THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) lambasts President Benigno Aquino III’s administration for its all-out effort to further open the Philippine economy to foreign plunder and exploitation by pushing for a slew of economic liberalization bills while seeking to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution as an omnibus liberalization schema.
In a statement sent to this paper, the CPP said that if Aquino succeeds in pushing his neoliberal offensive, the "Filipino people are bound to experience conditions far worse than in the first half of Aquino's term."
Over the past several weeks, Aquino's minions in Congress have filed resolutions seeking to amend the 1987 Constitution aiming at removing economic provisions considered as restrictive to foreign investments, including those that prohibit foreign entities from owning land and having more than 40 percent control of local enterprises.
At the same time, Aquino and his retinue of IMF-trained technocrats have been pushing for a package of economic laws that aim to further liberalize the Philippine economy and subject it to worse forms of foreign capitalist domination and plunder.
The CPP described Aquino's economic package as "a plan to wring every possible drop of blood from the Philippine economic body by subjecting even its remaining fringes to all-out liberalization."
Aquino's officials identified the other day the priority bills that seek to push in the scheduled opening of the Congress.
These bills include the Removal of Investment Restrictions in Specific Laws cited in the Foreign Investment Negative List (FINL), the Rationalization of the Mining Fiscal Regime, Amendments for the Build-Operate-Transfer Law and the Rationalization of the Fiscal Incentives Law.
The Aquino administration is also set to push for the Tax Incentives Monitoring and Transparency Act (TIMTA) and the Customs Modernization and Tariff ACT (CMTA); Amendments to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Charter; further Amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act; Amendments to the Act to Facilitate the Acquisition of Right-of-Way, Site or Location for National Government Infrastructure Projects and For Other Purposes; and Amendments to the Cabotage Law.
"The neoliberal offensive of the Aquino administration is being carried out in the face of the prolonged and worsening recession which has beset the global capitalist system over the past five years or so," pointed out the CPP.
"The monopoly capitalists seek to further liberalize trade and investments policies in order to maximize super profits," the statement read.
The CPP urged the Filipino people to "resist all-out the liberalization scheme being pushed by Aquino's administration which are sure to worsen the acute problem of unemployment, cause the further destruction of productive forces and cause graver economic hardships of the Filipino people." (GCA)