Students of the University of the Philippines (UP) have been walking out of their classes to protest against the government. They’ve been doing that since time immemorial. Indeed, one tweet by a certain @StandUpDiliman documented one such recent walkout, and it exhibited both a familiar sight and a familiar slogan…
WALKOUT NA! Join the hundreds of students who have already walked out their classes as we move to overthrow the US-Duterte regime! #EndStateFascism #NoToMartialLaw #OverthrowDuterte
A familiar sight in any UP campus repeated many times over many years. Where are the results?
A photo accompanying the tweet showed students carrying red flags — the battle colours of left-leaning groups — marching up the stairs in a building in the premiere campus of UP in Diliman, Quezon City. Many believe that these left leaning groups are all infiltrated by elements of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and that some of these act as fronts for recruiting students into the terrorist New People’s Army (NPA).
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Indeed, in late 2017, Jo Lapira, a student of UP’s Manila campus, was among the fatalities in an encounter between NPA rebels and the Philippine Air Force in Batangas. Lapira was reportedly a member of the militant “women’s issues” group GABRIELA which is known to maintain close ties with the CPP.
Suffice to say students walking out of classes leave professors and instructors in the payroll of the state idle and disrupt the activities of other students who prefer to go about their studies in the campus in peace. It is clear that taxes that go into funding these faculty resources and into investing in the futures of the young men and women who appreciate the purpose and privilege of being part of the UP student body as one focused on learning are wasted whenever these “activist” circuses are in town. This is made even more disturbing by the fact that student activists in UP constitute a tiny minority of the student body. To see a small clique of misguided youths causing disproportionately widespread disruption across UP campuses is an outrage to say the least.
All one need to ask to gain some perspective around how “important” campus activism really is is this question: Where are the results?
Take the primary slogan in this recent walkout: “move to overthrow the US-Duterte regime!”
Is there really a “US-Duterte regime”? The prevailing position held by the current Philippine Opposition is that President Rodrigo Duterte is pivoting his country’s foreign policy towards China and away from the United States. So it seems these commies need to re-evaluate this rather tired Cold War era slogan.
Taking a step back, these red-flag-waving “activists” have been using that template slogan for decades. Again, where are the results?
Taxpayers’ funds are definitely being wasted on UP students who walk out of their classes to join protest rallies organised by a group that espouse an obsolete ideology and is associated with a known terrorist group. It’s high time Filipinos say enough and call out what these protest rallies really are — nothing more than legacies being propped up by a “thought leader” cloistered in a northern European paradise under the guise of “political asylum”.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Here’s a bit of “response” to this article:
UP Students Who Keep Walking Out To Attend Rallies Should Be Considered For Expulsion
They are joining those nonsense rallies instead of studying. Worse, they are working for state enemies. If I were to help in decision making — I’d have them expelled after three strikes unless they did something so terrible like murder. What do you think?
looks like trillanes is next going to jail.
You do not bite the hand that feeds you you motherfucking communist rallyist economic saboteur!
Get those Marxist bastards out of Diliman ASAP
The assumption of ‘rights’ is the cancer of privilege.
There’s probably a need for a new and updated anti-subversives law that could be applied to all insurgents and terrorists, including Maute and ASG.
These UP students went to the university, to learn and earn a degree. Not to be politicized by an obsolete political theory of Marx and Engels. They are just wasting their time, and their resources.
Youth is the time, when you lay foundation for your future. Why don’t they just go to the mountains, and become an NPA extortionist and terrorist.
The extreme left use demonstration, chaos, and terrorism to further their political agendas. While their NPA Chief, is living a good lifestyle in Amsterdam, Netherland.
I dunno if the same applies to UP. When I was in the university, our class cards got dropped after 3 consecutive absences or 5 non consecutive absences, in which you are given a chance to explain and justify. If unable to justify then it is considered failed on the subject. Failing on 40% of your total subject units enrolled for the semester is expulsion. Wala ba nun sa UP? Just let the university apply their own by-laws and have them finally expelled from the university.
What about the UP administration? Don’t they have disciplinary measure for students walking out of classes for rally or any other reason? The University has responsibilities over these misguided youth during school days.
(Edit: what the? The guy I’m replying to is gone? So… what does the context of my comment would look like? o_O)
And you think these disruptive student political rallies are working as well? And for what, communism? If you think capitalism is not working because of crooked heads, which I myself am in agreement with, then communism is much worse if you have the same crooked heads and their friends in there.
People can argue that these kids are also brainwashed into embracing an ideology that is contrary to the country’s current system and that of majority of the world.
The better solution to the problem is to screw the government and seek the better life yourself. Study and get a degree, and rise your own family up from poverty. You can care about politics as long as it does not disrupt from that goal. These kids are wasting the opportunity of “free” education they have been given, and it’s not an excuse to blame the government for your personal misfortunes.
They should drop out, if they do not want to study.
