This article will guide you through applying for a dual citizenship if and only if you are already a United States of America citizen through naturalization and was a Filipino citizen by birth. The guide may also apply under other condition, but does not provide any guarantee. Listed also are the things you can have and do when you are both a citizen of the United States of America and the Republic of the Philippines.

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FEMOCRACY AND HOME ECONOMICS 2

INTERNATIONALISATION AND THE REDEFINING OF THE FILIPINA

Dirty politics, corruption, and  economic instability mired the nation. As a third world country, the Philippines suffered vast unemployment with no opportunity for its citizens. Under the Labour Export Policy of 1972, human labour became just another export commodity like rice and sugar. Eight million Filipino labourers were exported, the majority of them women to different parts of the world.

As western women climb the ladder of their careers, some governments tried to rescue the family and thought that a substitute caregiver would solve the problem. Some countries started recruiting highly educated professional women from the Philippines as live in nannies and domestic helpers. Some Filipinas seeing no prospect at home had no choice but grab the opportunity to find employment abroad. The Filipinas who may have “helpers” in their homes in the Philippines became helpers themselves in far- away lands.

As the country sank deeper in economic and political instability, more and more Filipinos especially women ventured for better opportunities abroad. Further dispersal of human capital  was favoured as the Philippine government heavily depended on the taxes and fees generated from overseas workers. The continued flow of cheap, highly educated labour in Canada, Singapore and Hongkong in particular and the plethora of charming young Filipinas entering Japan as entertainers influenced the perception of Filipinas in the eyes of western societies. New words were entered to the growing adjectives used to define a Filipina: cheap labour, obedient, timid, demure, exotic. 

The advent of internationalisation paved the way to degrading stereotypes that Filipinas were subjected to.

Petropolitik, Sapian and China - Twelfth in a Continuing Series

The increased gas demand in Sapian may partly be attributed on the increased number of vehicles of more affluent Sapianons, and partly because of the improved quality of roads.

In the past, our national highway had been in a terribly despicable state. Most Youngblood contributors may not have recollection of what an ordeal it used to be just going to Roxas City. Public utility jeeps (PUJs) have been very few and I could still recite most of them from memory, namely, those of Nong Turing “Comos” Baldesimo, the Dennis series of former Vice Mayor Nita Baldesimo, a few from Dapdapan, i.e., the Monica of Nong Willy Martinez and that of the Bonaleses, and later, of Nong Loret Flores, driven by Nong Meo, and Nong Dodoy Teddy Vista, and Nong Culasing in Maninang. Aklan-bound, there was Kitahanon, and Nong Odong Vista’s Kamihanon. Later on, the family of Totit Obuyes acquired a few buses. Iloilo-bound, were R&K and later, Ceres would survive the grueling route. Nong Emoy Garcia and Nong Verino and Nang Rosit had the first tricycles to shuttle between Polacion and Crossing Talaba. In short, transportation was very, very scarce, and there was probably be one PUJ on every hour. You had to plan a trip to Roxas City. Leave as early in the morning as possible so you can return home just before dusk. Nobody would ever know what was the loading capacity then. Everyone was just too polite to move over on the middle bench until there is just enough room to breath and blink your eyes.  On the middle bench, you would tumble and turn. Your elbow may not move from Majanlud to Kilometer One. You had to disturb at least two other passengers whenever you straighten up a numbed leg. 

On rainy days, be prepared to take your shoes off. You’ll never know. In many instances, either its approach or the bridge itself is flushed away by flood water, or the road had suddenly melted into the surrounding rice paddies. Chances are, jeeps would either detour 40 miles, or stop dead then tell passengers to wade through flood and pump through mud to continue a journey on a waiting jeep. Summer months were as terrible with the clay that dried up into white, fine dust. You’ve had to wear a nose mask, cover your eyes and hair, and wear a jacket. Inside the jeep, air turbulence would cycle dust around. So you’re better off on the PUJ roof where air would blow dust away as soon as the jeep on the opposite lane had gone past, better than the hot, cramped, dusty “cabin” below.

