agricultural take on all this,
I’m picturing fucking palm oil plantations now.
Internet seems the best place to start when talking about Philippine capitalism.
I do not know him, I just read his articles once in a while.
All of these isms are good on paper.
Communism led to the richness of whoever is in charge where in theory that should never be the case. Look at Russia and China.
Your degrowth.
How can consumerism be converted to conservasion. DIY shampoos, soap,etc or by being a Mc Guyver
“Adam Smith articulated capitalism’s positive contribution to society in Wealth of Nations. Individuals pursuing their respective self-interest will lead to a social good and the efficient allocation of resources. Even Marx didn’t deny that capitalism led to advances in science and the “productive forces.” What he decried was the alleged “exploitation” of the wage workers who produced the goods for the capitalists.”
Ecological/De-Growth Economics just means we’re now needing to look out for Mother Nature who provides us the stuff for these “goods”.
Internet is good; faster and cheaper will make the world better IMHO.
Palm oil is no good to everyone, most of all for the soil in the Philippines. So I agree w/ Mr. Calixto, thus what ever DU30 did for internet there, he should do something similar for agriculture. Whatever that is should not be industrial farming. It should be balanced with the soil thus Mama Nature is not exploited for profit. Mama Nature and Mama Mary need our help , karl.
So these isn’t just -isms anymore. Greta wants Mr. Calixto to write more about capitalism saving the Philippines but just don’t exploit Mama Nature.
No such thing as wireless. Submarine cables are still the reason for internets existence.
Dpwh destroyed such cables which were unde4cthe riverbed by accident or igjorance of workers. Charged to experience. Sea level rise will inundate cables that are underground.
Sea level rise and the internet
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/04/sea-level-rise-could-submerge-fiber-optic-cables/
karl,
I’m sure sonny and NH would agree that land cables is something we can engineer ourselves out of. Elon Musk is working on this, and others re Quantum cryptography tech from China.
Essentially this is the issue, karl:
it’s the EM field that we need to harness, which I think we can do via satellites, not necessarily cables , karl.
On another related front, I hope VP Leni starts talking about this issue, its related to not only communications but to transportation,
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/582881-this-thanksgiving-skip-the-political-food-fights-and-talk-ufos-instead
“Thanksgiving is for family, food and fiery political arguments. But this year, just as your uncle who listens to too much rightwing talk radio and your ultra-“woke” cousin square off for their annual screaming match, throw a curveball at them: “Hey guys, how about UFOs?”
Yes, seriously.
If you inject UFOs into the discussion at just the right moment, this Thanksgiving promises to mark a refreshing change from the political brawls of years past.
For one, UFOs are a fiercely bipartisan issue. They have quietly unified Republicans and Democrats of all stripes, from staunch Trump loyalists to his fiercest critics.
In other words, UFOs are a rare – and timely – opportunity for your family and friends to find common political ground over Thanksgiving dinner.
Thanks to the deep-seated stigma associated with UFOs (which is rooted in outdated Cold War-era paranoia), your Thanksgiving dinner guests are likely unaware that three extraordinary UFO-related developments occurred in the last month alone.
First, NASA chief Bill Nelson suggested that UFOs might have otherworldly origins. By all accounts, this is the first time that the head of America’s famed space agency has speculated openly about such an Earth-shattering possibility.
Shortly thereafter, director of national intelligence Avril Haines – America’s top spy – echoed Nelson’s comments, hinting that some UFOs could have “extraterrestrial” explanations. After seven decades of government denial, obfuscation and derision, no sitting high-level national security official has publicly said anything remotely akin to “Sure, UFOs could be alien.”
And then came the whopper. Concerned about the impact of encounters on military personnel, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) submitted legislation establishing a government office to study UFOs. But Gillibrand’s proposal is no exercise in bureaucratic paper shuffling. Far from it.