Those UP Commie activists should be deported to North Korea, ASAP & help them to build Kim Jong Un’s Nuclear Toys of his & later jailed them in their notorious concentration camps there & feel what it REALLY looks like if they believe in communism & their communist causes! >:(
It’s really disappointing to see that these future leaders are just wasting their time on these instead of finishing their studies. No wonder total progress is almost impossible in this country.
Duterte’s grand plan to give free university places to the great unwashed will give even more entitled layabouts the chance to walk out of class. That policy is, in fact, about as Marxist as you can get. So what are they even protesting about?
They’re protesting that they don’t want our country to become the next Singapore but rather they demand for our country to become the next North Korea as what really protesting about & that’s a huge BS!!! >:(
LOL. The Philippines already IS the next North Korea. How, exactly, do you think the country is going to become “the next Singapore” by implementing laws and policies that are almost diametrically opposite those of Singapore?
@marius
How is the Philippines already IS the next North Korea? Kindly expound, thank you.
– Same “juche” (self-sufficiency) nonsense driven by paranoid view of foreigners.
– Personality-cult “hero” leaders worshiped by the brainwashed masses.
– Disastrous diet caused by the government telling farmers to grow useless crops.
– Massive poverty caused by deliberate destruction of private enterprise and mismanagement of natural resources.
Only thing missing is the prison camps.
@marius
…and don’t forget, Nuclear Bombs.
huh?
Filipinos haven’t even invented bicycles yet. Sometime in the 23rd century, they’ll maybe catch up with North Korea.
I think you’re reaching for arguments.
– It’s not wrong to be self-sufficient, at the very least we need to have the ability to feed ourselves. It’s not like trades of other goods have ceased. Last headlines I heard, we were only restricting rice importations as we are trying to expand our own.
– Our past 30 years of history had been riddled by a “hero worship” type of President. Cory, Erap, NoyNoy and now Duterte. It’s a problem of Filipinos already mentioned in previous GRP articles, in that our society idolize the “personalities” and not the “ideologies” they represent.
– Do elaborate your argument on this. Following the self-sufficiency argument, I mostly heard our government pushing for more rice production which is never useless in our country as that is our staple food.
– If you mean contractualization, then it’s a two way argument. You can’t easily side with the corporations and immediately say it’s a “deliberate destruction of private enterprise”. As they have allegedly reported, Contract Workers are being exploited for them to remain perpetually contractual. People are being worked as Regulars but they don’t get the same benefits as them. They say the drawback of this law is the smaller companies losing money, but they allegedly mentioned anti-contractualization only apply to government offices. Mismanagement of natural resources is not a problem of Duterte administration alone. anti-yellows have been digging up PNoy admin’s ties with big Mining corporations and their unrestricted operations which decimated entire mountains and left hundreds of displaced families in Mindanao. Meanwhile, Illegal logging is a decades-old problem.
Most of the actions done by Duterte so far have been considered “pro-poor”, something that he has been advertising in his campaign besides the drug war. Seeing as he obviously won our elections, you can perceive that as our voters mostly favoring his “plataporma”.
@Random: good answer. Nice to get some proper debate here again.
1) Of course there’s nothing wrong with self-sufficiency, but I used the word ‘juche’ to mean the extreme, xenophobic, mercantilist type of protectionism that’s born from fear and loathing of foreigners and a complete misunderstanding of the way international trade works, rather than a desire to stand on one’s own feet. This country’s trade rules exclude foreign goods that the country desperately NEEDS if it’s going to be self-sufficient. Those things simply aren’t made locally – so what’s the point in “protecting” a non-existent industry?
2) As you stated, hero-worship (which looks to me a lot like a masochistic desire to be dominated and abused) is an integral part of Filipino culture.
3) Rice is one of the most useless crops humanity has ever produced. Apparently, the Philippines grows and imports roughly 340g of rice per person per day, which is 5-6 times more than other Asians eat. Trying to be “self-sufficient” in rice (which is an actual policy goal) is like trying to be self-sufficient in cocaine: technically possible, but of dubious social value. Rice is directly responsible for the appalling epidemic of childhood malnutrition (resulting in physical and mental stunting), diabetes, obesity, and heart disease here, which in turn places an enormous economic burden on the country. Compared to almost any other crop, rice represents a poor use of land area and results in rapid soil erosion and fertility loss. Also high on the list of useless crops (still promoted by the government) are coconut and sugarcane. The country needs to start growing proper food. These things are not food.
4) No, I’m referring to the core idea of fascist governments (of which the Philippines is one of the few remaining examples), which is that all economic activity is to be guided by the State, for the benefit of the State. The Duterte administration, just like every previous one, has decided that it and it alone is responsible for economic development. There is absolutely no space for private enterprise. The TRAIN law seems deliberately designed to shut down all small and medium businesses: it is impossible to comply with the rules and stay in business. Only the big players (the ones that can afford lawyers, accountants, and bribes) will survive.
I’ll try to keep our discussion civil then.
1) We already know Duterte’s stance being “pro-poor”, and that includes the agriculture sector. Perhaps he is aggressively forcing competitors out because our local produces are being way too underappreciated. He wanted to give them more space in trading their goods.
