EvEryman

By Melandrew T. Velasco

COINCIDING with the celebration of Philippine Environment Month last June, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System led by MWSS administrator Leonor Cleofas and the Million Trees Foundation, Inc. (MTFI) recognized partners in the Annual Million Trees Challenge (AMTC) project.

It was an auspicious event as the AMTC awards and pledging session for 2023 was also held on June 27, 2023, two days after Arbor Day. As President and Executive Director of MTFI, I am happy to note that once more like in previous years the commitments of AMTC project partners breached the one million trees target.

The goal is to plant 10 million more trees until 2030.

To date, 6.8 million trees have been planted in the seven critical watershed beneficiaries of AMTC.

Closed forest cover in the watersheds increased by 5,734 hectares in 2020.

It has been seven years when MWSS, under Administrator Gen. Reynaldo V. Velasco (ret) initiated the AMTC to rehabilitate the watersheds of Angat-Ipo, Kaliwa, La Mesa, Laguna Lake, Umiray, Upper Marikina, and Manila Bay that were critical to the water supply for Metro Manila and adjoining provinces of Rizal, Bulacan, and parts of Cavite. It is a step toward achieving water security in MWSS coverage areas.

MTFI is the non-government organization

This now explains why the economic policy of decoupling will never work if that country sought to be decoupled is economically bigger than the decoupling state.

This is logically simple.

How can the US, for instance, impose trade sanction against China, when world trade reveals now that China stands with the highest production and manufacturing companies in the world?

This means that China now produces the highest number of manufactured goods or, in simplest term, the greatest producer of wealth.

This explains why the US will not succeed in decoupling China.

The US can never absorb China’s total exports as a way to decouple that country.

Since 1973 when they abandoned the gold in a devise to measure its economic growth, from then on, it relied on its GDP to increase the US dollar in circulation.

US economists thought that increasing the dollar could increase their business profit, unaware that it could result in the diminution of US imports.

From the consumer’s point of view, such could result in inflation or from the businessman’s angle, it results in the devaluation of the currency.

This inevitably resulted in higher production cost for American manufactured goods with China cashing in to increase its exports to the US.

Instead of decreasing the sale of US treasury bonds to decrease foreign debt from China and Japan, the unabetted sale of these bonds was an easy way to augment the US dollar, knowing it to be the reserve international currency of the world.

As US trade deficit against China widens to such astronomical level, the idea of decoupling China is likely to end up as more of a pipe dream.

Former US President Trump’s idea of imposing tariff has backfired as it turned out to be a tax on US imports from China.

The US has to economically surpass China both in production and manufacturing to effectively decouple that country where it once stood as the world’s greatest manufacturing state ranked after WW II. (rpkapunan@gmail.com)

How can we forget the much-maligned 2019

SEA Games logo that cost the organizers a huge amount of money to conceptualize?

The logo, a combination of eight plain circles resembling the Philippine map, was supposedly made by a foreign design company.

Now comes this video fiasco involving the Department of Tourism and a multinational advertising agency. The DOT was said to have allotted P49 million to develop its new slogan “Love the Philippines” as its newest campaign, to be kicked off by a promotional video showing the different tourist attractions in the Philippines. This went puff as following discovery the videos were not originally produced and used stock footage of foreign locations. The agency was dropped, and the DOT is moving on and keeping the slogan.

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been chief executive for a year now and SONA season is upon us yet again.

Last year, I wrote about my expectations for SONA, what must be addressed, and an analysis after he gave his speech.

To start off this year, let’s look at some important issues that we wanted him to address. Have we moved forward from last year?

On the drug war, human rights, and defenders

When Marcos Jr. replaced Duterte, we had hoped for the end of the drug war.

In one of my SONA articles, I mentioned, “[W]ith a new chief executive in place, we can hope that the violent war on drugs Duterte has imposed will be transformed completely. Marcos Jr. has already mentioned that the drug war must be done “within the law.”

He has also told foreign leaders that while he is to keep the war against drugs, he would shift to the rehabilitation of drug users.

On the contrary, the World Report 2023 from Human Rights Watch states that deaths of thousands have continued under the police and their agents. We had also looked forward to the “lessen(ed) violence against activists and people from the basic sectors” as Marcos’ National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos said, “Red-tagging should be stopped.”

