--- On Wed, 4/15/09, Baldomero Falcone <
balfalcone@yahoo. com> wrote:
From: Baldomero Falcone <
balfalcone@yahoo. com>
Subject: Fw: SUGGESTED LANDMARK INPUTS TO THE PROGRAM OF GOVERNMENT OF AE & EGR
HUMBLY SUGGESTED RADICAL INPUTS TO THE LANDMARK PLATFORM OF GOVERNMENT BY THE DREAM TEAM OF AMONG ED PANLILIO AND MANONG ERNIE RAMOS
As the Dream Team of Among Ed and Manong Ernie is so radically different from the traditional politicians' line-ups, their platform of government must be radically different, real sea-changes from the tradpols' pie-in-the-sky promises that are quickly and conveniently forgotten once their lordships are securely
installed in their voted-albeit- bought positions, clothed with priveleges undreamt of by ordinary Pinoys, e.g. chauffered low-numbered cars preceded by multiple bodyguards on motorcycles with loud blaring sirens cutting across daily traffic snarls suffered by ordinary Pinioys, international junkets during congressional off-seasons( all government financed), un-earned and undeserved high salaries and per diems and even higher un-auditable barrels of "pork".
The Dream Team's Platform of Government must finally be TRANSFORMATIONAL of Philippine society, rather than TRANSACTIONAL: the heretofore character of Philippine governance, illfully motivated by greed for money and lust for power, lasting power.
In our humble perception, the following, among others, are the suggested landmark inputs to the platform of government that only the Dream Team of Manong Ernie Ramos and Among Ed Panlilio can uniquely
present to the growingly despondent filipino public:
1.Small Peoples' Bank (or for short of any appropriate name) PAX Bank:
Sad but true, the whole Banking Industry in the Philippines is owned and controlled by a few families, less than the number of fingers in your hand.(The patriarchs of these very few and identifiable oligarchic families regularly land in the Forbes List of the World's Richest.)
Indeed, credit does not flow to the countryside despite governmental edicts like the Agri-Agra Law that mandates all banks to set aside 25% of their loanable funds for agricultural credit, but provided a myopic escape clause, an alternative option: investing in government securities.
.No wonder, research after research confirm the tendency for most banks to comply more thru the
alternative option of investing in riskless government securities. (A specific example of how the government is truly skewd for the few rich who grow richer without doing anything and the teeming poor becoming poorer and growing in hungry numbers).
Any solution in sight?
The Holy Bible can probably suggest a solution.
Remember the Bible episode where Jesus, followed by the hungry multitude in the dessert montains fed the teeming thousands from the five loafs of bread and two driedfish that one little boy unselfishly offered?
Well, the spontaneous gesture of that unselfish little boy parting away with his personal "baon" of five loafs of bread and two driedfish might be the symbolic template that the Dream Team of Among Ed and Manong Ernie could persuasively employ, to elicit
a miracle from above and through the small peoples' bank (PAX Bank) cause raindrops of liquidity into the parched lands of the Philippine countryside. .
PAX Bank will thus be formed: Equitized by the VOLUNTARY contributions of the ex-sems, (taken broadly to mean guys coming from the seminary to include bishops, priests, ex-priests and ex-sems in the Philippines and in Diaspora), coupled to the VOLUNTARY contributions of the Filams and other Pinoys in the Diaspora and the VOLUNTARY donations of the faithful from Aparri to Jolo, on every Sunday of, say, just the first year of governance by the Dream Team.
Yes, small private money voluntarily contributed by small private people connecting themselves to make a lasting difference in their small private lives(inspite/ despite the comprehensive neglect of the rich and the powerful).
PAX Bank
(or small peoples' bank), once licensed by the Central Bank, will be the alternative DEPOSITORY of most if not all cash offerings/contribut ions on all Sundays and days of obligations in all the parish churches of the land.
It will also be the DEPOSITORY of all fees collected by most if not all Catholic and Christian schools and institutions all over the archipelago, besides being the INEXPENSIVE conduit for money remittances from generous filams and "exiled" family members forced by survival considerations of their respective local families, to work abroad, by their lonesome.
Professionally run by trained bankers, PAX Bank and its nationwide network of modest branches will function like any of the current commercial banks,i.e.departame ntalized with a Credit and Trust Departments with this BIG DIFFERENCE:PROFITS AND DIVIDENDS FOR ITS OWNERS WILL NOT BE ITS BE- ALL AND
END-
ALL, AS THIS BANK HAS NO IDENTIFIED OWNERS, ITS INITIAL EQUITY HAS BEEN THE GENEROUS VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS OF MOSTLY UN-NAMED DONORS AND SO ITS INTEREST RATES on LENDING WILL BE RADICALLY LOW,(single digit, vs.the inaccessible double digit charge of the prevailing banking industry) thus accessible by the least of our DILIGENT brethren in the cities and countryside, from Aparri to Jolo.
