What will happen in Copenhagen?
All who are supposed to be bright, scientific and concerned about the fate of mankind and the planet must contribute to solving the climate change/global warming problem. On Wednesday, in Singapore, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting of foreign and other ministers, in preparation for this weekend’s APEC summit meeting, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on world leaders to be prepared to agree on a compromise at next month’s talks in Copenhagen.
“We cannot let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of progress,” Secretary Clinton said.
The December 7 to 18 Copenhagen talks are organized to achieve a global agreement on slashing greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the impact of climate change before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. But the US is not a signatory of the Kyoto Treaty, which then President G. W. Bush did not wish to bind US business and industry.
President Barack Obama will attend the summit in Singapore.
One of Obama’s first acts was to bring the USA into the climate-change negotiations. That is one reason he is very popular abroad.
Secretary Clinton said if all the countries “exert maximum effort and embrace the right blend of pragmatism and principle, I believe we can secure a strong outcome at Copenhagen.”
She also said, “we [the US] are committed to reaching the goal of a global, legally binding climate agreement, and will continue working vigorously with the international community toward that end.”
She affirmed that she had “fruitful discussions” on climate change with counterparts from the 21-member APEC forum, whose members include China, Russia, Japan and other countries of the Pacific Rim.
The APEC member countries account for 60 percent of global greenhouse emissions that pollute the Earth and cause global warming and climate change. But the industrialized countries, especially the US and China (which are the top emitters), cause some 90 percent of the harmful emissions while the Philippines emits very much less than 1 percent and is considered to be adding virtually no harm to the planet. This has emboldened President Arroyo to call for a system in which the heaviest polluters and greenhouse gas emitters should pay the non-emitting countries. These are actually more vulnerable to climate change.
Despite Secretary Clinton’s plea for cooperation and compromise, most experts think, as of this writing, that the possibility of the Copenhagen meeting reaching a decisive agreement to correct and strengthen the Kyoto Protocol is zero.
Therefore, mankind and our planet are doomed—if some of the more scary prophets are to be believed.
There have been several preparatory meetings prior to the Copenhagen one next month. Representatives of 180 nations have joined in these talks throughout the world. None of the meetings gives hope there will be a happy compromise as Secretary Clinton called for in Singapore.
If God wills that a compromise arises out of the APEC Leaders’ Summit this weekend, then perhaps the APEC countries could persuade the rest of the world.
But the biggest opposing views are those of the Western industrialized countries, principally the US (the second biggest emitter) versus China and India. The latter two would not agree to be bound by new strict limits if the USA does not agree to much greater limits. They argue that the older industrialized countries were the ones that caused more damage through the past centuries. They should be penalizecd while China and India should not be prevented from achieving higher levels of industrialization using greenhouse gas emitting fuels. China is the No. 1 emitter country. India is No. 4.
There is supposed to be a United Nations Adaptation Fund, which kicked in 2008, to help less developed countries pay for projects to curb the effects of global warming. The rich industrialized countries were supposed to contribute to the fund. Until now the fund is only $18 million. Together, our Manny Pacquiao, Dr. Lucio Tan, Taipans Henry Sy and Lance Gokongwei and a couple of our jueteng lords would be able to comfortably donate more than that laughable amount.
What me worry?
The battle between the US et al. and China-India et al. appears to have assumed an ideological overtone. Yet both of the two opposed blocs don’t seem to mind the global-warming/climate change status quo.
Why?
Could the reason be that both sides have in fact decided to side with those scientists who dispute the
UN-backed finding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) because it is pure bunkum?
The number of scientists who don’t buy the IPCC’s frightening scenario is growing. Numbers have made them sound less like voices from the fringe.
Those who are now making fun of Al Gore’s fame and profitable advocacy have doubled, at least in colleges and in the Internet.
We can imagine Beavis and Butthead, and oh yes, MAD’s Alfred E. Neuman, smiling at our global warming fears and telling us:
The ice caps have melted before. Yes, carbon emissions have increased in the last century because of fossil fuels. Yes, global average temperature has increased 0.8 degrees F. But, hey, the temperature increase came first—before 1940, 20 years before the surge of carbon emissions from the geometrically increased population of cars, trucks and factories! How can we trust scientists who call the results the cause?