Despite this statement, the red-tagging and human rights violations against activists have continued.

Just last June 14, the Fausto family (spouses Roly and Emelda, and children Ben and Ravin), was massacred in Negros Occidental. The mother, Emelda, was a member of the Baclayan, Bito, Cabagal Farmers and Farmworkers Association (BABICAFA).

According to Karapatan, Roly and Emelda have also been experiencing harassment from the Armed Forces of the Philippines. These human rights violations also bleed into the sector of environment defenders. Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo De Jesus, indigenous rights advocates, are yet to be surfaced.

They are the 7th and 8th enforced disappearance victims under Marcos Jr. The attacks against indigenous peoples, our frontline environment defenders, have also

There are Russians, Kazakh, German and American vloggers who command millions of followers on their YouTube channels and they have a lot of videos telling why the Philippines is a country worth visiting persisted.

Nothing bad, really, with the “Love the Philippines” event if it’s not an original idea.

This has already been used by the Dominican Republic for its tourism campaign called I Love Dominican Republic.

The Philippines has been labeled as one of the ost dangerous countries for environmental activists and land defenders in Asia.

On the economy, agriculture, and labor

In one of my previous articles, I also mentioned that “inflation has reached the country’s shores.” This has only gotten worse since.

Everyday needs and goods are getting harder and harder to purchase for ordinary people.

This inflation has caused households to lose some of their income.

There is still much to discuss about the coming up SONA but these key points should give us enough perspective as to where we are a year later

The recent wage hike of P40 per day is not substantial enough to cover this loss.

On the front of labor, Marcos Jr. said, “Rest assured that this administration is working conscientiously to [...] uplift the living [...] conditions of our workers and their families.”

However, on the concrete, Luke Espiritu, president of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, said while foreign investments can create more jobs, it markets Filipino workers as “cheap, flexible, [and] precarious labor.”

The provision of jobs is not only about creating jobs, but also making sure workers will be protected and compensated well in these jobs. We have been leaning on foreign powers like a crutch–not just in the labor sector, but also in agriculture.

Since Marcos Jr. decided to head the

The word LOVE endears to all people of colors, sizes, and shapes and encompasses everything positive.

But the Philippines must do better. The DOT must show more unique reasons why foreign travelers love the Philippines.

The DOT or its marketing agency doesn’t have to go far to get precise answers.

Go ask the foreigners already staying for years in the country. Just watch the YouTube channels showing why foreign visitors love the Philippines.

There are Russians, Kazakh, German and American vloggers who command millions of followers on their YouTube channels and they have a lot of videos telling why the Philippines is a country worth visiting.

And they will tell you, that we have the nicest beaches in Asia and, most of all, it’s the people. These foreign vloggers say Filipinos are the kindest people in the world.

That’s according to their personal experiences and after doing social experiments. Despite the economic hardship the country is going through, Filipinos always have time to smile.

It’s really not difficult to Love the Philippines.

Department of Agriculture, I wrote last year, “With one of these Cabinet heads being Marcos himself, we must expect him to truly lead us to a better place when it comes to food security.” Despite this leadership, we still find ourselves importing goods to respond to high food prices.

We have been neglecting resolving the problems of local agriculture. This importation not only entrenches us even more in a lack of production, it also brings loss to our farmers.

On public services: health and education

On the discussion of public services, we had hoped that face-to-face classes would be implemented at a much wider range as distance learning had sacrificed the quality of education. On this end, we are somewhat successful. Most students have returned to school; even more of them will in the coming school year. Outside of this though, there is not much to celebrate.

As for our health sector, while the pandemic infections have slowed down, we still experienced a few surges.

The sector appears to struggle with management and protocols with the lack of a Department of Health secretary.

(Editor’s Note: President Marcos Jr. appointed Teodoro Herbosa secretary of the Department of Health on June 5, 2023.)

The demand for a salary increase for public school teachers and health workers has also gone ignored.

To think that people from these sectors have been some of the most gravely affected by the pandemic.

There is still much to discuss about the coming up SONA but these key points should give us enough perspective as to where we are a year later.

Are we better off?

Have Filipinos’ lives improved at all?

What do we want to hear for the next one, and what do we want to be done?