Has the US become a failed state, irrelevant now to the Philippines? That's what Manila Times muckraker Rigoberto Tiglao claims.
THIS year is historic for us not just because of the unprecedented devastation to the world economy and humankind brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. This year is historic to us in a more specific, or unique, way: Since our liberation in 1946, the United States of America — big brother to our elites — has become irrelevant to us.
This year is the start of our total liberation from the American eagle. This is partly due to President Rodrigo Duterte’s audacious pivot towards an independent foreign policy that drew us closer to America’s rivals, China and Russia.
This is also partly due to the demise of the Yellow Cult, whose founders Benigno Aquino Jr. and his late widow Corazon Aquino after all owed much to US sponsorship, providing the former with his Harvard refuge and the latter with the might of US diplomacy and propaganda apparatus to grab power in 1986.
But it is also partly due to the fact that the US has unraveled, nearly imploding this year, with its institutions which our intellectuals and politicians had looked up to for decades proving to be so flawed.
Whether the pandemic overwhelms the US and triggers its fragmentation, whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins, and even, I dare say, its economy collapses or not, would not be as relevant now as it was just 10 years ago. Japan, China, Asean, the Middle East and now even Russia will fill the vacuum and become our main economic partners. Only forever-US-fans like Albert del Rosario and Antonio Carpio insist that we needthe US Navy to prevent the Chinese from invading us.
This is unbelievably baseless propaganda. Does Tiglao know that Marcos was supported by the US government and found refuge in Hawaii? Does he know that every single president of the Philippines has enjoyed the support of the USA in one form or another?
Far from being irrelevant the USA remains the Philippines' number one financier as this latest report from USAID shows.
Since March 2020, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Defense, and State Department, has invested more than Php1 billion ($22.6 million) to the Philippines' COVID-19 response. Additionally, many of USAID's ongoing development projects valued at more than Php5 billion ($100 million) a year across the health, economic development, governance, education, and environment sectors have mobilized to address the impacts of the virus. The assistance builds upon the longstanding U.S.-Philippines development partnership in the Philippines. Over the past 20 years, the United States — the world's largest provider of bilateral assistance in health — has invested nearly Php29.6 billion ($582 million) in the Philippine health sector,and has provided nearly Php228.8 billion ($4.5 billion) in total assistance to advance the country’sdevelopment goals.
One could cite the many millions of dollars worth of military training and equipment as well as the various social programs supported by the USA to refute this stupid assertion that the US has now become irrelevant to the Philippines. However nothing in his column seeks to prove that the US is irrelevant to the Philippines. Instead Tiglao focuses on the USA being a failed state.
He cites two articles, one from Salon and one from The Nation in his defense that the USA is a failed state. The article from The Nation is basically an anti-Trump harangue. Only the article from Salon offers any insightful critiques about America's demise.
"The American economic system has waltzed itself into a network of problems in large part because it really lived a charmed life," said Dr. Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "But the charmed life ended around the 1970s, after which it went on a kind of extended life support."
Americans have maintained the illusion of prosperity by accruing massive debt, Wolff told Salon, comparing the nation's situation to that of "a patient who has had a really bad cancer or a heart attack, and is now kept alive with tubes and chemicals and all the rest of it. He is not dead, but is in deep trouble. That problem is compounded, Wolff said, "by the fact that this is a society cannot, to this day, face what I just said."
https://www.salon.com/2020/08/05/is-the-us-a-failed-state-in-2020-experts-answers-range-from-maybe-to-hell-yes/
At this point one could go all Ron Paul and launch into a speech about the Federal Reserve, private banks, and debt-based fiat currency. Since Tiglao does not go there, indeed hardly anyone goes there, it is not necessary. One wonders if he is as ignorant as most people are about who controls the economy and how they do it which is through debt. Probably.
Tiglao's thesis is that the USA's status as a failed state is evidenced by their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guess what, the US is the nation worst hit by Covid-19, by any measure: 8 million cases, 3 million active cases and 220,000 deaths. We have just 343,000 cases, 43,0000 active cases and 6.000 deaths. Thailand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and many other countries that are listed as states worse off than the US in the failed-state department are all doing much, much better than the US.
The proof of the pudding is certainly in the eating. What better measure of a failed state than its performance in addressing the pandemic?
The US has become a failed state. With all the institutions it has been boasting about, it has failed its citizens big-time.
Tiglao opines that democracy is the root of the problem. It is democracy that has caused the pandemic to spread and it is democracy which has failed to confront the pandemic.
It has failed to confront the pandemic not because of any inherent natural weaknesses of its people nor its environment but because of institutions which it had been claiming since World War 2 as its strength that other countries should follow .
Foremost of these is its set of institutions called “democracy.” Democracy was invented largely for small communities, most of whose members could inter-react among themselves, and in which there was no “mediator,” no interpreter for their views. But there is now that powerful prism for people’s views — media.
Democratic theory that people have the right and wisdom to choose their leaders cannot take into account the power of media to mold how people see things, and how the owners of that media can choose what kind of views the masses would hold.