The anti-IPCC scientists have many more words to say.
But one remembers that only 30 years ago, the scare was against the New Ice Age. So scientists were introducing ideas to cover the ice caps with soot and black paint to make them absorb more heat and get melted faster. (Excerpt from Manila Times)
MANILA - A war of words between the Philippine government and a separatist Muslim rebel group over the kidnapping of an Irish missionary threatens to derail the lobbying efforts of the United States to bring the two sides back to peace negotiations.
The renewed animosity has flared up ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's scheduled arrival in Manila on Thursday for a two-day visit to press Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to resume their stalled peace talks. Clinton, who will later proceed to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, is expected to reiterate Washington's long-standing offer to help push the talks to restore peace and normalcy in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
Malaysia had previously brokered the talks, but it seems no longer keen to host further meetings after it last year pulled out its contingent of "peace monitors" from Mindanao. Backed by the Organization of Islamic Conference, Malaysia expressed frustration over the continued hostilities between security forces and the MILF which led to the collapse of the ceasefire agreement.
The possibility of resuming negotiations also appears dim after Manila accused the MILF of involvement in the October 11 abduction of an Irish priest, Michael Sinnot. The 79-year-old Sinnot was seized by armed men in Pagadian city, 1,000 kilometers south of Manila, and reportedly brought to MILF-controlled areas in the predominantly Muslim province of Lanao del Sur.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno said the MILF was responsible for the Catholic priest's abduction and that the government would not entertain the kidnappers' demand for a US$12 million ransom in exchange for the prelate's freedom.
But the MILF, which boasts 12,000 fighters, strongly denied the government's charge, branding it as "cheap propaganda" and "an affront to the peace process".
As tensions mounted anew in Mindanao, hundreds of residents in some Maguindanao towns reportedly fled after the MILF began massing its heavily armed forces following rumors that the military was poised to launch rescue operations. Despite the row over Sinnot's kidnapping, senior US Embassy officials in Manila have held clandestine meetings with MILF leaders in their Maguindanao camp. The US Embassy has kept mum on the meetings, but on its website, the MILF confirmed in a statement that it had held talks with a visiting group of American diplomats led by the US Embassy charge d'affaires, Leslie Basset, on October 16.
The US is a major aid donor, including for various development projects, making it a key stakeholder in Mindanao's peace process. It has provided funds and built roads, bridges, school buildings and other infrastructure projects, particularly in impoverished Muslim-populated areas in Mindanao.
As part of the Visiting Forces Agreement, the US has also extended training and intelligence support to Filipino troops in their counter-terrorism operations. MILF vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar told the visiting US diplomats that the MILF welcomed Washington's offer to push the peace process.
On President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's request, Malaysia has been facilitating the talks since 2001 to help put an end to the Muslim insurgency in Mindanao that has claimed 120,000 lives and displaced more than two million people. The current US ambassador, Kristie Kenney, who also previously visited MILF leaders in their camp for talks, said the US was leaving it to Manila and the MILF to decide what role the US would play in the talks.
Despite the MILF's well-documented acts of terrorism violence, the US has surprisingly excluded the secessionist group from its global list of terrorist organizations. The Islamic extremists Abu Sayyaf and communist-led New People's Army are currently the only Philippine groups on Washington's list.
By Al Labita who has worked as a journalist for over 30 years, including as a regional bureau chief and foreign editor for the Philippine News Agency. He has worked as a Manila correspondent for several major local publications and wire agencies in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
THE Australian government came to Sri Lanka this week bearing gifts in the hope of winning co-operation in its bid to reduce asylum-seeker numbers.
One was material: $11 million towards de-mining the former northern conflict zone and resettling about 250,000 civilians still held behind razor wire in internally displaced people (IDP) camps. The other was less tangible: rhetoric that pandered to the Sri Lankan view that most asylum-seekers are Tamil Tigers seeking to reinvigorate the separatist struggle from distant shores.
Both bore the whiff of appeasement.
While the EU is poised to withdraw Sri Lanka's tax exemption status for textile exports, worth $US3.3 billion annually, because of reported human rights abuses there, and the US administration has called for the camps and former conflict zones to be opened to international scrutiny, Australian officials say they prefer a more "constructive" approach.
