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Monday, June 20, 2005
Carino: Live 8 (conclusion)
By Linda Grace Carino
THINK about it some more. The percentage (40%) of the Philippines' budget that goes to foreign debt servicing could be used to fund projects in the country that directly affect the country's wellbeing: salaries for teachers, moneys for classrooms and books, for water, irrigation, etc...It's not hard to fill in the blanks.
Bayan Muna party-list Representative Satur Ocampo has long been campaigning for selective debt repudiation, to begin with saying "no" to paying loans contracted by the Marcos machine. This, as an economic measure to address the madness that, this year for example, 85% of government revenues goes to principal amortization and interest payments, gains new light as the G-8 just on June 11 cancelled more than $40 billion the world's poorest nations owe in debt to the IMF, the World Bank, and other lenders. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is largely credited for leading the G-8 to this agreement, as he is now credited (or discredited, depending) for working to double the amount the $50 billion annually given in aid by rich nations. It is a paradigm not supported by US President George Bush.
If the steps taken, outright debt cancellation and doubling of aid sound exactly like what Live 8 espouses, I'm pretty sure it's not an accident. It also illustrates just how powerful organized celebrity activism can be.
To get back to an earlier point, is the Philippines on this list of the world's poorest nations, now recipients of the G-8's June 11 move? No. Most of the countries that had their debts cancelled are from Africa (though there is noise that the list of countries qualified for debt cancellation is expected to grow). I'm ambivalent in my reaction to this. There's some feeling of wellbeing in the Philippines not being on the list of the world's poorest nations. But there's also a bit of regret that the country thus does not qualify for debt cancellation, and continues to suffer under the yoke of crippling foreign debt servicing.
But need the Philippines wait for itself to get on this list or that to qualify for debt cancellation? I don't think so. We are a sovereign nation - why wait for a handout? The handout being the thought that it's alright to consider a foreign debt dishonorable when it is. Nationalists in our midst have bravely floated the paradigms of selective repudiation and payment moratoriums for decades now.
Let me cite Ocampo/Bayan Muna's stand on this, that we challenge our country's leadership to: first, repudiate the present policy of automatic appropriations for debt servicing; second, cancel all odious, illegitimate, usurious, and onerous debts - either through negotiation or unilateral action; third, call for a moratorium on foreign debt servicing for at least five years, and after that impose a cap on debt payments and government borrowings; and finally, conduct an audit of all public sector debts to determine what other unjust loans should be repudiated. Big talk.
It's another thing to walk the talk. But to talk the talk is a beginning. May the talk walk big strides sooner than later. And though these weeks before the Live 8 concerts are full of news about it and debt cancellation, let us be reminded that the Philippines' debt situation is in the hands of Filipinos, who only need dare take sovereign, progressive action on it.
(June 20, 2005 issue)
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