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SEN. Ed Angara’s knowledge of the national
condition and of global affairs is so extensive. He is one of the
few politicians in our country whose statements are worth taking
seriously. (But, sadly, not his stand on so-called “reproductive
health.”)
The protectionist policy of the
developed countries caused—and fuels—the food crisis, he said
last week speaking to businessmen and policy makers. He said the
free-trade principle the developed countries have imposed on the
world has neither been free nor fair.
He sounded very much like former
Sen. Wigberto Tañada and the other patriotic souls of the Fair
Trade Alliance. It has been trying to convince Philippine policy
makers to accept this factual observation and make it the basis of
Philippine dealings with the western powers at the World Trade
Organization and other forums.
Sen. Angara reviewed old and
mentioned new unfair practices of developed countries that violate
World Trade Organization rules and principles they themselves
authored.
We can’t just blame the western
powers, though. Successive RP administrations after the ouster of
the Marcos regime let our agriculture sector wither. We should have
done as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan did. The leaders of these
countries used land-reform programs to bolster their domestic
economy by creating new populations of middle-class farming
families. These came to have monthly disposable incomes. They
entered the investing class by saving in postal savings banks and
rural banks. They also became investors in the stock market.
“Healthy globalization”
It’s not just the Fair Trade
Alliance and Sen. Angara who are calling for a change in the current
global economic order.
Financial Times columnist
Lawrence Summer has also been urging the Western-power policy makers
to promote “healthy globalization.”
Summer is the Charles W. Eliot
university professor at Harvard. In 1993 he received the John Bates
Clark Medal for his work in macroeconomics. He was the 27th
president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. He served as the
US Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration.
Lawrence’s interest in making
globalization “healthy” initially sprang from his concern, first
of all, for the workers of America and, then, those of the
industrialized countries. He sees that the present global economic
system always favors, within an economy, the richer and more
advanced sectors and, globally, the richer and more developed
countries and the richer and more powerful corporations.
If greater international economic
integration is to work and maintain popular support, the areas of
inequality must diminish. Massive declines in incomes and quality of
life of the less advanced must not be allowed to happen.
Summer writes: “The domestic
[US] component of a strategy to promote healthy globalization must
rely on strengthening efforts to reduce inequality and insecurity.
The international component must focus on the interests of working
people in all countries, in addition to the current emphasis on the
priorities of global corporations.”
He proposes that “the US should
take the lead in promoting global cooperation in the international
tax arena.” And he writes: “Closely related is the problem of
tax havens that seek to lure wealthy citizens with promises that
they can avoid paying taxes altogether on large parts of their
fortunes. It might be inevitable that globalization leads to some
increases in inequality; it is not necessary that it also compromise
the possibility of progressive taxation.”
He suggests that “an increased
focus of international economic diplomacy should be to prevent
harmful regulatory competition.” He finds it unhealthy, for
example, that in the world of finance, “the mantra of needing to
be ‘internationally competitive’ has been invoked too often as a
reason to cut back on regulation. There has not been enough serious
consideration of the alternative—global cooperation to raise
standards.”
Globalized solidarity
Predating all these calls are
those of the Catholic Church. Papal encyclicals and entries in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church unceasingly exhort world leaders to
put “the person created in the image of God and loved by Him . . .
at the center of every economic plan to protect and administer the
immense resources of creation.”
These words were recently spoken
by Pope Benedict XVI who appealed for efforts to “globalize” the
call for solidarity. He addressed in Rome last week the annual
international congress of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice
Foundation. The theme of the conference was “Social Capital and
Human Development.” Pope John Paul II established this lay
foundation in 1993 to promote the social doctrine of the Church in
the professional and business sectors.
Benedict XVI praised the
foundation’s work to “to promote a global development that
allows for the integral development of man, while highlighting the
contribution that can be made by voluntary associations, nonprofit
foundations and other community groups that have come into being
with the aim of making the social fabric ever more cohesive.”
“On the last day,” Benedict
said, “on the Judgment Day, we will be asked whether we used what
God placed at our disposal to meet legitimate requirements, to help
our fellow man, especially the smallest and those most in need.”
rqb@manilatimes.net
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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