For many of us, the best project for Sapian is to get road fixed. So, that was a priority research for me in Cory’s Malacanang. I found out then that help is on the way because the highway system, dubbed Panay Arterial Highway, was going full-speed ahead. The project had all the needed money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In fact, the Aklan-Antique and Antique-Iloilo phases have been mostly completed. The Kalibo Highway I: Passi-Lanot Road was nearing completion. The part for Sapian was dubbed, Panay Arterial Highway-Kalibo Highway Phase II, Lanot-Banga Road, had been bided out. I closely watched developments on this project and gave periodic status reports to my neighbors, Mely Baldesimo, Edwin Padasas and Giovanni Obuyes. I also gave copies of DPWH reports to the late Uncle Alber Gallardo, who was then the ABC President.

The problem was, the winning bidder, Turno America, had difficulty getting its equipment through Bureau of Customs. Turno claims that as an American contractor trying to implement a USAID project, it does not pay import taxes for its equipment. But former BIR Commissioner Liwayway Vinzons-Chato insisted that since the equipment are capital goods that are going to generate income in the Philippines, import taxes have to be paid. So, there was the long delay.

They did not resolve the Customs issue until Mt. Pinatubo erupted. A few days after the disaster, Malacanang scuttled all available unspent monies to pay for reconstruction, including that for Lanot-Banga Road. So, we’re again back to Zero!

During the time of FVR, and long after the demise of USAID funds, DPWH had been breaking grounds and inaugurating new roads and bridges around the country, left and right. These projects have been funded through the Medium-Term Public Investment Program (MTPIP). If we could only do the same for Lanot-Banga Road. So, it had become my conviction to guide former governors Borda of Capiz and Nang Nening, Governor Corazon Legaspi-Cabagnot of Aklan, to be on the same page. I advised them to raise the Lanot-Banga Road issue in all venues and forums, including all presidential visits to any province in Panay, League of Governors of the Philippines, or Cabinet Officers for Regional (CORD) meetings in Malacanang. And they did, Governor Cabagnot, particularly. Then we shepherded it from our end, including the Presidential Commitments and Directives Database that I maintained. As FVR fondly said, it had to be like a bibingka: fire on the top and fire at the bottom. But things stood still.

When FVR visited Capiz for a 3rd Army event during the term of Capiz Governor Esteban Contreras, concrete strides were made. Governor Cabagnot came to see me at Roxas Airpot. She wanted to speak at the dialogue, but she was not on the program. I added her amidst protests by Presidential Management Staff (PMS) Director Gina Jota. I took the heat, provided she mentions the Lanot-Banga Road problem. In our coordination meeting in the residence of Mrs. Judy Roxas in Baybay to thresh out issues to be raised to FVR, Lanot-Banga Road was added as one item. That meeting was attended by former Governor Contreras, Mayor (now Governor) Vicente Bermego, as President of Mayors League, and Congressman Mar Roxas. Two weeks later in dialogue with FVR, with former Congressman Roxas as moderator, both governors raised the same road issue. In reality, the governors did not stand to gain any monetary reward for a DPWH-administered project. So, their efforts and time have been pure civil service. Soon after that visit, with bibingka fire working on top and bottom, Malacanang endorsed the project to Regional Development Committee (RDC) Chairman Hechanova as a priority project. It later came back to us in the Joint Cabinet/NEDA Board meeting as an update to MTPIP. My supervisor, Director Jess Albar, speaking to me about that Cabinet road item, “There’s your item, take it.” I gladly wrote into the Cabinet records the Cabinet approval of that project. As part of MTPIP, it would have a guaranteed budget appropriation on the next fiscal year. That next year, the project was again bided out and construction finally commenced. Dozens of subcontractors took part in the construction.

Youngbloods would not have to suffer the ordeal we went through. Anyway, I rode through partly completed highway in the late 90s, with dirt road stretches and base courses every few kilometers. It was not until January 2005 that I rode the full stretch of the proud Lanot-Banga Road.