In a joint news conference late on Monday night to announce a memorandum of understanding on people-smuggling, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith emphasised the importance of apprehending and prosecuting criminal and terror syndicates behind the
Australia's latest financial contribution will provide $6m to clear mines in resettlement areas, $2m for food assistance to people who have been resettled and $3m through the UN for housing reconstruction work. Excerpt from The Australian article by Amanda Hodge
HUA HIN, Thailand - Cambodia's long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen, with a thumping parliamentary majority and a war-traumatized electorate fearful of change, may well have one of the safest jobs in world politics. This certainly seems the case in comparison with neighboring Thailand, where the premiership has changed hands four times in the past two years.
Nonetheless, Hun Sen is likely grateful for the popularity boost Thailand's government may have handed him through its heated response to his recent praise of and job offer to former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Hun Sen appointed Thaksin, who has been criminally convicted on corruption charges, as an economic advisor. The latter, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup, now lives in exile. Last month, Hun Sen hailed Thaksin as a "great friend" and a victim of a politically compromised judicial system.
The Thai government has viewed the offer as interference in its internal affairs and downgraded diplomatic relations. Angry protests have erupted at the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok, and both nations last week recalled their respective ambassadors. Armed troops have also lined up to defend the Thai Embassy in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, but few Cambodians expect a repeat of the 2003 anti-Thai riots, which saw the embassy burned to the ground and Thailand ready airplanes to evacuate its nationals in a dispute sparked by a Thai actress' alleged comments over national ownership of Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple.
Some Cambodians, accustomed to Hun Sen's well-known tactic of bolstering his political clout by offering loyalists plum advisor posts, see the latest spat in less emotive terms. In the leadup to 2008 elections, Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) attracted many high-level defectors from the main opposition, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), to join his army of over 100 well-paid advisors.
Hun Sen has said he would refuse to honor a bilateral extradition treaty with Thailand that would require him to arrest and deport Thaksin, who faces a two-year jail sentence in Thailand on the corruption conviction. Although Thaksin remains a divisive figure with great sway in Thai politics, Bangkok's reaction may be over more than political insecurities.
Billionaire Thaksin was appointed by royal decree last Wednesday as an advisor to both Hun Sen and Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni. He is scheduled to land in Phnom Penh on November 12 to deliver a lecture to Cambodian economic officials and there are rumors circulating that he might meet with a group of Thai "red-shirt" protest leaders near the Thai border.
In Cambodia, the monarchy is seen as fair game for criticism by both the media and public. After observing for years former king Sihanouk's extravagant lifestyle and constant shifts to ensure his political survival - as well as political forays by other royal princes and princesses - many Cambodians are skeptical of the monarchy. The situation is very different in Thailand, where the monarchy is widely revered and where any perceived criticism of the crown can result in harsh jail sentences. One motivation cited by military coup-makers for their 2006 putsch was that Thaksin was disloyal to the crown - charges he's denied.
The differences between the two nations' histories and economic situations seem personified by their leaders. Thailand, one of the region's wealthiest nations and a member of the influential Group of 20, is led by Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Cambodia, still impoverished after a three-decade civil war and traumatized by the killings of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, is led by Hun Sen, a once barefoot temple boy who lived on handouts from Buddhist monks before becoming a teenage soldier. He first fought for the Khmer Rouge - a struggle that cost him his left eye - and then as part of the Vietnamese offensive that liberated the nation from the same radical Maoist regime in 1979.
Abhisit may have had a comparatively privileged upbringing, but Hun Sen enjoys political advantages. A seasoned leader, Hun Sen is in his 25th year in office - making his one of the longest-running premierships in the world. He led the CPP to 58% of the vote at general elections held in 2008, eclipsing widely the opposition SRP.
Abhisit, on the other hand, took charge last year as a result of Thailand's Constitutional Court disbanding the Thaksin-aligned ruling People's Power Party (PPP), which defeated his Democrat party at 2007 polls, on electoral fraud charges. His predecessor, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law, was in the job for only 75 days. Somchai's PPP predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, lasted only nine months after he was ousted by a Thai court on corruption charges.
