‘Arroyo foreign trips exempted from austerity measures’
ANDREO CALONZO, GMANews.TV
08/19/2009 | 03:30 PM

| | More President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's visits abroad are "exempted" from the government’s austerity measures considering the economic benefits they reap, a Palace official said on Wednesday.

"The austerity project is very much observed but I am sure that, in the context of foreign travels...it’s an exception because they are ministerial (and) important meetings (that the President has to attend)," Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said.

Malacañang is currently under fire for the alleged "lavish" dinners Mrs. Arroyo and her party had during their latest visit to the United States.

Critics said the dinners showed Mrs. Arroyo's insensitivity toward the plight of many Filipinos suffering from the effects of the global financial crisis.

Remonde justified Mrs. Arroyo’s "aggressive" foreign engagements by highlighting that these are working trips that bring huge investments to the country.

"If not for the aggressive foreign engagements of the President, our economy would be worse. That's part of President Arroyo's hard work and being an aggressive salesman," he said.

"All presidents had to travel abroad. We cannot be an island of our own and we have to engage others," he added.

Last week, Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto III accused Mrs. Arroyo of "overspending" in her foreign trips from 2003 to 2007. Citing data from the Commission on Audit (COA), he said the President spent P2.7 billion from that period when the budget was supposed to have only been P1.1 billion.

Guingona is the son of former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr., a staunch critic of the Arroyo administration.

In April, Mrs. Arroyo issued Administrative Order No. 261 reiterating the government’s belt-tightening measures in the light of the global economic crisis.

AO 261 ordered all government agencies to reduce their respective Maintenance, Overhead and Operating Expense (MOOE) budgets by 1.5 percent and undertake electricity- and fuel-saving measures, among others. - GMANews.TV

Nonsense a magparabasaybasay kin uda oman tuyong importanate. Buko baga yan pumirmi sana asikason na mapakaray a sadiring lugar.
Malakadificil ka pagbuway sa Pinas dahil oda oman talaga locally developed na mga goods and finished product na naipababakal sa abroad. Agko kita mga natural resources kindi denidevelop man sana ka mga foreigners with their technologies kaya a profit naiiyan sana ka mga foreign investors.
Oda ako isi na original na Pilipinong corporasyon nanakikipagcompete outside of the country para makadelinsya darawon a earnings paiyan sa Pinas.
A mga foreign corporations nagpaparatugrok sa mga factories, manufacturing plants, call centers, etc. siton Pilipinas dahil sa kanda abbaba a labor kaya a profit naiiyan sana ka mga estranyo.
A mga salaried labor force, mga seaman, engineers, nurses, etc. hinahire locally and abroad para yumaman a mga foreign corporations.
Sa Japan, sa Korea, sa mga industrialized countries magaan a pagbuway ka mga citizen nira dahil nageexport sira sa mga goods(cars,electronics,etc.) with their own technologies na kaipuwan outside of their countries.
Sa Pinas kaya kin agko Pilipinong idea to start a business pirmi nang aayatan sa palangis bago mapoonan a negosyo.
Bukong si Pres. Glo major in economics sa college?

Post edited by: Otaner, at: 2009/08/23 20:07

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo - She attended Assumption Convent for her elementary and high school education, graduating valedictorian in 1964. Arroyo then studied for two years at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. where she was a classmate of future United States President Bill Clinton and achieved consistent Dean's list status.[4] She then earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Assumption College, graduating magna cum laude in 1968. She pursued a Master's Degree in Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University (1978) and a Doctorate Degree in Economics from the University of the Philippines (1985).[5] From 1977 to 1987, she held teaching positions in different schools, notably the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University. She became chairperson of the Economics Department at Assumption College.

She's bright, no doubt about it. Really bright, just like Marcos was. Unfortunately for the Filipinos, just like Marcos, she is using her exceptional talent for personal gains, not for the benefit of the people. Marcos used his knowledge of the law to entrench himself in power, Gloria is using her mastery of economics to perpetuate herself and her family in power. How? By making sure that she has the resources and the people that would protect her and her family after she is long gone from power. No doubt about it, she wants one of her children to be the next future president. She is that ambitious and cunning she will do anything to realize that. She is not her father's daughter for nothing! She is, well, worse than her father. Cong Dadong must be turning in his grave for what her daughter is doing to his memory and wants for the Macapagal legacy to be. Unfortunately, she's not a Macapagal anymore . . . she's already an Arroyo.

By the way, to my knowledge, there are at least five Philippine-based companies that are slugging it out in the global marketplace: San Miguel Corporation, whose products are well-known all over the Asia-Oceania-Australasia region; Universal Robina Corporation - the food & beverage conglomerate who are also branching out into the Asian market, now into petrochemicals, telecommunications as well as airline. Liwayway Marketing Corporation - yes, the company that started as a lowly "gawgaw" maker in the '70s is now one of the largest food manufacturing company not in the Philippines, but in China. Yes, China - the largest consumer market in the world. Jollibee Foods Corporation - the only burger chain in the world that dislodged the vaunted Golden Arches not only in the Philippines but in the Asian markets as well. Am not sure about the name of the last one, the only non-food company in the group: Mactan Shipbuilding, which i think is owned by the Aboitiz. It produces ships and catamarans that are at par with the best in the world. These are just some of the few, large ones. There are other countless small exporters, SME's like the world class furniture makers of Cebu, which have penetrated the export markets of Europe and Americas.