Donald Trump became, to use that phrase Americans are fond of saying, the “leader of the free world” because of his hugely successful reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Americans were fooled tinto thinking that the tough, all-knowing chief executive pfficer that was Trump’s role in the show could become the tough, all-knowing CEO of the US of A. Exactly in the same way Filipinos voted for Fernando Poe Jr. thinking he was the movie hero “Panday.”
Note that he says it was "institutions" which the USA claimed "as its strength" that contributed to the failure. But he never tells what those institutions are. Instead he focuses on the abstract concept of democracy. Democracy is not an American institution. It is an idea which is Greek in origin. His origin story for democracy is bizarre to say the least.
Democratic theory is not "that people have the right and wisdom to choose their leaders." Democratic theory is that the people are the rulers. Demos meaning people and arche meaning rule. Tiglao is under the mistaken impression that the USA is a democracy when it is in fact a constitutional republic. It has never been and never will be a democracy. Same as the Republic of the Philippines. I encourage Tiglao and all my readers to read Plato's Republic where democracy is touted as the worst form of government just above tyranny.
As for why Donald Trump was elected...surely it is more than his TV show that put him the White House. He was saying things the other candidates were not. Then when he was the last man standing and his opponent was Hillary Clinton...well perhaps Tiglao is not so informed as to how corrupt she really is. To be fair basically every American presidential election is an exercise in an appeal to the lowest common denominator but what election isn't? Philippines included. Why was Bato elected to the Senate? Not because he is a wise statesman.
Tiglao further betrays a misunderstanding of what democracy is by confusing it with federalism.
Other facets of US “democracy “proved to be obstacles to that country’s response to the pandemic. States asserted their independence from the central government and from each other — resulting in a chaotic response to the pandemic. States at the start of the pandemic even tried to outbid each other and the federal government itself to secure masks and other medical equipment needed for the pandemic.
One state would enforce lockdown restrictions. But residents could move from one state to another freely — resulting in such a super-spreader event as a motorcyclists’ festival in South Dakota.
Aside from being a constitutional republic the USA is also a federation. Sovereign states entered into an agreement to form a federal government to assist with issues like defense. While the overriding supremacy of states rights has largely deteriorated since the Civil War each state continues to possess its own sovereignty and expresses that through their own laws. Gun laws, drug laws, driving laws, these and other laws differ from state to state.
The Philippines is not a federation but has a national government. Each province and town can enact their own laws of course but decrees from the Palace and laws from the Congress trump them. That is why the IATF can dictate what is happening around the country.
It's ironic that Tiglao would mistakenly criticize federalism when he has advocated for a federal system in the Philippines. A true federal system would be almost impossible in the Philippines because rather than disparate states uniting to form a more perfect union the nation would first have to be divided up into sections. Then a degree of sovereignty would have to be imparted into whatever districts or states were formed so such a system could be implemented. That would mean each district enacting its own laws and not following a national top down system. Does Tiglao even know what federalism is? It seems he does not.
As for Sturigs being a super spreader event, it's always best to get a second opinion in medical matters. Johns Hopkins says the study which attributed 260,000 COVID-19 cases to Sturgis was not peer reviewed, used questionable methods, and ought to be interpreted cautiously.
This study, which was available as a preprint and thus had not yet been peer reviewed, uses county-level SARS-CoV-2 testing data to show that the Sturgis motorcycle rally likely led to substantial increases in cases in the local community where the rally took place. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the broader, national impact of the rally and its associated costs given limitations in the methodological approaches used. Results from this study should be interpreted cautiously.
Next he confuses democracy with personal liberty.
And of course, the democracy dogma was so ingrained among Americans that they claimed it was their right to wear or not wear a mask, the scientifically proven first and necessary step in containing the virus.
The fact is the government has no right to dictate how you live your life. If you want to engage in certain activities, like driving a car, then you have to follow the rules of course because that involves other people and not just the mere existence of the individual. But just existing should not include any laws one has to follow such as wearing a mask. Incidentally there is a great degree of personal liberty in the Philippines when it comes to operating a motor vehicle of any kind. That is because driving laws are hardly enforced.
As for face masks being scientifically proven to contain the virus let's see what the U.S Surgeon General and the CDC said back in February.
Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel coronavirus. Take everyday preventive actions, like staying home when you are sick and washing hands with soap and water, to help slow the spread of respiratory illness.
So what happened that they changed their mind? Science or politics? Here is a May 2020 article from the New England Journal of Medicine.
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.
That is science. Masks are ineffective at preventing infection. Want some more science proving the ineffectiveness of masks? Then click this link: https://cv19.fr/eng/english/
Next Tiglao confuses democracy with political infighting
That American democracy is such a huge obstacle to securing the welfare of its people was demonstrated recently by the fact that the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives cannot agree with the Republican-controlled Senate to enact a law to address the pandemic. The term for it — stimulus bill — hides the sad fact that without it, at least a million Americans thrown out of jobs by the pandemic (or the lockdowns) won’t have food on their table.
Partisanship is simply a fact of political life. That is not how the founders envisioned America but that is how it has become even in the 19th century when Senator Charles Sumner was attacked by Senator Preston Brooks who beat him with his cane in the Senate chamber! Even the Philippines is divided along ideological and party lines. That is why Tiglao refers so derisively to the Liberal party as the Yellow Cult!