It is not the first time that Hun Sen has capitalized on political turmoil in Thailand, especially since bilateral tensions were re-ignited last year over the contested ownership of the land surrounding the ancient Preah Vihear temple, perched atop a steep cliff on the Thai-Cambodian border. When a United Nations body sided with Cambodia's claim, Thai nationalists ran across the border, prompting a military build-up by both sides.
Phnom Penh first appealed to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and then to the UN Security Council to take note of the issue, taking the diplomatic high road. It is unclear how the Preah Vihear dispute would have played out if Thaksin, also Hun Sen's golfing buddy, had still been in charge in Thailand. Some critics say the current tension is in part due to false assurances given in the past by Thaksin to Hun Sen about border delineation near the temple and other overlapping claims by the two countries. Thaksin's critics claim that he was willing to offer territorial concessions to Hun Sen in exchange for personal business interests, claims the exiled former premier has denied.
Thaksin last year proposed a multi-million dollar deal with Hun Sen to develop Cambodia's southwestern maritime province of Koh Kong, telling Thai media that he wanted to turn it into a "second Hong Kong". Hun Sen hailed the proposal as an
opportunity to reduce poverty in Cambodian-Thai border areas. Hun Sen's main domestic opponent says the premier's overtures to Thaksin are not motivated by scoring political points or a desire to uphold Khmer nationalism, but instead are due to pressure being exerted on him by Vietnam, the invading nation which initially installed him as premier in 1985 and which the opposition still claims has influence over the CCP government.
By Craig Guthrie Asia Times Online correspondent Thailand
Om Swastiastu ...
There's two articles on the continuing rabies epidemic in Bali. While the disease spreads, animal rights groups are warning the government that current measures are cruel, ineffective and likely to create a swelling rat infestation of Bali.We learned of the death last Sunday of long-time Bali resident, Bob Monkhouse - an award-winning champion of those trying to kick drug and alcohol habits in Bali and a guardian angel to our Bali neighbors afflicted with HIV/AIDS.We've got the results on the Commonwealth Bank Tennis Tournament just concluded in Bali which had an anti-climactic ending and the surprise suspension of one of the top players for failing to obey drug use protocols.
Last week a reformed Malaysian jihadist came to Bali and shared his insights on the workings of the terrorist mind and why Bali may remain a target for future terror attacks.
Earthquakes, landslides, floods and fires were all parts of an important emergency preparedness drill recently conducted in North Bali. We've got the details.
Governor Pastika sings praises on the way Malaysia promotes its tourism, wondering if there aren't lessons to be learned from our neighbors to the north. Meanwhile, business is booming from Kuala Lumpur to Bali as Malaysian Airlines now flies 3 times each day to Bali.
Looking for something to do in Bali? There's details of a one-month photographic exhibition near Nusa Dua; a contemporary painting exhibition by 4 Indonesian artists in Ubud; an open golf tournament at the Bali Nirwana Golf Course on November 14th; and a kids' day the the Bali Nikko Resort on November 15th.
There's also an interview with Indonesian spiritual guru Anand Krishna on the First Annual Bali Meditators Conference to be held in Ubud November 14-16, 2009.
Looking for rooms over the coming Christmas season? Contact us at info@balidiscovery.com for the best deals going.
To get Bali news as it happens, follow me on Twitter.com at http://twitter.com/BaliUpdateEd
Om Çanti Çanti Çanti Om ...
J.M. Daniels - Bali Update
Bali Discovery Tours
For the full report go to: http://www.balidiscovery.com/update/update687.asp
The only Indonesian province with Sharia, or Islamic law, has a 1,500-member force whose job is to go after women not properly covered and couples engaging in public displays of affection.
The young couple are totally busted. They sit at a beach-side park, near signs forbidding teens from sitting too close. He has his arm around her shoulder. She isn't wearing her jilbab, the traditional Islamic head scarf.
Just like that, the morality cops are in their face.
He separates the two and confiscates their IDs. Later, he says, the team will open an investigation of the couple, especially seeing as the young man lied, at first insisting the girl was his sister.
The team is known as "the vice and virtue patrol," on the beat in Aceh, the only province in the world's most populous Muslim nation to employ Sharia, or Islamic law, for its criminal code. The laws were introduced in 2002 after the Indonesian region was granted autonomy as part of efforts to end a decades-long guerrilla war. The Sharia police consider themselves the community's public conscience. And on their weekly patrol, they take seriously their role of enforcing the religious strictures.