In contrast, he does welcome foreign investment in another sector that badly needs it: internet service. Right now, the Duopoly that is Globe and PLDT are getting away with expensive yet lackluster service. The Australian Telstra (in partnership with San Mig Corp) could have shaken things up, but so they said the supposedly bitter rival Duo teamed up to take them down with lawsuits and technicalities.
2) Perhaps our obsession for noontime variety shows have something to do with it, either being the root of the problem or just a symptom of it. We as a society are very much enamored to personalities we see on TV, like Kris Aquino, Vice Ganda, Tito Vic and Joey, Willie Revillame, and even willing to turn a blind eye of their past misconducts (even crimes for some) in order to keep our “idol” in the pedestal.
For Cory, she has been seen as the “shining symbol of Democracy that toppled the evil dictatorship”. Never mind that aside from throwing us a bone of giving us some sort of freedom of speech, all that happened in the government was essentially just a change of hands from one oligarch to another.
Duterte has been voted due to him being the “protest vote” against the “status quo” of the previous administrations. We were willing to accept whatever flaws he had including but not limited to his extremely foul mouth and crass humor. His policies have been widely accepted so far as they have been delivering results as of present, including his war on drugs where he is okay with casualties as long as they are criminals (regardless if they were killed in self-defense, or “nanlaban”, or an orchestrated hit).
3) As mentioned, our government is really pushing our rice industry to support our “poor farmers”, for better or worse. While the act is commendable, if someone would want to convince Duterte (with supporting facts and numbers of course) that we would yield more profit in other crops and just import the cheaper rice from other countries then have that someone step forward.
I did hear a snippet of radio interview about agriculture one time. The interviewee said that our lands aren’t well suited for rice production and we should seek out venturing to other productions for better results. When asked what other crops our farmers could do, she mentioned coffee. Perhaps there’s a hint of validity there, as Batangas’ Kapeng Barako is a local celebrity in the coffee industry.
4) I don’t know much about the topic so I could mostly only speculate the statements you have made with us being fascist with regards to economy. Thinking about it, we don’t have a company that independently ventures much outside of our borders. We don’t have companies like Apple or Samsung outsourcing their manufacturing to China. Instead, we ARE the ones being utilized as outsourced workforce, with foreign companies all around hiring Call Centers and Technology. We also have our OFWs.
While our laws may not be well-suited for small and mid-tier businesses as you may claim, it does provide support for the workforce itself. Health benefits and bonuses like 13th Month Pay are mandatory in our country, which are perhaps some laws that may be good for the people but not so for startups and struggling companies.
As a mid-tier working adult, I see TRAIN as a benefit as I managed to gain more spending power. Sure, prices gone up as well but at least we have more room for budgeting.
1) We already know Duterte’s stance being “pro-poor”…
He is “pro poor” in the sense that he panders to what poor people think is right. Here’s the problem: poor people are poor for a reason. The aim should be to get them thinking less like poor people and more like rich people. Giving them more handouts (in the form of a tax break) might be the Filipino Way, but it harms the country and it harms the very people it’s supposedly intended to help.
As for Telstra, why were they even forced into a partnership in the first place? There are plenty of GRP articles on this topic: no company with any sense would give up it’s management autonomy in a country which is already a very challenging business environment. It would be commercial suicide.
3) The assumption is that farmers will always be poor. Farming is a high-skill, high-risk business, which means if you’re good at it you’ll make a lot of money and if you’re not, you’ll go bankrupt. Most “poor farmers” would be better off just selling their land to people who know how to farm. If the government would simply stop interfering in the market – for example, by convincing schoolchildren that they’ll die if they don’t eat rice at every meal – farmers might figure out for themselves what to do.
I don’t think Duterte – or the government in general – really cares about facts. It’s extremely easy to show why rice basically CAUSES poverty, but who’s going to listen? Rice is almost an article of religious faith in this country. Getting Filipinos to stop gorging on rice (and therefore to grow less of it) is just not going to happen. So Filipinos will continue getting sick, the soil and the environment will be destroyed, and farmers will stay poor.
There are actually several organisations who try to teach farmers how to farm properly. I’ve attempted it myself. It’s an impossible task – Filipinos are always right and everyone else is always wrong, so they can’t learn anything new. There are actually thousands of things farmers could grow – I have a huge variety of productive species on my land that I settled on by trial-and-error. However, most farmers just can’t be bothered to do their own research and their own experiments. They’d rather just sit around complaining about how poor they are and waiting for the government to “assist” them.
The bottom line is that poor farmers are poor because they make poor choices, and they make those choices because they have dysfunctional beliefs. It’s very, very hard to change beliefs that have been forced into people’s heads from their earliest years.
4) You can’t “support the workforce” while simultaneously harming businesses; nor can you FORCE people to be decent to their employees. Philippine law fundamentally views employers as horrible bloodsuckers and employees as put-upon serfs. This adversarial view of the business environment is a self-fulfilling prophecy; managers and employees can’t work as a functioning team because the government insists that they should be enemies. Most managers WANT to treat their employees decently, but they can’t do that if the government taxes them heavily (reducing their ability to pay salaries) and have to be always wary of employees who are encouraged to harm them.