Petropolitik, Sapian and China - Eighth in a Continuing Series

First, there were faults in the assumptions. Proponents say downstream deregulation will make the economy stronger and better because it will, as it should, be left upon a free market to operate. Market is said to be a self-equalizing force; that all things being equal, profit interests and buyer interest will synthesize into general welfare.  So the theory goes. But opponents argue that since there is no upstream industry to guarantee a free play of supply and prices for downstream industries, deregulation has no net positive effect because downstream entrepreneurs are still dependent on Big Three for supply. Hence, there is no real competition. Proponents believed that as soon as deregulation is announced, oil companies around the world would race to our doorsteps. But our announcements, repeated announcements, have been met by a stony silence. The reason, some say, is that giant oil companies, with their rules of engagement and protocol, would not go after each other’s throat because, as traditional economics always say, genuine competition lowers prices; and lowered mark-up prices reduces profitability. By and large, they share not only the same security and political concerns, but also the same oil wells, pipelines, refineries, transshipment facilities, tankers, borrow each others’ jets, etc. Early on, critics warned that if there would be no new players the size of the Big Three, deregulation is doomed to fail. And there were none.

Another result of deregulation is the removal of Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF). OPSF is an import levy instituted by Marcos and was approximately P1.25/liter in 1997. It was placed on reserve as safety net to fend ill effects of escalating gas prices. When there was sudden jolt in gas prices to soften impact to consumers, government either totally covered (subsidized) the difference in cost, or spread costs over a period of time (credit). Even at the months before deregulation, OPSF mechanism had been working very hard to stabilize unpredictable gas prices. OPSF was typically used for Forward Cost Cover (FCC) that absorbed for consumers the fluctuating price difference three months in advance. Former Energy Secretary Francisco Viray would always complain to the Cabinet how hard it was for OPSF to keep up with increasing world prices. For over three years, I was the energy “expert” on FVR Cabinet minutes. My supervisor, Director Jess Albar from a prominent Roxas City family, knowing my interests, invariably gave me all Cabinet items on energy, until the Cabinet no longer talked any OPSF or FCC.

On top of deregulation, privatization was another scourge to Philippine petroleum industry. Petron, a government petroleum company, was sold to Aramco. At that point, government had fully abdicated its last measure of influence on domestic oil prices.  Ownership of Petron had been good oil price leverage; profitability had been shoved aside in favor of national welfare. Petron saturated market with lower priced gas to upset upward pressure on gas prices. So, losing Petron ownership and having no OPSF safety net, and none of expected downstream competition, government is now left with the last front-end control. To tax or not to tax.

If we are already selling tax-free oil, and China would pay even more money for even more gas supply, we would be in big trouble. How many of us would be willing to pay P90/liter even if it’s tax-free?

Petropolitik, Sapian and China - Fourth in a Continuing Series

Cory and Ramos Cabinet deliberations on GATT/WTO involved many economic concepts that Ms. Flores laid the foundations for. GATT/WTO was discussed on my first attendance in a Cory Cabinet Meeting, and Jose Concepcion (JoeCon), former Trade and Industry Sectary in Cory Cabinet, owner of Condura, Cosmos Bottling, General Milling, etc., tripped on my right foot and almost crashed on former Defense Secretary Renato De Villa. I was terrified, my first Cabinet and I caused an accident. But people I sat next to assured me that it was not my fault - Lucille Peralta (now Ortille, and Director General of the Cabinet Coordinating Committee on Housing and Urban Planning), also from Roxas City, and Mary Ann Z. Fernandez (now Assistant Commissioner of Civil Service Commission) told me JoeCon was looking up on screen while briskly walking down the hall.  Corridor of power is always cramped, so seats around the Cabinet Meetings are always crowded. Seating was arranged in two rings - the inner circle which is the president and cabinet members, and the outer circle composed of lesser bishops and acolytes like myself. State Dining Room is cold and dark when giant Swarovski chandeliers are dimmed for PowerPoints. Only Imelda’s sconces would light the old rose velvet carpet while people seated on the outer circle would obstruct most steps of the way. Talk about cordon sanitaire.

Anyway, this was not the case in the brightly lit and well-appointed National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Board Room in Pasig, thanks to Toto “Tayho” Guijaro. The president and Cabinet also convene as Joint Cabinet-NEDA Board a few times a year to update the National Development Plan, and they meet in Pasig once in a while. In NEDA sa Pasig, I always see Toto Tayho because he does the electro-systems for NEDA Board Sub-Committee on Human Resources and NEDA Board/Cabinet that I both attend. I’m sure, Toto Tayho, bombarded by economics everyday, would remember the lectures of Ms. Flores. Our batch was the first to graduate under the nationalized high school. Unfortunately, it was the last batch Ms. Flores would teach. That very next school year, she moved to then Panay State Polytechnic College (PSPC). Lucky them.