If blessed by Congress, the aptly named Anomaly Surveillance, Tracking and Resolution Office (ASTRO) would revolutionize the study of UFOs. Perhaps most importantly, following 70 years of official deflection and ham-fisted secrecy in the face of highly credible UFO reporting, Gillibrand’s legislation demands unprecedented government transparency.”
https://www.christophermellon.net/post/open-letter-to-representative-gallegos
“I was therefore thrilled when I heard you had offered an amendment to establish a permanent DoD focal point for the UAP issue. My excitement grew further when I read the Gillibrand amendment. As a former SASC, SSCI, and OSD staffer, and one of the two people most responsible for alerting Congress, I hope that you will consider the following observations:
There is no contradiction between your bill’s language and Senator Gillibrand’s amendment. The Gillibrand amendment leaves it to the Administration to decide where this new capability will reside.
Regardless of the new office location, many Gillibrand amendment provisions are critical if we are to make headway understanding this phenomenon. The Gillibrand amendment:
Authorizes already appropriated space defense and intelligence funds to be used for UAP-related activities. Hence, while OSD continues ineffectually shuffling paper as they have been for years, action-oriented organizations with funding, contracting authority, and technical expertise can begin working. Is the OSD staff going to identify the most telling UAP signatures for DoD and IC systems to search for? Clearly not, that expertise resides in organizations like NRO and the SSDP. This authority gives DoD and its components much-needed flexibility so they don’t have to wait another year to get moving.
Requires the development and implementation of a plan for collection and analysis. The current approach is equivalent to saying, “Let’s monitor Chinese weapons development by ensuring any random detection of Chinese missiles or aircraft is duly reported. This is obviously a passive, ineffectual approach. At a minimum, Congress should require any successor to the UAP Task Force to develop the science and collection and analysis plans called for by the Gillibrand amendment. That simply needs to be done.
The Gillibrand amendment would maintain the requirement for unclassified UAP reporting, a huge plus for transparency and accountability. It would be shameful to retreat from the recent progress that has been made in providing sunlight and transparency for the taxpayer. Visibility ensures accountability.
The Gillibrand amendment builds bridges to the scientific community. This is a win-win for science and DoD.
It directs the UAP Task Force or its successor to examine closely related technical issues such as non-combustion propulsion and the physical effects that can result from close proximity exposure to UAP. These efforts can contribute substantially to our understanding of the phenomenon.”
The Billionaires want to communicate with UFOs. Maybe they are just avoiding detection for centuries.
With this UFO bill, karl, we’ll have academia and hobbyists be able to study evidence available.
Communicate may be too tall an order right now, our Physics aren’t there yet. But transportation, the way these things move can be studied. with all this crowd sourced, even better.
Luckily for Elon, he has another great quote: “I say something then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.”
https://blog.telegeography.com/will-new-satellites-end-the-dominance-of-submarine-cables
Green is elusive. To have solar energy, hydrogen batteries, lithium batteries you have to mine, extract, destruct and whatnot.
Server farms and data centers eats a lot of electricity and water.
Electronic gadgets adds rare earth elements until they add elements to the periodic table.
Supply chain is so global that you need container ships which are very pollutive, a ship equals thousands or millions of cars in terms of exhaust.
first local manufacturing should be encouraged and if Intellectual rights is ever an issue then just give them licenses.
Again materials can be found in the dumps, landfills, the sky and even outer space.
“Green is elusive.”
Yeah, but its better than what we’ve been doing with oil and coal, karl. So long as we’re moving away from carbon-based fuel, that’s a step in the right direction, more R&D.
We missed this chance.
“In 1901, 38 per cent of the cars were electric, and 20 per cent or so were petrol, and in the middle, there was the outgoing technology of steam,” says technologist and historian David Kirsch.
“If you’d asked the great experts of their age in 1900 which technology would come to dominate the motor-based transportation, I think most learned people would have said electricity.”
But history would prove them wrong. Advances in internal combustion engines in the first decade of the 20th century lessened the relative advantages of the electric car.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/the-history-birth-death-resurrection-of-the-electric-car/11053928
Only Ford and GM have plans to move away from fossils. What about Toyota, Mercedes, BMW?