You should read the TRAIN act. What’s reported in the press (lower taxes for low earners) is a trivial part of it. The rest will destroy this country’s economy.
Hi Marius,
I read all your comments carefully and what i dont understand – regarding rice – is what the duty and task is of the Philippine department of agriculture (if something like that does exist). They should have the top of the cream knowledge, expertise and experience how and what is best to grow/cultivate (oranges, bananas, corn, strawberries, you name it). They are THE agency to advise the farmers about the best crop and what will have the highest yield/revenue.
In my country we have a specific agricultural university & research center for all Dutch farmers (https://www.wur.nl/).
Robert – It’s complicated. As with most government agencies in the Philippines, there are several agencies supposedly dealing with agriculture, with a confusing relationship and overlapping responsibilities.
To be fair, there are individuals within those agencies who are good, smart people with some great ideas. As usual, though, their opinions are outweighed by the other 90%, who are corrupt, stupid, or lazy. For example, there are a few people (in various departments) who understand organic agriculture and want to promote it … but their opinions undoubtedly conflict with the views of the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, whose job is to promote fertilizers and pesticides.
So yes, there actually is a lot of expertise at those agencies. It just never reaches the farmers. That’s partly because they jealously guard their results: if you want (say) some breeding stock of improved native pigs, you’ll have to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops to get them. It’s not as simple as just turning up at the research station and saying “I’d like to buy four gilts please”. Likewise with improved seeds and plants – the researchers spend a lot of money developing them, but the farmers never seem to get them. However, the main problem is that most farmers just aren’t interested (“lolo grew rice so I’m growing rice too”), or wouldn’t understand what the researchers are talking about. Remember most of them never even went to high school.
Realistically, any farmer who wants to know the latest research COULD go to the local computer shop and search the internet. It’s what I do. It’s what farmers in other countries do. Filipinos don’t do it because … well, I have no idea why they don’t. I guess they just enjoy being poor.
Farming is a funny business, but like most businesses, you’ll make the most money by doing what your competitors are NOT doing. If a rice dealer arrives in a rice-growing area bidding for palay (unmilled rice) he can offer the lowest possible price … because EVERYONE needs to get rid of their rice harvest. If you’re selling (say) organic salad vegetables to a four-star hotel, YOU name your price. Farmers shouldn’t really need governments to tell them things like this: if it isn’t obvious, they shouldn’t be trying to farm.
As regards rice specifically, I’m guessing there is a “rice mafia” that profits enormously from the processing and marketing of rice. Likewise with sugar. There is no logical reason for the Philippines to grow such an enormous quantity of rice, especially since they’re not even very good at it (average yield here is about 3.5 tonnes per hectare – the global average for SRI rice is about twice that).
dito lang sa bansa natin mahirap ang mga farmers. di ko maintindihan.
the website is in German? cant read it unfortunately.
1) I have heard people calling Duterte a “populist” politician, in that he “represents the interests of ordinary people”. That is something rarely seen in our political circus, in that our incumbent president offers more than just lip service (with regards to our marginalized sector). You could freely take that as “pandering the poor”, and he’s simply fulfilling his campaign platform.
Binay also projected himself as “pro-poor”, but unfortunately for him a lot of his dirt have been dug up. Manny Villar’s 2010 campaign also gives off this feeling with his “presidential jingle”. Meanwhile, Roxas projected his stance as being “pro-elite” whether it was intentional or not as well as “continuing the status quo”. Pardon if I’m digressing.
Telstra’s partnership is a way to go around that infamous law about prohibiting foreign ownership. Speculating on the law’s intent, it’s supposed to support the local small businesses but in practice it has been exploited by many of our local large corporations like PLDT and Globe to do away with potential competitors.
3) What is amusing about the rice industry is that most of our neighbors learned how to farm their rice from us. More specifically, the International Rice Research Institute. SEA Countries where rice is also their staple like Thailand and Malaysia apparently went to study here and now they’ve been reaping the benefits. What I don’t understand here is why couldn’t we have done the same? IRRI was based on UP Los Baños (??) so our soon-to-be farmers in the 60’s and 70’s could have studied there and learned how to do their livelihood a lot better.
But if I try to could answer my own question, I could speculate that our farmers may have had no money to enroll in UPLB, despite it already being a state university and tuition shouldn’t be that high. If that is the case then I think this is where the government should have had lent their hand. Either Arroyo’s father Diosdado or the infamous Marcos could have subsidized the study which could have benefited our country in the long term but they did not apparently, seeing as our rice farmer are presently struggling in their business.