Its Trust Department will be open to countryside small entrepreneurs and cooperatives in the co-activation of Asset Pool Trusts, co-issuing quality bonds and securities for proven viable countryside projects. PhilGuarantee( ExImbank) and other guaranteeing institutions may be asked to be true to its charter to provide a wrap and cover to these provincial and countryside bonds and securities so that being credit-worthy and investment grade they can be bought safely and soundly
by filams and hi-networth
individuals and entities besides targetting and effectively mobilizing for countryside development and employment the billions of trust money otherwise just lying"idle"and speculative- ready in the Trust vaults of the current banking industry.
In a way, it can be said that this small peoples' bank , motivated by the Dream Team, initiated by the Ex-sems and encouraged, blest by the Church's heirarchy, exemplifies in the concrete the small people empowering themselves to escape the menacing clutches of impending extreme poverty.
2. Parish Mini-Forests and Fish Cages.
Thirty years ago, it was reported that the forest cover in the Philippines was 94%, nowadays it is reported to be just 6%: alarmingly close to the point where widespread erosion, massive flooding and dessertification to this once veritable natural Eden and Pearl of the Orient Seas, would be IRREVERSIBLE.
A natural scientist
and tree lover by the name of Joe Reynolds who has come to love our country and people has proven by his experimental mini-forest in a Mindoro island that a hectare or two planted to mahogany and diverse filipino tree species(there are 650 counted to date) can produce/earn PER TREE two thousand pesos(P2,000) ANNUALLY , without cutting the tree for lumber.The revenue would come not just from carbon credits but also from the tree's leaves, flowers,branches, fruits, saps,barks and roots for wise use in the furniture, souvenir,cosmetics. toiletries, food, medical and pharmaceutical industries. Fortunately, natural scientist Joe Reynolds is ready and willing to share his unique technology and data base with caring filipinos.
Also some filipino scientists have perfected the science of planting root crops, malunggay(tree of life) and fish cages, maximizing harvests on minimal inputs.
The Dream Team of Manong
Ernie and Among Ed can very well approach the heirarchy of the church to allow putting to additional use the remaining small real estate attendant to every parish church, e.g. plaza, a few hills, cemetery, in the national interest of restoring forest cover to our growingly denuded motherland and initially, modestly resolving the pervasive hunger, unemployment and poverty in our local municipalities.
.All in the spirit of the Biblical generous little boy who did not question how his few five loaves of bread and two small driedfish could feed so many thousands, not counting the women and children, but just Trusting in the good Lord, without any reservations.
3.Abhorence of Vote-Buying/ Vote-Selling: The Original Political Sin, (for a Bad Tree will never bear Good Fruits).
Social and philosophical studies conducted by the academe and NGOs, e.g. Dilaab Foundation, have pointed to Vote Buying and Vote Selling
as the Original Political Sin that corrupts our people, demonized our leaders and makes a mockery of our brand of democracy that is so far removed from being a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Accordingly, the Dream Team of Manong Ernie and Among Ed will negate all modes of vote buying and vote selling, truthfully considering it as a vicious cycle bereft of any happy ending, the highway to our national perdition.
The Dream Team of Among Ed and Manong Ernie would rather appeal to the good conscience of Pinoy families, would direct the populace to the inner depths of their natural goodness and native honesty and ( despite being deprived,disadvanta ged and hungered by the ravages of several decades of transactional politics) to sacrifice and forego at least this once, the temptation of easy short-term money and ensnaring enticements from the tradpols and be consciensciously true
to themselves and to their children; to come up with a choice of leaders who will truthfully point to them the full potentials of this land and people awakening and working and praying together, and as servant - leaders slowly but surely erase the structures and conditions
of our poverty, the deterrents to the fulfillment of our national heroes' grand dreams.
4.Abhorence of Jueteng, Masiao, STL, Lotto and all Forms of Gambling..
The Indigenous Industriousness and native Win-Win attidude of the Pinoy must be psyched out to exuberant manifestation by the Dream Team of Manong Ernie and Among Ed, just as in our ancestral past, our forefathers had carved out from hard mountains World Wonders and stunning Rice Terraces that almost touch the skies.
It is in our blood, in our genes, in our brain, in our heart, in our soul to excel. Given the right motivation and conditions, absent the distractions.
Hence,
games of chance and gambling that add no economic value but rather de-focus the people's concentration from the grand task of developing and adding value and more value to the country's manifold God-given resources in the land, the seas, the rivers and mountains, must be Exorcized out of the national life by the Dream Team of Manong Ernie and Among Ed.
