history

So We Don’t Forget: Duterte’s Case with the ICC

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Do you know, Reader, that there is RA 9851, signed into law in 2009, two years before we ratified the Rome Statute? Some experts say it is even more strict than the Rome Statute. It punishes superiors who either knew or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known that the subordinates were committing or about to commit crimes against humanity? So why has Duterte or anyone not even been charged, much less brought to trial under this law?

More of the Lies: What they’re saying about the OECD FDI Restrictiveness Index

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Look more closely at the OECD FDI Index, (that people cite as evidence to change the Constitution). You would see that CHINA, which from the inception of the Index up to 2015, was ranked the most restrictive country in the OECD sample, was at the same time was also the largest recipient of FDI among the developing countries of the world. It still is, even though in 2015 the title of most restrictive passed on to the Philippines. Shortly thereafter, the Philippines the ninth, and the seventh top country of investment choice in a survey conducted by UNCTAD.

Tell A Lie Often Enough, It Becomes The Truth

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A colleague, Gerardo Sicat, asserts that the progress of “Tiger Economies” of East Asia-South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore – was “fueled by the heavy participation of foreign capital”. I refer him to the table on FDI, 1970-2021 which Sonny Africa presented to the Congressional Committee on Constitutional Amendments at the hearing on Thursday, where we were all present. the data show that FDI flows into Taiwan and South Korea were on the whole less, both in absolute terms and in percent of GDP, than FDI flows into the Philippines. In other words, there was no “heavy participation of foreign capital” that Gerry Sicat describes.

The FEM Regime in Facts and Figures

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The Filipino’s average income (measured as GDP per capita) in 1985 was less than what it was 12 years before (1973). All the growth during the Martial Law period was washed out, with Juan and Juana de la Cruz holding a much-depleted income bag. And it would take the Philippines until 2002 to regain the real per capita income levels it was enjoying before the collapse.
(Good grief.Golden years?)