Soros hand in recent Philippine events

There was a surprising revelation that escaped everybody's attention during the ZTE hearings. I remember one senator (I think its Senator Enrile---just review the transcripts) asking Joey de Venecia who'll back him up financially in the NBN deal. Without batting an eyelash, Joey retorted the magic word: “Soros”.

Ah, Soros.

We all know who George Soros is. For those who don’t, three words to remember about him---Open Democracy (which I espouse), Asian Financial Crisis and Billionaire. He’s the Richard Branson of the financial world. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once blamed him for the Asian financial crisis. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad once accused him of manipulating world markets for his own ends. I remembered FVR telling everybody that George Soros' hand was behind the spate of coups during the Cory Aquino regime.

Who's Soros?

Soros heads the Soros Management Fund, a global operation which essentially promotes open societies. You can check Google or the website http://www.soros.org or www.opendemocracy.net for more details.

Various sources describe him as a Financial speculator, a political activist and even a philosopher. He was once a student of Karl Popper, the philosopher credited of having created the concept of Open Democracy.

Actually, Soros pushes for Open Democracy. However, some sectors attribute sinister political motives behind every Soros' action. Soros hates despots. He was once a victim of fascism. He experienced it first hand when, as a young Hungarian Jew, he suffered first-hand atrocities under Hitler’s regime.

Soros’ stake in the Philippines

Soros is known to finance revolutions. He did it at EDSA. He did it for the Rose Revolution in Europe. For some societies, his participation proved to be crucial. Others, like his part in the repudiation of Bush re-election campaign, was a failure. His 80 billion dollar empire stretches “ in the farthest reaches, in the ends of the earth”, so to speak.

Why finance a revolution in the Philippines?

Obviously, current political reality dictates that changes in the present political structure is in order. The Arroyo administration is slowly becoming despotic. Former US President Bill Clinton’s remark about his former classmate as being “the most feared woman in the Philippines” tells you a lot about how Americans perceive Arroyo’s regime. Analyzing the Philippine situation, there are five (5) things that justifies a regime change.

1. The Arroyo administration’s militarization of the state. The Philippine state is a garrison state, ruled by a chosen few, chosen more for their subservience to the Arroyo clique than anything else. Just looking at the Cabinet and their underlings says much about this administration. Retired generals populate sensitive posts, appointed more on their capabilities at producing financial results to the Arroyo clique than anything. Undersecretaries are mostly business associates of the First Gentleman. Other posts, like the Supreme Court, the Ombusman and even the COMELEC have been given to puppets of the clique.

2. Tendencies in centralizing economic gains. The “improving” economic condition of the Philippines is not a miracle. Globalization has opened the doors of free trade to Asia-Pacific economies. Philippine economic fundamentals remain strong, buoyed by overseas remittances and strong foreign portfolio investments. However, the vertical growth of the economy has not resulted to horizontal development because economic gains failed to redound or spill over to sectors at the middle and bottom rungs of the economy. The reason is simple---a chosen few, the elites, have cornered most of the economic gains. The middle class—the prime motor of economic growth in other countries— remained stagnant. There is limited social movement in this class because of the concentration of wealth. Worst, large chunks of this class have fallen to the lower rungs of the economic strata. Pitifully, the proletarian class has likewise stagnated and remained slave consumers, powerless, and unable to progress to the higher stage of development. This concentration of wealth to a few breeds dissent from disfranchised sectors, creating an inevitable revolutionary situation.
3. Increasing human rights violations. Critics of this administration have suffered most of the brunt of human rights violations, perpetuated by state security agencies. As expected, the ruling oligarchs and their political allies will protect their economic wealth against the counter-elite. Those outside of the politico-economic circle of influence, will, undoubtedly, move to grab this concentrated wealth for themselves. Quite expectedly, force from the counter-elite (dubbed “destabilization” by the ruling elite) will also be met with equal or stronger force as a form of self-preservation or self-defense by the state’s ruling clique. Violations of basic rights are therefore, expected from this power struggle, with underlings suffering the most.
4. Contracting, instead of expanding. With continued destabilization, the state slowly closes its doors to counter-elites, forcing it to isolation. Isolation dictates that trust should only be given to subservient interest groups. Favors, will therefore be dispensed to those who pledge allegiance to the clique. The state in this situation contracts, and this contraction will also affect not only the political realm but also in the economic realm. This is quite evident in the ZTE deal. The administration gave the deal to the Chinese because it was supported by a strong financial ally (Razon) and a political wheeler-dealer (Abalos). Such situations can never be avoided under the current state of affairs. The weakness of this administration is exploitable because it is being forced to give in to economic favours to maintain status quo. The continued destabilization coming from a disfranchised counter-elite forces slowly weakens the state and thus, as a natural reaction, the state tries to gain strength by expanding its support bases, which, in this case, can only come from members of the economic community and the political operators.
5. Weakening state security. GMA’s decision to scrap the ZTE deal due to political noise tells you a lot about this administration. It has been decisively weakened. It has exposed its weakness by bowing to political pressure. Yes, this blogger encouraged GMA to stand down, because, following political strategy, that’s the most logical survival tactic available to her. The explosive nature of the controversy could force her ouster. However, her decision actually resulted to prolong her rule only for a few weeks or months, not years. The state’s weak state will affect not only her administration, but will definitely affect even the economy.

Indications of an impending regime change

1. Strengthening of the peso. Reports say that the peso will hit 40 or even 37 by year’s end. Is this good or is this bad? Obviously, it’s very bad. The peso’s comfortable exchange rate is around 40-41 pesos for a dollar. Some sectors are spreading the rumour that it could hit 37 or even 30 by 2008. This is bad because a strong peso will undoubtedly affect the export sector. You will have a situation where hundreds of small and medium sized export enterprises will be forced to close down because of this. You’ll have a situation where families relying on remittances will receive lesser amount of money than before. When you have a strong peso, you’ll be lessening the purchasing power of the middle class and the remittance-dependent lower classes, resulting to increased poverty. And, you’ll also find thousands of Filipinos out of work because hundreds of export companies will be forced to close shop. When you have that kind of situation, you are creating a replica of what happened in Argentina many years ago.
2. Demoralization among the soldiers’ ranks. The AFP admits this. Reports say, Esperon will file coup d’etat charges against six lieutenants. Note that those involved here are lieutenants, not colonels and definitely, not generals. This indicates a massive number of demoralized soldiers and when you have that kind of situation, you definitely have a serious issue at hand. Defeats in the Southern arena of war continues and GMA’s trusty military puppets will definitely have a hard time convincing troops to remain loyal.
3. Increasing dissent in the disfranchised sectors of society. The ZTE deal exposed a raw nerve in the Filipino psyche. It fueled hate. It fanned the flames of paninibugho (for a lack of an English translation, I wrote the Filipino term here---my apologies), a feeling more serious than the Western concept of hatred.
4. Losing political base. There’s a split in the ruling clique brought by the ZTE deal. Concessions were granted to other members of the clique to the consternation of other loyal subjects of the clique. This sprawn a division which could lead to ouster of the head of the clique. Far worst, this shows a permanent crack in the relationship, which obviously, was a patron-client one. The lost of a stable political base further led to a weakening, which, in this case, puts the regime in a serious state.

Soros knows this. Expect a heightening of tensions between inter-elites which could lead to an implosion. This implosion will fuel destabilization which will lead to disintegration of existing relationships and possible ouster from power possibly in the first quarter of next year. Or even earlier.