4) I admit I have little knowledge about TRAIN, but I can say I’m not totally ignorant of it. I know not about the implications of TRAIN for businesses as I do not have prior reason to learn about its intricacies. Besides the income tax adjustment (which should have been long overdue in my opinion), the TRAIN law essentially spiked our inflation rate this year. Alongside increased revenue by the working class we also get increased taxation on the goods we buy. Sugar related products as well as gasoline (if I remember correctly) suffered a significant increase in price due to taxation. But as I mentioned, I still took this as a benefit (a net benefit with pros just slightly outweighing cons) as a mid-tier working adult who does not own a business myself.
I see the managers vs employees as a gross generalization on your part. I can only speak from experience, but I don’t think government taxation should have any effect on team dynamics. Good relations between managers and employees is mostly affected by the work environment. If the environment is toxic, then talking with each other may easily turn sour. If the environment is friendly, then communication would at least be productive and fruitful. This is so far true from the lowly office workers up to the middle managers, but from what I perceive in upper management I still don’t think government taxes affect their relationship with their employees. That would just be very unprofessional. What could likely sour their relationship would be work-related issues like under-performance.
Again, I can only speak based on my experience, but at most I could mostly speculate that any company that practices even a glimmer of professionalism could also observe this.
@Random citizen
“What is amusing about the rice industry is that most of our neighbors learned how to farm their rice from us. More specifically, the International Rice Research Institute. SEA Countries where rice is also their staple like Thailand and Malaysia apparently went to study here and now they’ve been reaping the benefits. What I don’t understand here is why couldn’t we have done the same? IRRI was based on UP Los Baños (??) so our soon-to-be farmers in the 60’s and 70’s could have studied there and learned how to do their livelihood a lot better.”
Just to answer one of your point, IMHO it is with the mentality of Filipinos in the 60’s and 70’s. According to my father in law, his parents would rather have them help tilt the land than go to school (elementary). Their reasoning is that it is useless to go to school as they would also be farmers when they grow old, learning to read and count is enough.
That sounds like a really backwards mindset. Do most Flilipino farmers think like that? I don’t want to think so but their present situation does not really help me think otherwise. They can’t just say “My parents and their parents have been farmers their whole lives, so you can’t teach us anything about farming that we don’t already know”.
At least let them finish High School (as in Philippine High School equivalent to Middle school everywhere else + 1 year of actual high school). Learning English is extremely important in modern communication, Mathematics can help with their finances, and even some bit of Science helps as they rely mostly on nature for their crops. Studying Agriculture and maybe some bit of Marketing should have helped them on their lives.
I know I’m not in a place to say this, but money shouldn’t be their biggest hurdle to education. Government should have invested in college education for those who are willing. If our government couldn’t do that then at least offer loans to them which they can repay by harvest.
@Random citizen
Fortunately not all, my grandfather who is a farmer have sent my mother to college. And I have a friend back in college in which his parents are farmers but they still send him to college, unfortunately he didn’t finish his course but he has a good job now since he really is industrious
@Random
1) sure, he’s fulfilling his campaign promise. What he should have done was this: “haha, suckers! Now we’re going to fix this country properly.”
2) The IRRI was indeed world-class. I think what basically happened is that they became irrelevant. SRI-based organic cultivation has taken over in Thailand and India. Uneducated farmers found out that rice farming isn’t that difficult if you do it right. People lost interest in the overbred, chemical-dependent, tasteless varieties that IRRI was focused on.
You don’t really need money to be a good farmer. There are lots of useful plants that you can go out and collect for free (or almost free). Much of my land is covered with ipil-ipil, kakawati, trichanthera, vetiver, centrosema, arachis pintoi, and assorted native trees that I don’t even know the name of. The vetiver and trichanthera cost me a few hundred pesos. These plants keep the soil healthy and alive, and I also use them for animal forage. You can then intercrop practically anything else that you like – I have chilis, peppers, beans, papaya, green vegetables, all the usual stuff. Seeds are cheap. You don’t need a university degree either. You just have to love what you’re doing and enjoy learning more about it.
4) I wasn’t referring to taxes but to the laws and agencies that govern employee-employer relations. DOLE, for example, is staffed by unpleasant little people who enjoy their power trip at the expense of employers. I know a few business owners – good, decent people who treat their employees well – who have been burned by horrible employees (eg., people caught stealing) who know they can get “compensation” via DOLE if they play their cards right.
Anyway, my basic point was that, unless the government allows business owners to reap the rewards from their hard work – instead of punishing them – fewer and fewer people are going to start businesses, which inevitably means less employment. Excessive taxation is just part of the problem; people lie to the BIR because, if they told the truth, they’d be taxed out of existence. The BIR probably knows this, but they go along with the charade because it provides ample opportunities for skimming.
1) But that wouldn’t really help him win the elections, would it? He could try and promise being pro-poor while not actually delivering it, but then the Filipino people would crucify him for his empty promises just like his predecessors. Such is politics I guess.
2) So IRRI became obsolete come modern age. That was something I wasn’t aware of. But wouldn’t education have helped farmers regardless? At least, have them know about modern machineries that could allow them to harvest faster instead of relying on centuries old way of carabaos.