Now their mission may become deadly serious.
In September, Aceh's provincial parliament passed a law saying married people who commit adultery can be sentenced to death by stoning. It also toughened laws on public caning, adding more lashes for gays, pedophiles and gamblers.
The new law, which still requires the approval of the provincial governor, has outraged human rights groups here, who say the code unfairly targets women and violates international treaties. They say the law cuts even deeper into private lives. Under the guidelines, the Sharia police could even raid hotel rooms in search of violators, develop informants and work undercover.
Many of Indonesia's 200 million Muslims are moderates. Some worry that the law will discourage much-needed foreign investment in a province leveled by the 2004 tsunami. But the religious thought police know they cannot fight television, the racy shows broadcast from Malaysia and Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
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(This is the country paper the author delivered during the symposium titled “Recovery from the Financial and Economic Crisis and Japan-Asean Partnership” held on October 29 at the Keidanren Kaikan in Tokyo, Japan. Organized by the Keizai Koho Center, the symposium had an audience of close to a hundredbusiness executives from Japan’s biggest companies. This paper elicited attention of Japan media.)
THE electoral victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) nearly two months ago has generated uncertainty about the future path of cooperation between the world’s second largest economy and the Philippines, among other member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
In a New York Times article published a few days before the left-of-center DPJ was swept into power, Party President Yukio Hatoyama, who subsequently assumed the post of prime minister, indicated that the new ruling party would make a clean break from its right-wing predecessor, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan for nearly half a century.
Hatoyama said there was a need to rein in American-style globalism. He squarely laid the blame for Japan’s economic malaise on the successive LDP governments starting with the term of Junichiro Koizumi in 2001.
In its election manifesto, the winning DPJ signaled a shift toward domestic concerns, including vast welfare spending that is likely to put pressure on Japan’s fiscal position.
Furthermore, the DPJ indicated its resolve to break Japan’s Iron Triangle, or the decades-old cozy relationship among LDP, bureaucrats and big businesses that turned your country into the world’s second largest economy, and a key source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries like the Philippines.
We in the Philippines had known of only one Japanese political party—the LDP whose leadership forged Japan’s policy on Asean and on individual member-states of the regional group. This policy is anchored on close ties with the US, which in turn served as a key export market for Japan and other emerging Asian economies that flanked Tokyo in line with its flying geese strategy.
Fate of Samurai bond guarantee
For the Philippines, the DPJ’s victory had an immediate significance, namely the fate of Manila’s quest for Tokyo’s support to a planned Samurai bond offering.
Shortly before it lost power to the DPJ, the LDP-led government had given its consent to the Philippine request for a Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) guarantee—a plea made by President Gloria Arroyo during her last state visit to Japan.
JBIC has yet to issue the promised guarantee, as it is still in discussions with Manila over the fee the lender would charge for the assistance.
A third global bond offering had eased the pressure on the Arroyo administration to cough up more money to plug a wider-than-expected budget deficit this year.
The government has suspended its budget deficit-reduction program to accommodate higher public spending meant to cushion the Philippines from the impact of the global economic crisis.
But Manila is still banking on the Samurai bond issuance if not to bridge this year’s fiscal gap, then to pre-fund next year’s financing requirements, especially since tax revenues are not expected to fully recover from the economic slowdown just yet.
Japan as top source of FDI
But beyond the issue of the guarantee fee, the Philippines—and other Asean countries for that matter—had enjoyed Japanese financial support for several decades under successive LDP leaderships.
In our case, the Japanese—particularly you, the members of the Keidanren—had been the Philippines’ top source of FDI. This is evident from the vast assembly operations established by Japanese automotive and electronics companies in the many export-processing zones throughout the Philippines.
Like other foreign investors, Japanese businesses had been drawn to the Philippines partly because of the country’s strong macroeconomic fundamentals.
Before the global financial crisis struck, the Philippine economy had grown at a three-decade high of 7.1 percent in 2007. It was the second fastest-growing economy next to Singapore among the Asean-5.
Domestic inflation had eased to a two-decade low of 2.8 percent, while the benchmark 91-day Treasury bill slid to 3.4 percent, its lowest on record.