They’ll have to follow suit, China’s coming with better and cheaper EVs, karl.
What about the economy, it would not be a smooth transition.
The capitalism of Adam Smith has had its run a long time ago. We are now, globally, in the last stage characterized by rent, finance, and monopolies. We have already seen the script of what Mr. Chikiamco is proposing. All roads lead to neoliberal plutocracy.
Socialism for the rich, free market discipline for the rest.
And since the Philippines is merely following what the rest of the capitalist world is doing, I don’t know how a reenactment of the classical version of it will work, much less, “save” us.
It would really be full spectrum in terms of isms. If there is a name for that, I do not know.
In response to the pandemic, the US has pumped in over 6 trillion USD into its economy – bailing out banks, hospitals, corporations of every stripes and, to a lesser extent, households.
That cannot, strictly, be called capitalism anymore.
Thanks
In its guise, what Mr. Chikiamco is proposing is good old unleashing of the power of capital. But on closer examination – and based on present realities – he’s just pitching in for more neoliberal rampage.
Ok thanks again
“Again materials can be found in the dumps, landfills, the sky and even outer space.”
karl’s onto something here, Micha.
what if resources needed are procured not from the earth but away from earth. Will the system save us then? of course, the Philippines would have to recycle and reuse, since there are no Filipino Elon Musks.
But once we start mining away from Earth. will it save us? Granted Ecological/De-Growth Economics is enacted.
I agree with you though that Smith and Marx are done especially with AI/robots coming.
Iron or copper from space?
The Great Acceleration.
https://www.ourplanet.com/en/video/our-planet-our-business/
I missed this thread, good thing I checked this article.
Only Leni, just Leni.
leni became recipient of delivery scam, 100K worth of groceries that took hours to deliver. news report tried deflecting by saying phishing scams mostly originated overseas like we dont know the difference between overseas phishing scam and local delivery scam. kapolisan really should be on top of it now and punish the culprit. phishing aims to steal personal data mostly for monetary gains while delivery scam is very super bad prank and utterly malicious. delivery scammer did it for fun and maybe get paid for pranking.
anyway, bong marcos tested negative for cocaine kuno. could be false negative, so maybe bong marcos can submit another specimen for pdea to confirm, lol! and if the previous specimen is still available, it can be sent to pdea for comparison.
This is OT and I don’t want to sound like gloating but on this thanksgiving week, please indulge the gloat.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vdjk/cyber-ninja-ceo-doug-logan-in-debt
xxxxxxxxxxx
And this is for LcplX.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bidens-new-fed-could-be-a-boon-for-crypto-experts-say-11637699792
Digital dollar here we come.
LOL! Looks like Thanksgiving came early for you, Micha.
And me!!! LOL! CBDC, equals UBI soon, right?
With asteroid and other planetary bodies mining, I gotta feeling both Malala and Greta will be happy again, Micha.
The Philippines just needs to boot out old school Economists, and get MMT and Ecological/De-Growth Economics as replacement. If you have any pull in the UP campuses, Micha, please get them to teach Ecological Economics.
Oh, and remember to support Sen. Gillibrand’s UFO bill, Micha.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too. Notwithstanding planetary precarity, there’s still lots of things to be thankful for…I hope.
And on to the Great Acceleration.
https://www.ourplanet.com/en/video/our-planet-our-business/
Anybody seen the TicTok video of Leni lately? This time the Robredo camp overdid the gimmick. 😷
Unlike those gigantic murals about her, the TikTok video going around failed to pass muster. It is terrible. The idea of exposing yourself through various media is to reach out, attract and inform voters/public about you as a presidential aspirant.
That’s the reason I took no offense in those gigantic murals of Leni her camp brought up. Murals being art spreads awareness in the public consciousness. As such, it is an effective way of attracting attention and achieve the desired results in terms of political goal, plans, issues and other election related matters.