Finally Tiglao closes by praising the communist government of China and saying that its present success in battling COVID-19 and allegedly lifting 850 million people out of poverty makes up for its past failures.
China’s authoritarian system has certainly exacted a huge cost in lives. Its Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, Mao Zedong’s ill-conceived program for his country to rapidly industrialize is estimated to have resulted in 30 million to 55 million Chinese deaths from the resulting famine. That kind of disastrous policy would never have been maintained in a democratic system.
But the question is valid: Would China’s success in lifting out of poverty 850 million Chinese between 1981 to 2015 (going by the World Bank’s studies) make up for its past mistakes, even if horrific, that it is a better system of government?
Using the pandemic as the litmus test, the answer to that is certainly yes. It is unquestionably spectacular that from 85,600 cases in February, China has now just 228 cases; deaths peaked at 4,600 in April, and none since then.
Now be honest: If no vaccine after all is invented and the pandemic becomes worse than the Spanish flu pandemic that killed more than 100 million, which country would you prefer to live in – the US or China?
It's the ol' bait and switch! The headline claims that the US is a failed state and is irrelevant to the Philippines. This article is really about the greatness of China. Tiglao's argument for the US being a failed state is that it has not handled the COVID-19 pandemic in a timely manner. But China has. Thus China is superior. In fact anyone with a lick of sense would rather live in China.
Actually no one with any sense would want to live in China. China's encroachment on Hong Kong and her people's liberties is why there has been so much protesting there over the past few years. China may look sleek and clean but with its system of social credit designed to control everyone it is a nightmare.
The Chinese state is setting up a vast ranking system that will monitor the behavior of its enormous population, and rank them all based on their "social credit."
The program is due to be fully operational nationwide by 2020, but is being piloted for millions of people across the country already. The scheme will be mandatory.
Like private credit scores, a person's social score can move up and down depending on their behavior. The exact methodology is a secret — but examples of infractions include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online.
1. Banning you from flying or getting the train.
2. Throttling your internet speeds.
3. Banning you — or your kids — from the best schools.
4. Stopping you getting the best jobs.
5. Keeping you out of the best hotels.
6. Getting your dog taken away.
7. Being publicly named as a bad citizen.
Is Tiglao even aware that this program exists and seeks to control every aspect of a person's life? It is clear from his article that Tiglao does not value personal freedom above all which is an important facet of America's founding ideology and should be held dear by any healthy and sane individual. Who wants to be a slave to a totalitarian dictatorship like the Chinese Communist Party? Who wants to live in a country where one can be punished for thoughtcrimes and wrongthink?
This man has written many columns condemning the CPP-NPA (who are Maoists), accusing Globe and PLDT of paying NPA extortion fees (which Globe emphatically denies), accusing Benigno Aquino of being in league with the Reds, and now he wants to praise communist China as having a better system of government that the USA because they have a lower number of COVID-19 cases? How much more hypocritical and ill-informed can Rigoberto Tiglao possibly be?
The fact is China lied to the entire world about COVID-19 and it is because of these lies that the world is now under lockdowns of various degrees.
The coronavirus pandemic might have been prevented if not for Chinese cover-ups in the early days of the outbreak and the World Health Organization “parroting” Beijing propaganda, according to a damning audit from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The 96-page report — obtained by The Post ahead of its planned Monday release — says the Chinese Communist Party destroyed evidence and buried troubling data, while nationalizing the supply chains and limiting exports of US companies 3M and General Motors, keeping key goods in the country.
“It is beyond doubt that the CCP actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data, hide relevant public health information, and suppress doctors and journalists who attempted to warn the world,” reads the report, authored by Republican members of the Democrat-held committee.
Had China been more transparent and proactive when the first signs of the burgeoning health crisis emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, the outbreak could have been largely contained — potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide, the pols wrote.
“Research shows the CCP could have reduced the number of cases in China by up to 95 percent had it fulfilled its obligations under international law and responded to the outbreak in a manner consistent with best practices,” the report said, citing a study on Medrxiv, a Yale University-linked online clearinghouse for medical manuscripts.
“It is highly likely the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented,” the report said.
Instead, on Jan. 1, CCP officials ordered that the Wuhan wet market from which the contagion is believed to have sprung “be closed and sanitized, destroying forensic evidence that may have provided insight into the origins of the outbreak,” the report said.
On Jan. 2, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology completed a full genetic sequence of COVID-19 which indicated that it was likely highly contagious, but did not immediately share that data with the WHO.
This is a such a stupid and deceptive article from a ridiculous man and all those in the comment section thinking it is great and awesome spewing out so many hard truths have been hoodwinked because they are ill-informed. Why did Tiglao really write this article? Sure the Manila Times pays him but who else has him on their payroll?
If Tiglao wants to talk about COVID-19 response as a litmus test for failed states well the Philippines has the longest lockdown in the world! Where else in the world are people required to wear face shields? Where else are there age restrictions on who can leave their house? Of course there are more measures of a failed state than just COVID-19 response and the Philippines fails at most of them which is why this nation remains high on the index of failed states.