The low interest-rate regime had allowed bank loans to maintain double-digit growth rates even as lenders trimmed their non-performing loan (NPL) ratio to pre-Asian financial crisis levels.
The Philippines’ strong macroeconomic fundamentals underpinned the corporate sector’s double-digit profit growth.
Capital flight, credit tightness
After the US sub-prime market blew, the Philippines immediately felt the impact as both FDI and foreign portfolio investment inflows vanished. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in September last year accelerated the flight of foreign capital from the Philippines, exposing the country’s foreign dependence amid insufficient domestic savings to fuel economic expansion.
While domestic lenders’ exposure to toxic sub-prime assets was nil, the global credit crunch nonetheless heightened caution in the banking community, which has vivid memories of the Asian financial crisis and the damage it inflicted on their balance sheets.
Although nominal lending rates remained low—thanks to the Philippine central bank’s monetary easing from the end of last year to middle of this year—banks tightened their credit standards nonetheless.
We have begun to witness the impact of this tightening, as loan growth slowed to the single-digit rates in recent months.
In the real economy, the first to take a hit were exports, which contracted by double-digits through September. This contraction was mirrored in the drop in manufacturing output, as well as in the slowdown in job creation in that sector.
Those of you who maintain assembly operations in the many economic zones in and around the Philippine capital know only too well this sad state of affairs.
Domestic economy spares RP from recession
So far, the Philippines has escaped a contraction even as its export markets in the developed world—as well as many neighboring countries—suffered a recession.
What has spared the Philippines from the worst global crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s is our huge domestic economy.
Unlike our neighbors in Asia whose growth was driven by huge export machines, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) remain the main engine of Philippine economic expansion, fuelled by billions of dollars in remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Even so, personal consumption expenditures took a hit from the current global turmoil—a puzzle for many economists as remittances continued to grow, albeit down to single-digit rates. The likely explanation is that the economic slowdown in many countries hosting OFWs shook the confidence of their beneficiaries, thus causing them to trim if not postpone expenditures.
To a certain extent, what we’re seeing is a repeat of the Asian financial crisis, when OFW money largely kept the Philippine economy afloat. To recall, we contracted the least among the Asean-5 back then.
Typhoons dampen near-term prospects
Over the past month or so, there has been talk of an Asia-led global economic recovery, as the region—including the Philippines—appears to have been the first to emerge from the worldwide rout.
But a series of typhoons placed a damper on the Philippines’ near-term economic prospects. As I speak, the government has yet to tally the final cost of the typhoons in terms of damage to infrastructure and to farm output, which comprises a fifth of Philippine gross domestic product (GDP).
The first of two typhoons also submerged half of Metro Manila in floods, thus likely to erode consumer confidence in the National Capital Region, which accounts for a third of the country’s GDP.
Consequently, the government is pushing for a supplemental budget and has asked the international donor community—including Japan—for additional official development assistance (ODA), or at least permission to realign already committed funds to the relief and rehabilitation effort.
The Arroyo administration also created a Reconstruction Commission, which is tasked to, among others, solicit funds from the private sector and the donor community.
To date, the World Bank has agreed to realign existing loan commitments. A similar commitment from Japan, which remains the Philippines’ biggest source of ODA, would be a big boost to our post-typhoon rehabilitation efforts.
Despite your country’s huge share of ODA to the Philippines, Japanese aid, however, has gone down through the years, with countries like China picking up the slack.
Questions about Japan’s commitments
The DPJ’s assumption to power has raised questions about Japan’s commitment to the direction taken by previous LDP-led governments vis-à-vis its traditional partners like the Philippines.
If the Hatoyama government fulfils its welfare promises to the Japanese people, then would this fiscal spending crowd out ODA for countries like the Philippines?
Would the new government in Tokyo finance its pro-people public spending through heavy taxation of the business sector? If so, how would this affect Japanese corporate investments abroad?
Having said the above, we cannot deny the overwhelming victory of the DPJ during the Lower House elections, as well as the Hatoyama government’s very high approval rating among the Japanese people a month after the polls. These provide hope that the new administration can muster enough public support for its touted break from tradition.
It is with such trepidation—and hope—therefore that the historic change in Japan’s national leadership is viewed in the Philippines and elsewhere.
By Arnold S. Tenorio, Business Editor Manila Times
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