Critics have said that in acting like an idiot Leni only proves that she sees the poor as a bunch of idiots. My interpretation of the video is not that Robredo, (in making herself appear an idiot, not just acting like one) was showing how idiotic are the poor. The poor knew in so many ways they are idiots compared to those they look up every election time. They are idiots compared to those educated ones who are attempting to govern and rule their lives. They know it because idiots may have low intelligence but they are not bereft of it.
And this is the thing with Robredo in the video. She’s practically saying she’s a moron they can count on. No pretense on art, no attempt on glamour, not even a taste of class that would make the poor imagine, admire or aspire that voting for her will improve their lot.
This TicTok thing is not for everyone. It’s actually the in thing with the idiots and morons nowadays. Robredo, in trying to be hip, ended disastrously outside of her own sanity. Forget about the ‘Kalma lang pero matapang’ call to arms. After the video, just be content on the real and exact slogan for her.
Kalma pero Tanga! 😜
The Mimiyuuh and VP Leni videos are quite funny I think without losing class:
As for the Hadouken video I find mostly videos of the other side mocking it.
Maybe you could link the original for us as I can’t find it.
Try this one:
I’m reminded of the phenomenon that if a good person makes a mistake, she is somehow a bad person. It is such an insignificant matter, say versus stealing billions or killing poor people in their homes. Yet here we are, debating a tik tok video as if it meant anything at all.
I got your point but it’s election time. Candidates has to show their ‘worth’ and value to the office they are seeking. Clearly, she got the wrong advice there. 😎
Petty is petty any time of the year. It’s not a measure of character or competence, only execution of a tik tok video.
It may not be a measure of character or competence but acting moronic in front of the public does not bode well for one aspiring for the highest office of the land. Pettiness might be an all around thing but it doesn’t mean we have to get used to it.
🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
🙂✌️
“They are idiots compared to those educated ones who are attempting to govern and rule their lives.”
Well Wowowee was basically about idiots being idiots, and idiots loved it, ergo idiots love being portrayed as such. VP Leni should just say , you idiots better vote for me. Nuff said. Idiots will love it.
Worked for Wowow Willie.
In another blog, I even joked about it by saying:
“If you happened to skip past the portion where it says, ‘Lalabanan natin sila’ and start on the part where she’s caressing her hair with the accompanying ‘Handa ka na ba’ caption, you feel like she’s inviting you out to some sexual activity. I have to admit I got a hard-on to that.”
Being funny is different from being trashy. I don’t mind it if she’s running for barangay councilor or even a chair. I can swallow it if it’s a part of a sitcom she participated in purely for ‘acting’ reason. I know the purpose is to reach the masses in the easiest and uncomplicated way but it doesn’t have to be that low. 😞
That’s what you get when we have a highly personality-based politics – the desire to appeal broadly on the basis of personal/popular/attractive traits rather than policies and ideologies.
She’s mimicking a Korina Sanchez gesture there, I suppose.
Marcos Junior brandishing a laser sword from Star Wars also denote a campaign bereft of sensible national policy program.
That nails it. I’m reminded of an old college professor of mine who declared that all of life is direction, weight, and intensity. The Philippines, and Filipinos broadly, have little direction, focus on things without weight, and apply themselves with haphazard intensity, going this way, then back that.
While we’re at it, let us remember the most important thing of all!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1561842234156098&id=100009910094073
😁 Yes.
To appeal to the 40-50 yr old crowd will VP Leni dance the Macarena too?
Magsaysay was famous for his mastery of mambo. Mambo Magsaysay.
The Philippines IS indeed a fiesta democracy as Prof. Richard Heydarian wrote. Prof. Vicente Rafael wrote about how much joy there was in Cavite after a major victory of Aguinaldo’s troops against Spain, including singing and dancing plus free food in every house especially for soldiers. Infamously, General Mascardo refused to join Heneral Luna’s defense against the Yanks of yore because he was at a fiesta. I remember the euphoria post-EDSA even months later when I came to visit the country, but the hangover came soon with lots of coups against Cory. EDSA Dos also was a party based on Vicente Rafael’s accounts in one book. The issue is sustaining effort after the initial euphoria.