Interesting variety you have there. I know little about farming so I won’t comment on your activities there. What I may want to ask is how big is your land? If I remember correctly, a lot of farmers only have as small as a regular backyard lot to work their crops so they can’t really grow many varieties.
“You just have to love what you’re doing and enjoy learning more about it” is something universal. If the farmers became farmers just because their entire ancestry were also farmers then there may be a chance they don’t like what they’re doing and they live on their lives that way.
4) Do pardon but I still don’t see how the law can directly affect employer-employee relations. Seems to me that your example is a problem of character, that should have been filtered out during interviews.
But perhaps your point is the laws being “too oppressive” for starting up businesses that people start to cheat the systems to get away with taxes while BIR just lets them be so they could file tax evasion cases for bigger pay-offs? Still no, because then there’s corruption on both sides. I don’t think you can legislate against corruption. Someone will always find something to “game” around the system to their advantage.
As I mention, to me it’s a problem of character. Do pardon that we do not see the situation the same way. You put the blame on the system, while I put the blame on the person.
1) He already won the election. He doesn’t need to care what poor people think. If he refused to give handouts, the poor would initially be upset. However, something as simple as fixing the tax and business-permit system would provide an avalanche of new jobs, and they’d soon stop complaining.
2) >> At least, have them know about modern machineries that could allow them to harvest faster instead of relying on centuries old way of carabaos.
There are three issues here:
a) The ideal scenario would be to have machinery-hire companies (as in other countries) that farmers could rent from when required. However, the nature of business laws makes this sort of business very difficult to run: for example, the BIR will still demand that you pay tax on nonexistent income during the off-season.
b) Most farmers let their carabao roam free (often on other people’s land, causing damage and arguments) so they think a carabao is “free”. It isn’t, of course. They’re just unable to calculate the economics of carabao vs. machines, especially if they can steal forage from neighbors or idle land.
c) Rice farming (as practiced here) is inherently unprofitable. It literally doesn’t return any profit, especially since most farmers borrow money at high interest rates. So farmers can’t pay for the machinery they need. There are only two solutions: learn proper rice-growing techniques and financial management, or stop growing rice.
My land is a bit less than 2 hectares, which is a very average size. It’s just right for one person to manage with occasional help.
>> If the farmers became farmers just because their entire ancestry were also farmers then there may be a chance they don’t like what they’re doing and they live on their lives that way.
Indeed. Most “farmers” see their position as a life sentence. They hate farming, they hate the land, and they hate nature. What possible good result could they expect? They best option would be to sell their farms and leave. This is why I argue against CARP grants to “poor farmers” – they’re the very people who should NOT be in charge of managing the country’s land.
4) >> I don’t think you can legislate against corruption. Someone will always find something to “game” around the system to their advantage.
Yes, but my point is that the legislation ENCOURAGES corruption. Because it’s impossible to follow the law, people become corrupt. If the laws were simpler and fairer, there would be less incentive to be corrupt: in other words, you’d make more money by following the law. Most first-world governments understand this: they make the tax laws very easy to comply with, and they don’t attempt to tax more than is reasonable.
The TRAIN tax rates are mathematically impossible. No business will be able to comply without cooking the books. Corruption is going to explode: you watch.
@marius
“There are actually several organisations who try to teach farmers how to farm properly. I’ve attempted it myself. It’s an impossible task – Filipinos are always right and everyone else is always wrong, so they can’t learn anything new.”
If you dont mind me asking, where in the Philippines have you tried conducting it?
Before I have seen a show where the farmers (mountain province I think) changed their crops from vegetables to orchids as the profits are higher.
And then there was Leyte farmers after Yolanda, in which the coconut bud was provided for free and they just have to plant it, but most of them just let it rot away. Their reason is that it will take a decade before they could harvest anything.
@Tokwa: I agree with your assessment of Filipino farmers; they just don’t want to learn anything new. They know so little that they don’t realize that just learning to read and count is not enough. Farming is a very high-skill occupation. People who don’t have much brains (or at least no interest in self-improvement) should not be doing it.
You’re also right about government planting materials. The basic mistake they make is in GIVING this stuff away. They should simply sell it at market prices. Obviously, only people who think they can make a profit would pay up front.
On the other hand, the farmers were quite right to ignore the coconuts. It’s not so much that they have a slow yield; they have a LOW yield. Most of the coconut plants the gov’t gave away were unimproved varieties, and nobody knows how to intercrop. As you may be aware, there is even a law that makes it illegal to cut down coconut, which is utterly ridiculous. Typhoons actually do coconut farmers a favor (potentially – it depends what they planted after the coconut is destroyed).
As you said, there are a few farmers who, of their own accord, try different products. I know a guy who makes a load of money with a dairy-goat herd (Nubians, I believe – not the local vermin that everyone has tied up on a piece of string with no plan for proper care or profit). Such people almost always do well. However, all their neighbors laugh at them and tell them they ought to be growing rice, because that’s what good Filipinos do.
Here’s a challenge those who gave my post a -2 markdown: state your point. If you have an argument against my position, out with it. Don’t just sit there sullenly pressing the “thumbs down” button every time you see something you don’t like but that you KNOW IS BASICALLY TRUE.