Post edited by: minasbad, at: 2009/08/23 22:36

Theres The Rub
Power

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:12:00 08/27/2009

Maria Montelibano told me this story: It was the hardest thing in the world to persuade Cory Aquino to relocate to Malacañang after Edsa. She began by holding office at the Cojuangco Building, then went back to Times Street. Her aides pleaded with her to abandon her old home as it was a security nightmare. She finally did, but refused to move to the office Ferdinand Marcos had occupied in his time. She would have nothing to do with it. She moved instead to the Guest House, defending her decision by saying, “I am a guest of the Filipino people.”

She was utterly convinced of that, and lived by it. Everything there, the furniture, the paintings, the treasures—indeed all the power and opulence the Palace resonated with, or reeked of—she said, belonged to the people. She would admonish her apos against playing with the bric-a-brac, saying it wasn’t theirs to play with, it was the people’s. The admonitions were such that at one point one of them, upon finding a chocolate bar on a table, asked innocently: “Can I eat this? Or does this also belong to the people?”

I remembered this story when I saw that article some days ago about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo registering on Forbes magazine as the 44th most powerful woman in the world. Forbes, of course, is clear that the list does not confer a positive note on power. Indeed, the explanation for why Arroyo is powerful is not altogether flattering. It includes: “A potential power grab is in the works…. Congressional allies are pushing through changes to the Constitution that would see the Philippines adopt a parliamentary system; then Arroyo could … become prime minister.”

But the infinite danger of calling someone powerful, notwithstanding the apparent lack of judgment about its being good or bad, is that it does give a luster to her or him. It’s the same thing with Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. The caveats are also plentiful: The title is meant to be judgment-free, the Person of the Year can be both good and bad. But the grant of prominence by itself does surround the person with an aura of being larger than life, subverting the qualification.

All of it makes you wonder about the true meaning of power.

Where I stand at least, what being powerful means is being responsible for power. Or quite heroically, as in Cory’s case, recognizing that power, particularly the kind reposed on leaders, emanates not from yourself but from the people. You are only as good a leader as you are recognized by your followers. And you are only as good a leader as you give your followers reason to do so. By earning their trust, by keeping their trust.

That is certainly not done by gorging on P1-million dinners. What gives that a bitterer taste is the contrast between the way Cory treated public property while she was president and the way Gloria does while she is non-president. Made even bitterer by the contrast in justifications. Cory was not unlike the activists of my days, when revolution still drew idealists to its fold like a beacon in a storm-tossed sea, who believed that taking a single piece of thread from the masses was an epic crime. Cory held the same thing, give or take a bar of chocolate or two.

Gloria? Well, let’s just say, may araw din kayo.

Just as well, where I stand, what being powerful means is being distrustful of power. That insight comes from Oriana Fallaci who interviewed the world’s most powerful men in her time, from Henry Kissinger to the Shah of Iran, from Yassir Arafat to Deng Xiaoping. The only way to deal with power, she said, is to be distrustful of it. It’s the only way to keep yourself sane, it’s the only way to remain human. The truly powerful men and women did so, and were so. The rest were just bastards.

Cory did so, and was so. You can’t have anyone who was more distrustful of power, who was more uncomfortable with power. From start to end, she took only as much power as she needed to mend a tattered country, to heal a wounded land. To the extent that she knew how, heaven knows she wasn’t perfect, though heaven knows too some are less imperfect than others. Her friends continue to talk of how during the harshest challenges to her government, which were the coups, she never once thought to declare emergency rule or, heaven forbid, martial law. She had the stoutest defense of all, she said. It wasn’t a loyal military, it was a loyal people. It wasn’t the power of the soldiers’ arms, it was the power of the people’s love.

Armed with the same power, she left power willingly, quietly, gracefully.

Gloria? Well, read Forbes’ explanation again about why she is powerful.

Forbes has its own world, and its own system of reckoning of the people that inhabit it. I have my own. In my book, the truly powerful people on this earth, past and present, are the likes of Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joe Burgos—and Corazon Aquino.

These were (are) people who never sought power the way misers seek riches, but sought only to do good as best they knew how. These were people who never hoarded power the way misers hoard gold, counting the coins by candlelight every night and dreaming of more, but shared themselves with others as best they knew how.

In the final reckoning, whatever the mirage and sheen and illusion of the present, only good is really larger than life, evil is just smaller than life. Look at Marcos and Cory and ask yourself who was, or is, the colossus that straddled the world. Look at Gloria and Cory and ask yourself who is larger than life and bigger than death.

Margaret Thatcher once said: “Being powerful is like being a lady: if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Some people are ladies, some are just ladies of the night.

pa effect lang ba yan ng mga politiko....

si fer din..... lumang style nya....