Of course the article talks about the left with Leni as prop of the story. And like the poor, it gets to play a significant role every election season because for obvious reason, they also vote. As far as I know, nobody in the list of running for president can be stamped as a leftist. But that does not mean they serve no purpose or they do not belonged in the game. Like other sectors of society, they also have a laundry list for political parties to comply or agree with in order to have a meeting of the minds in terms of support or endorsement. Concerns on issues of labor, poverty, social justice and other matters involving the great unwashed gets the special attention every election. That’s what makes the Left, in a way, a special commodity because political parties want to showcase their respective platform that caters mainly to the ordinary people and that represents a big chunk of the left.
As such, the group is exploited or utilized in different roles defending on the need or ideology of the political party concerned. A candidate may promote him/herself as pro-poor and veering to the left to cover enough grounds that will matter in accomplishing his/her election agenda. While the opposing groups will show them, a staple every election time, actually, as a threat and danger to the republic.
Both ways, they are best suited for propaganda material. 😎
Leody de Guzman is Bayan(?) candidate for President. Don’t know much background on him but his running mate, Walden Bello, is a UP academic and intellectual.
If Leni somehow manage to pull through, I’d suggest she taps Mr. Bello as NEDA secretary if she indeed has leftist sympathies.
Better yet, both Mr. de Guzman and Mr. Bello should, this early, go all out and endorse VP Leni with the caveat that she will govern from the left or, at least, from left of center like the recently elected German chancellor set to replace Angela Merkel.
Without getting into such alliances it’s highly likely the Philippines will once again backslide into Marcosian fraud.
Backgrounder for all here who may be interested. Incoming Chancellor Olaf Scholz is of course a Social Democrat (SPD), albeit very close to the center as he was Merkel’s Vice-Chancellor in the Grand Coalition between center-right Christian Democrats + SPD.
The incoming coalition is interesting, it is called traffic light coalition: red for SPD, yellow (what else?) for the Liberal FDP and of course the Greens. Ministries are distributed 7/4/5 based on the proportion of Parliamentary seats each party has.
The coalition agreement itself took 2 months to hammer out and is 180 pages long, some important measures being: raise minimum wage from €8.50 to €12, somehow change the social welfare doleout and raise it too (I wonder if this goes toward UBI) – those measures have a clear SPD imprint – phase out gasoline cars until 2030 or so, legalize cannabis (those are very much Green agenda, they have their roots in the 1970s after all) – and finally bring forward digitalization which is clearly a Liberal thing.
Also nice is the incoming admin’s motto “Dare More Progress” which echoes the “Dare More Democracy” motto of Chancellor Willy Brandt, Social Democrat who became Chancellor after the conservative postwar Adenauer era got stale for a lot of people.
This is going to be interesting as Merkel though she was excellent and internationally recognized (and an important counterweight to Trump in those awful years) is clearly tired after having ruled for 16 years, and stability also was becoming stagnation.
Such alliance, however, is not going to sit well with the Makati business crowd bankrolling, one way or the other, Leni’s campaign.
Hence, even if she manages to pull through with or without the alliance, her debt of gratitude to the moneyed folks will prevent her to remarkably transform Philippine economy and the peasants will continue to led alienated precarious lives.
There is really no mark differences in political ideology among contenders running for the presidency. All we have in identifying candidates vis-a-vis their political color are impressions and assumptions. Unlike the Dutertes and the Marcoses, clearly the epitome of autocrats, the current candidates really don’t have a strong leanings on particular direction. I say, all of them are left of center in the political spectrum. 🌏
This is the first election, I suppose, where the left actually fielded a candidate for President. And I do not agree there’s no distinct ideological line separating them from others. It’s a positive development that the Philippine left start fielding candidates in all elected offices and be active participants in the political process.
Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and the UK all have active leftist political parties. Lula in Brazil is likely to make a strong comeback after the disastrous reign of a Trump-clone, and Lopez Obrador in Mexico is making a splash.
