đź“·: BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr.
by Diego Morra
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Eli Remolona Jr., schooled at the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) and cooked to a crisp on the ideology of neoliberalism and profitable econometrics during his prolonged career at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the Federal Reserve of New York, Finance Secretary Roderick Go, also of AdMU, and Ramon S. Ang, the infrastructure czar of the plutocracy, share a common passion: Blaming culture for widespread poverty in the Philippines.
Remolona, son and namesake of a renowned Protestant preacher, tagged “consumerism” as a bane, and rightly so, but added willy-nilly that the savings rate is down because Filipinos are “mayabang” in what amounts to a dithyramb before a Senate hearing. What the gentleman failed to explain is why he expects millions of Filipinos earning slave wages to exceed their marginal propensity to save. Simply put, there is actually nothing to save. Filipino workers, according to a recent global study on wages, earn the 6th worst wage on the planet while another research determined that for a worker family to survive, the head of the family must earn $500 monthly, which approximates the demand of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) for a P1,200 family living wage. Remolona is the highest-paid bureaucrat of the Marcos Jr. regime at P53-million annually. The figure is as tall as Mt. Everest compared to the molehill of the worker’s wage at P685 in the National Capital Region (NCR.)
It is fairly easy for Remolona to hector Filipino workers about their vicious “keeping up with the Joneses” proclivity since that attitude has been ingrained in the culture of poverty studies that explained away resiliency as a coping mechanism and not a solution to largescale misery. Others have romanticized poverty while the ones blamed the poor for their “multidimensional poverty” since they are not efficient in using resources to improve their lot. Just to show how out of touch thus irrelevant NEDA successor agency is, they are now promoting the lie that one can survive on P91 daily.
The paradigmatic and creative illustration of the new economic reality is false and hews only to the dishonest attempt to portray the economy as sufficiently democratized and food is always found in the pantry. Government economists even want to change the Filipino diet but they have not succeeded in bankrolling increases in food output. The response to food shortage? Unbridled importations. They are not talking about the haughtiness of the Filipino plutocrats, the new Pacmans like Ricky Razon, with his wealth estimated at $21-billion, Ramon S. Ang at $3.4 billion, a huge pile for the much-regarded Danding Cojuangco mechanic, the Sy family members’ combined wealth in excess of $10-billion.
By flaunting their huge wealth and investments in anti-social activities like casinos and online gambling, they are frittering away capital that could have been deployed to raise farm and fisheries production. Sila ang mga hambog at hindi ang mga karaniwang Filipino na walang ipanghahambog. It is the height of intellectual dishonesty for Remolona and company to blame pride for the people’s misery. Will Remolona use part of his huge salary to generate jobs or produce morsels of rice for the deprived? Rather than use his position as a bully pulpit, it is time for him top preach about empathy, generosity and about being a man for others. As the saying goes, he should put his money where his mouth is.
This “multidimensional poverty index” is akin to the multiple folds of derivatives, slicing an investment instrument into tiny speculative bits. How does this compare to Milton Friedman’s insane assertion that capitalists are motivated only by the profit motive and the state must stand by the wayside as capitalists amass profits for their shareholders, with the trickle-down effect guaranteeing that prosperity will be shared by the entire society. Samuel Bowles already destroyed Friedman’s economic myths in 1990 along with the dogmatism and racism of Friedrich Hayek, who refused to visit the US and hobnob with the Blacks, whom he despises.
Allowing the robber barons to oppress and exploit American workers and craft economic and financial policies was smothered by Franklin Roosevelt, whom the plutocrats wanted to oust in a failed coup. By imposing 92% taxes on their earnings, the US profiteers were compelled to reinvest in industries in protest and forget about their stock repurchases. Robert Reich credits Roosevelt’s policies for the rise of the US middle class, the increase in wages, improvement in home ownership and the rise in demand for products and services, no thanks to Hayek and Friedman. Without state intervention to battle the Great Depression, it would have been impossible for Friedman to maintain his perch at the University of Chicago, or for the Mt. Pelerin Society of Hayek to maintain its annual rituals in Switzerland.
Philippine economic malaise is far deeper than the desultory analysis presented by Remolona or the pedantry of Ang. IBON Foundation executive director Sonny Africa said “it’s no coincidence that the steep fall of the peso started in the 1980s and intensified in the 1990s and 2000s as the adverse effects of neoliberal globalization nonsense worked their way through agriculture, manufacturing and the rest of the national economy. The economic managers embrace the peso’s decline because their textbooks tell them that what the market says is what should be, like God speaking through prices. And the foreign exchange market is, well, a market. Unfortunately, if they don’t get rid of old ideas and fix their “free market” thinking then they won’t give Filipino farms, fisherfolk and industrial firms the protection and support so necessary to modernize agriculture and industrialize the national economy. And they’ll keep blaming the people, out of dogmatism or maybe just being too prideful to accept their decades of policy mistakes.”#