5 The Ex-Sems: Backbone of.A Global and Nationwide Network of "Watchdogs" vs. Corruption; Also the Counterpart of An International Network of Philippine Marketers.
No less than the Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno has recently stressed the need for a moral force in the country, saying that the Philippines is now perceived as a "pariah" in the international community because of widespread corruption in its government.( Phil Daily Inquirer, 4/7/09).
"It happens in high places in the corridors of public and private places.We are cast in the community of
nations as moral pariahs. What a tragic social landscape for the only Christian country in southeast Asia.Like England of old, we are a sick society, a social volcano about to explode. Corruption has now become a culture, deforming all its institutions, undermining our stability and security, and preventing our socioeconomic development. We can arrest this social decadence through a moral force", the Chief Justice said.
Besides the Civil Service, the Dream Team of Among Ed and Manong Ernie may as well mobilize the multiple cadres of ex-seminarians to be the advance party of this moral force that the Chief Justice has eloquently pointed out, to "arrest our country's social decadence".
By the grace of the Lord, there are more than a million ex-seminarians of all ages and diverse professions, well distributed all over the land, and still growing in number as sincere personal discernment convinces each one of them that they may not
have the real vocation to the priestly calling and so humbly leave the seminary."Many are called but only a few are chosen" However, because they were once called, imbibing the rudiments of morality and the fundamentals of service for others which seminary life inevitably inculcates into their psyche, they are by and large ever ready to serve, even probably as "Watchdogs" for the the Dream Team and the Law in the cities and municipalites of this republic, ensuring that the serpentine head of corruption is barked and bitten away, every time and everywhere its ugly head surfaces in contracts, biddings, public constructions, government purchases of goods and services, etc .For admittedly and nobly, a
peso saved is a hungry mouth fed.
The multitude of ex-seminarians scattered not only all over the Philippines but even around the developed world may also assist the Dream Team of Manong Ernie and Among Ed in the
national campaign for quality production of the distinctive goods/commodities of each town, province or region.Such goods and rare products can be singled out for eventual international promotion and marketing, not just by the consuls of the government's Foreign Affairs Department, but also by the expat ex-sems who may have better feel and access to these profitable markets.
So also in the area of ECO-TOURISM. A possible heretofore untapped quality promoter of the many and still uncounted awesome nooks, caves, rivers,islets, jungles,animals, flora and fauna,songs and dances, food and drink, cultures and practices of this WOW country in all its natural myriad glory would be the expat ex-sems who vividly remember and long to see the provincial towns and proud cities of their birth.Gladly they could share unique vicarious visions and possibly ocular visits of their homeland with their foreign neighbors, friends, club members,
golf mates, business associates.
Collectively, therefore, the ex-sems here and in Diaspora, together with well-meaning filams and ofws could be the" wind beneath the wings" of the Dream Team of Among Ed and Manong Ernie leading the country's take-off to real progress felt by all and national excellence celebrated by a growingly-proud people.
6.Constitutional Convention Within the First Two Years
To level the playing field for each and every filipino, the rules of the game, so to say must be changed. A Constitutional Convention that is geographically and numerically representative of the people at home and in diaspora maybe in order and called for by the Dream Team of Among Ed and Manong Ernie.
With the vision of turning a completely new leaf, the Constitutional Convention should exclude all incumbent legislators and discourage the participation of traditional politicians: that being defined
as somebody who had been a national legislator in his lfetime.
To be solely financed by the national government and outlawing any mode of vote buying in the election of delegates, this Constitutional Convention must tackle such burning issues among others,as the following:
a. lessening the number of legislators? with the attendant abolition of the unpopular pork barrel system?
b. A solely- government- financed Election System?
c.Balanced Emphasis for Entrepreneurial Education vs-a-vis Employment Education
f. The Right Amount of Money Supply/Currency in Circulation in the whole country, the countryside included?
g How to qualitatively Liberalize Credit for Productive Purposes in the whole country, the countryside included?
h. how to maximize the
development of areas, goods, products and services where the country has the Comparative Advantage?
i.Installation of the Parliamentary Form of Government?
h.Installation of the Jury System in Philippine
Courts.?
7.CLARION CALL BY THE ELECTED DREAM TEAM OF MANONG ERNIE/AMONG ED/AMONG ED/MANONG ERNIE(whichever) FOR NATIONAL DISCERNMENT ON WHAT IS THE STRATEGIC ROLE, IN THE DIVINE ORDER, OF THE PHILIPPINES AND ITS UNIQUE PEOPLE
AWAKENING , UNITING, BECOMING, AND WORKING OUT ITS GLORIOUS DESTINY.
Lord, for the Philippines and its People:Thy Will be Done, Thy Kingdom Come.
written 4/15/09 by bal falcone, ma.philo,trust, mbm
chair, political affairs committee, PAX
proud to be an x-sem
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