@marius
The points you have posted have been happening for the longest time and IMHO the likelihood outcome is a status quo. The worse case scenario is that the Philippines will be as poor as North Korea.
The bottom line is that Filipinos still cannot come to terms with the reality of a competitive world and that, in such a world, there will always be winners and losers.
For the most part of their history, Filipinos have failed to win in a competitive world. As such, they continue to be losers. Losers cannot be turned into winners through coddling and constant assurance that they could win. The only way to turn losers into winners is to make them more competitive and develop the capability to compete. Prayer won’t achieve that. Pride won’t achieve that. And, certainly, throwing tantrums over how the world is so “unfair” will not achieve that.
For those people who are willing to do a walkout on the middle of their & make a protest against President Duterte on Feb. 23 & 25 both on state-owned & private universities in our country, guess what? I’d found this video from Youtube recently and sadly not only you’re wasting on time to make a senseless protest against our president but after you’ll graduate on college with a diploma hanging on your house’s wall, YOU’LL BECOME AN UNEMPLOYED IN THE END because most of the companies here & abroad right now are looking mostly on the people who have a greater skills rather than having a college degree: https://youtu.be/fo3As36trkA
The world had change alright, and if those kind of people who are still making complains & hate to our current president & do nothing about it, then their lives will be wasted & their future will be forever on darkness. I’d warned you guys, its not the problem of our president or our country but the REAL problem is YOU, the Filipinos who have a “Crab Mentality”!!! >:(
What a waste of time. Only thing it proved (again) is that democracy is alive and well in the philippines.
communist, fascist and dictatorships do not allow this sort of behavior.
Instead of enforcing a law that enforces control, i’d call for educational reform. Recycle all the agoncilio books and use the paper to print work of william henry scott. remove filipino from STEM courses. turn mass comm, humanities, pol sci courses into quota courses to limit the students, and open up all engineering and science courses. That way we’d end up with more doctors and engineers rather than aspiring journalists, artists and politicians.
I really dont understand the problem here. The mature adults – the students – (or their parents) paid the tuition fees. For the university, the money is in the bag/pocket. Students at a university dont fall under the compulsory education regime anymore. So the students skipped/shirked class; do you really think the teacher/professor cares about that? His/her salary wil be paid at end of the month anyway. There is really no difference with me (as a student) being ill/sick a day and not being able to attend class for a day (or even longer).
In my country, a university doesnt keep track of who does not show up at class. Its your own responsibility. We are not pupils anymore. We are grown-ups now.
@Robert Haighton
“Revenue gain from the Senate version of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) measure will fund implementation of the free-tuition law that needs P51 billion, according to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).”
“During the budget hearing of CHEd on Thursday, Licuanan said the IRR is expected to be out in October, and that the funding requirement is approximately P51 billion to cover the free tuition in 111 SUCs and the University of the Philippines”
http://www.manilatimes.net/revenue-tax-bill-fund-free-tuition/352223/
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Page 6
http://www.ntrc.gov.ph/images/Publications/where-does-your-tax-money-go.pdf
Tokwa,
do I understand correctly – from your comment – that every form/level of education in PH is free? So from kindergarten, primary/elementary, secondary/grade/high school, college till universaity?
Well, even if so, it doesnt change my mind about the subject. Whether I am ill or going to protest, I will miss a day (or more) at school. In both cases (illness or other cause), I have to catch up what I missed in my own time. The professor (teacher) will get his/her salary at the end of the month and nobody will actually miss me at school (even when I am ill/sick).
The layout of most classes at a university in my country are identical to what you see in an amphi theater. Its huge and big. And we dont wear school uniforms (its simply not part of our culture).
Furthermore, I dont understand why people are (still) ‘afraid’ of or even against communism in your country. It (communism) doesnt work. There was a communist (political) party in my country but it doesnt exist anymore. It was founded in 1909 and ceased to exist (dissolved) in 1990.
@Robert Haighton
Filipinos have the option to go to a public kindergarden, elementary, high school, and college, in which it will be subsidized by the goverment.
If the student is ill, then it is understandable. But if they will cut class to go to a protest, then it is a waste of tax payers money. If they will go to a protest after their class, then IMHO most people won’t have a problem with it.
I think the uniform is an Asian culture (ex. Japan, Korea, etc.). And the theater layout takes more space and cost more to build.
What makes you say the Filipinos are afraid of communism? And does the communist in your country have their own army in which they clash with the regular army, and collects revolutionary tax? Thank you.
Tokwa,
What I understand from conversations with pinays, is that a university in PH is or can be something completely different than compared to what a university is in my country.
University in my country is THE highest level of education and only doable for people with high IQ.
Every level of education in my country is subsidised but not for 100%. Parents still have to pay tuition. For me, I find that obvious and logical. Parents also have to invest in their own kids.
For me there is no difference in what a student does during classes or after classes. If a student simply doesnt want to go to class but instead wants to go shopping or even wants to stay at home or go to a protest => fine with me. The student may shoot himself in his own foot bec he has to catch up the missed classes in his own spare time.