So yes, why not a politically engaged and active Philippine left.
In saying that there’s really no differences in political ideology among the candidates, I was referring to the mainstream, the influential or more popular party representatives on the list. While the left has been actively participating in our electoral processes they are still not within the ranks of those established political parties. At the moment, any suggestion of an overture on a quid pro quo between the left and any established political party is a remote possibility.
Gotta start somewhere.
If Leni is not receptive to a left alliance, that will just cement her centrist color and no meaningful changes in the economic fortunes of most (meaning poor) Filipinos can be expected when and if she gets to be the President.
She has a labor leader in her senatorial slate and is left center, I’d guess. And pragmatic, which is the art of compromise to get things done. Alliances are hard to form if leftist demands are outside the bounds of pragmatic.
Still fluid at this point. I hope she gets a bump for survey lead.
Her caravan should stay on the left lane and they’d be able to cruise through all the way.
This Twitter thread gives an interesting take on possible reasons WHY Philippine society is so conservative, actually not that receptive to leftist ideas – unlike Scandinavia etc.
One major idea is that more progressive ideas come to “postmaterialist” people, meaning those who have secured their existence. I was surprised to see that Joma Sison was the son of a haciendero in Ilocos, but then again Engels’ father was a factory owner.
One could say both Marx and Engels just rediscovered their humanity in others, particularly the laboring class. Both have been enamored by the promises (and premises) of the French and American revolution of liberty, brotherhood, equality, and democracy.
As scholars, both were horrified that those lofty noble goals cannot actually be truly attained in a capitalist system because wealth accumulation of capital owners and servitude of workers will just lead us back to a new form of feudalism.
And they were of course exactly right.
Alliance with the left is not really a guarantee of an upturn trends in terms of alleviating the conditions of the poor. However, it is always an ideal scenario to have political unity, regardless of ideology. While it would be a positive development and could lead to changes beneficial to the masses, it is also a complicated path to thread on, so to speak.
Now, we only see Leni as the leader. But behind the leader there are forces moving in different directions that tend to drag the leader in terms of agenda and strategy, not to mention vested and self-interest. And then there’s the different sectors that would either serve as facilitators and/or obstacles in the unity effort.
In other words, it is not easy. 😥
Unity can only be achieved if you have common cause. In this instance, what can unite the pink and the left is their common repulsion at the possible restoration of Marcosian deviltry.
In politics, as in nature, there will always be opposing forces.
They can agree to repulse the attempt to restore the Marcoses to power but unity is another thing. I don’t see it happening even if Robredo wins. 🧓
That’s one thing I cannot say with certainty at this point. Afterall, wasn’t Neri Colmenares included in the lineup of the yellow coalition in 2019?
The alliance has said it will bring 2 million votes to Robredo.
“Robredo’s commitments for the labor sector include ending labor contractualization, “living wage” for the working people, social protection, improving trade union and political rights.”
Gotta start somewhere. Left and pink are natural allies at this point.
If that’s the case, that’s good news. And just a reminder, that’s also the regular routine amongst contenders, opponents or ideological nemesis during election time, to show solidarity or unity in accord with the season. 😉
The cliche still stands, NPE-JPI.
Re Kiko Pangilinan here is his Sagip Saka program for farmers:
https://www.rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/newsstand-no-the-far-left-will-not-support-robredo/
But also this:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=5031943480168584&id=100000589467632
Do you follow Tonyo Cruz and Mong Palatino?
Neither of them. What I have seen of that gatekeeper Tonyo Cruz isn’t nice.
Ok, thanks
You know Chuckjugo, the guy who keeps on espousing socialism and classwars and anti US boirderline pro-China views.
I may not agree with him, but I keep on trying to understand him.
He’s a piece of work, definitely a stretch to comprehend. I can’t recall if I’ve blocked him or not. I’ve had a couple of intense debates with him. Short debates though, as it’s Twitter, after all.
Maybe I will disengage or just let him be.