Teditorial: Destructive Destruction

I am a huge fan of Teddy Locsin Jr.’s teditorial entries and I am sharing one really good entry he wrote recently. It’s a shame that not much people read his blogs yet when you click on showbiz articles and scroll at the comments section it’s brewing with thousands of nonsense ramblings. Please!!!
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Good news! A new book on economics cites the Philippines as finally poised to breakout of age-old stagnation, thanks to the hope generated by reforms promised by Noynoy Aquino. The bad news is that the book mistakes Noynoy as promising to destroy the biggest Filipino conglomerates. I won’t mention their names because they advertise.

But the book is called, ‘Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles’ by Ruchir Sharma. And I quote, “Mexico is not the only emerging market dominated and crippled by oligopolists, the Philippines provides another clear example of the oligopoly paralysis.” “But in the Philippines,” says Sharma, “I can see a roadmap for change with the arrival of a president bent on reform.” Well, he seems to be the only one who has seen this road map.

And the Philippines, says Sharma will have an easier time of it because its per capita income is only 1/4 that of Mexico. Now why that is a plus is beyond me, unless he means that because we are so poor, we will look so progressive, just getting a little less poor. Never mind. Sharma does not seriously consider we will ever get rich because he imposes some pretty tough conditions.

I mention this book so its exhilarating message of hope is not used to mislead us about our real prospects and our real condition. And because Sharma thinks Noynoy’s reforms are economic, when they are only political. If you can call them reforms, since he just destroyed a key institution of progressive, open government: an independent supreme court. Our Supreme Court is now like Argentina’s —- a servant of the executive.

Sharma’s book aims to explode the myth of emerging nations like China, India, Russia and Brazil, along with Turkey and Indonesia. It is only the last two that have real potential. The others will soon pop like bubbles out of bigness.

Sharma says that concentrations of wealth are (this is my metaphor) giant masses that generate too strong gravity fields that distort sustainable development. These giants must be broken up, he says. Its owners must be taken down from the fortune lists of the top ten to the bottom, or their economies are doomed to stagnate. Sharma believes in Schumpeter’s creative destruction as the best recipe for economic growth.
The reform that counts is not political but economic, Sharma says. Break the big and you break their stranglehold on politics which keeps them big and able to stop or delay creative destruction.
Now this sounds great, except we see no connection to Philippine reality where the rich buy politicians, not to get big or to stay big, but to keep away from them and to keep politics out of economics.
Keep well.

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I agree with what Teddy Locsin Jr. said about the destruction of the judiciary system in the Philippines. I am not a pro-GMA or Pro-CJ Corona but as a president you are supposed to stay on the neutral side at all times. Every individual has the right to remain innocent until convicted.  What really irks me about the whole CJ Corona dramarama are not the walk-outs or endless tirades of senators during the trials but with PNOY’s insistent cry every single day to the media and the whole nation accusing CJ Corona a corrupt official when there wasn’t even any verdict yet. The Philippine laws exist not only to be lived by all Filipinos but also to judge whether one is guilty or innocent. Unless a verdict has been made, nobody has the right to be called a criminal and guilty. PNOY failed here BIG TIME.

Just because CJ Corona was a midnight appointee of his archnemesis CGMA, we can’t easily assume that he’s EXACTLY like CGMA. We can never tell if CJ Corona followed exactly the same principles as that of CGMA. Yes there are a hell lot of inconsistencies in the records of CJ Corona but we can never tell if he really did cheated or not. We don’t know what goes on behind what we all see. Just because PNOY is a “reformist” doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s not capable of doing wrong things. We can never tell that for sure until we see it for ourselves. Unfortunately though, these people in the office are not stupid enough to let all the wrong things slip from their hands. I was thinking what if, just WHAT IF by any chance though we really have no ways of finding out, what if CJ Corona really was innocent? This man once upon a time held one of the highest political post. Of course we can never tell that unless magic happens and we all get to see what really goes or went on behind the big picture.  What if during that event, we find out that CJ was indeed innocent? Remember, just because the law says one’s guilty doesn’t always mean that the person IS GUILTY. Many innocent people go behind prison bars just because they didn’t have a good lawyer who can defend them against someone whose more powerful. What if CJ Corona really was telling the truth?
I think that the whole negative view towards CJ Corona was only fueled by tons of previous unsolved corruption cases done by various public officials whom we all once trusted wholeheartedly. CJ Corona was more unfortunate than the other accused politicians as he had to carry the weight of all the anger of the nation from CGMA just because he once served CGMA and was appointed by CGMA. Just because he was once a part of her adminstration, we already assume right away that he’s just as corrupt at her. We go on judging him right away as guilty even though we haven’t even gotten to the end of the trial. It’s the feelings that outweighs reason. This is what has become most of us due to years of living being lied to by the people who were supposed to “serve” us. CJ Corona was a Supreme Court Chief Justice and to be honest, he deserved a trial fueled by reason and not by emotion. In a way, CJ Corona too has become somewhat a victim of our own ruined judicial/political system.