What makes me say that it seems that PH people are afraid of communism? Well based on all articles written about it here (GRP) and elsewhere. Politically and economically its a dead end (communism).
Communism in my country is dead and they (The Dutch communist party) never had an army.
What does the PH constitution says about communism? Is it illegal/legal to establish/found a political party based on communist doctrine?
In a way, I take it that the Philippines have troubles of keeping up its own laws. People getting killed bec they are on drugs but not one is looking for the actual killers. Hence, I am NOT surprised that there are communist insurgencies.
Your police and judicial system doesnt work. Thats very clear to me. If I can kill a drug addict and no one’s coming after me, its just a free state to kill. Wild wild west? Or better yet, “wild wild east”?
@Robert Haighton
IMHO every university in the world is different, there are good universities and there are bad universities. It doesn’t matter what country were are talking about.
There are state and private organization scholars, in which the parents doesn’t spend a dime and the sponsor even provides monetary allowances.
With reference to the articles in GRP, IMHO they are against it, not afraid of it. There is a big difference.
And your comparison about the communism in the Philippines with regards to your country is way off as the situation is different.
And BTW what are we talking about here? How long do the students stay away from class to protest? One single day? Is that all? Can we pls differentiate/distinquish between what are primary/main and secondary issues.
If there are teachers/professors who are pro-communism then that should be dealt with by the rules (guidelines) set by the individual schools as long as that does not conflict with national or even international law.
@Robert Haighton
It doesn’t matter if they miss 1 class or 1 week of class, it doesn’t change the fact that they are wasting tax payers money.
And teachers/professors who encourages protest during class hour is another issue that IMHO should be dealt severely. It could be liken to skipping work to protest.
Tokwa,
I dont see the point of ‘tax payers money being wasted’. The money is spend on (school) buildings, text books and the salary of the professor/teacher. Again, if I dont show up in class, I am shooting myself in the foot (short term). I haved to catch up the subject of the class in my own free/spare time.
If a teacher is promoting to skip class in favour of protesting (no matter what the actual protest is about) then its a different matter (iMO). A professor should always shy away from politics & religion. This should be mentioned in the schools rules/guidelines (of being a professor at school X). If a teacher fails to comply to the guidelines/rules then it is a reason for sacking him (IMO).
So, best way to solve this is organising protests during weekends or evenings only..
@Robert Haighton
In a private institution, a professor earns his/her salary by teaching, his/her salary is being shouldered by his/her student by paying their tuition fee. Same with the construction of new facilities, building maintenance, utilities, etc.
In a public institution, the professor’s salary is being paid by the government. Same with the construction of new facilities, building maintenance, utilities, etc. Indirectly the government is paying for the student’s tuition fee (even if not completely), and the government will get the money through tax.
They could always go after class, and based from my experience, a college student will have a class for half a day. If you are unlucky enough, you will have a class in the morning then the next class will be in the evening, they could go during their idle time.
Tokwa,
Have you ever sat down and thought hard what the idea behind a school uniform can be?
Here is my idea: To show that everybody is equal, identical and the same. We are all living in the same poverty and all are looking the same.
I beg to differ. So pls get rid of that (stupid) system and uniform. And secondly, I guess that parents have to pay for it. I am sure they (the parents) can use that money for much better things. So culture or not, pls get rid of it. We are not the same, we are not equal.
@Robert Haighton
Yes, there are pros and cons in wearing a uniform. It should usually have a purpose.
And based from my experience, during elementary and high school I didn’t care if I wear a uniform. During college I was against it thus I was happy when it was not required to wear a uniform. Then I came to the realization that I don’t have many casual clothes as we are not exactly rich, thus you could almost see me wearing the same clothes every week. It basically became my uniform as they would say.
wow. A billion US$ being thrown down the toilet every year so that people who didn’t even make it through high school can pretend to earn a degree.
A lot of UP profs actually encourage the walk outs. Saves them time and energy to conduct classes and even give themselves a pat on the back for their “civic awareness”. If there’s culling that needs to be done, start with the faculty.
i simply cannot fathom why these UP students have to result to such acts of blatant vandalism when they can resort to solving issues via peaceful, more civil and diplomatic means. But the truth is, think of how these misguided students of the State University are not doing themselves a very big favour with their unruly behaviour! It is obvious that they have the funding, as well as support of these Leftist/radical groups whose Marxist-Leninist rhetorics are out of touch with the changing socio-economic-political shifts of the day. Not only that. they set a very bad example to our youth with their misguided values that promote chaos, indifference and insensitivity instead of instilling more productive values such as diligence, the quest for learning and being open-minded to improve themselves and for the society that they are part of. Let us also never forget that these UP radicals who drag the State University’s good name through the mud, represent only a minority of the institute’s entire population. It’s high time the authorities from UP thoroughly re-evaluate these radicals–and give them the appropriate punishment that they deserve, as they waste taxpayers’ money!