Further exploration on China’s economic boom needs us to look into just a little bit of GATT and history. Ms. Flores taught us that Industrial Revolution, which started in Britain between late 1700s and early 1800s, was characterized by increased production due to mechanization (e.g., steam engines - factories and railways). Mechanization allowed mass production that created surplus products. Countries needed to sell surplus products to other countries (dumping). But other countries have the same industries and were creating the same products. So, each country tried to protect its domestic industries, and a period called Protectionist Era ensued. Nations established trade barriers, raised import taxes and tariffs, to make it very difficult to import and export outside of national boundaries. Trade wars ensued - dumping of surpluses to, or raising tariffs against unfriendly nations. Countries like Britain, U.S. and France (Allied) were lucky. Their colonies acted both as exclusive markets for their surpluses and source of cheap raw materials. Other industrializing countries like Japan, Italy and Germany (Axis) did not have colonies. Axis powers had to either have colonies or just fade away. Many summed up World War II as an attempt by Axis powers to re-divide the world and gain colonies for themselves. At that time, China was an agrarian economy trying to survive its own Cultural Revolution.

In 1944, GATT, a trade treaty involving many nations, was established. Its purpose was to facilitate free trade by encouraging member-nations to reduce tariffs and remove trade barriers. This would avoid trade wars and the need to maintain colonies (i.e., the Philippines was then allowed to become independent). Under GATT, each one had a list of sectors, industries or specific products they want to open to international competition. Taxes for those specified sectors or products are either lowered significantly or removed altogether. Since then, GATT worked on the sidelines until the emergence of European Community in the late ’80s. At that time, trade blocs, treaties involving many nations, in many regions of the world started to proliferate. By early 90s, there were APEC, Uruguayan Round, NAFTA, AFTA, BIMP/EAGA and dozens others. Trade blocs reminded some economists of Protectionist Era.

Therefore, GATT had to be reinvented. This time, it would have to include China. The world could not wait to sell 1.3 billion more bottles and cans of Coca-Cola and McDonald’s burgers.  And China itself, wary of being alone after the downfall of USSR and its Eastern European allies, and tempted by outward forces of its modernizing economy, had to jump into the bandwagon. Western companies, led by American investors, raced their way to China to manufacture everything from slippers to ICs. This proliferated the market with too much China products and created higher demands for petroleum.

Negative implications for Sapian: First, China has drawn in foreign investments that would have otherwise been invested in the Philippines that, directly, either employ some Sapianons, or benefit Sapianon businessmen, or indirectly, bring in money into the domestic economy and trickle down to Sapian in form of taxes or increased buying power/demand for Sapian fishery products. Second, flood the Philippine market with cheaper Chinese goods, competing with our local industries - especially with GATT - losing our fledging manufacturing businesses and jobs. Third, highly industrialized China makes it more influential in geopolitics to the detriment of our security, including losing our claim to the disputed, natural gas rich 200-mile EEZ off Palawan. Fourth, China is developing backbone industries like steel, chemicals, etc., is reckless with environment and could upset South Asian environmental health (e.g., nuclear waste, industrial dust, acid rain, etc.). Fifth and most importantly, China, consuming more oil, offsets supply equilibrium, creating shortage, increasing prices, and causing more instability in volatile Middle East (e.g., giving Saddam rockets, bribing Iran with $70 billion, and possibly, some bits of nuclear technology). Increased prices slow down the Philippine economy, as it pays more power bills, lower Peso value because more dollar is paid for oil imports, less tax collections because of lowered profits, less foreign investments because of less anticipation of profits, and so on.   

On the positive side for Sapian: First, abundance of made in China products, as said earlier, makes it easier for us to buy products that used to be difficult and expensive to acquire. Second, China would attempt to expand its political and economic clout among its neighbors and invest in the Philippines, such as in agro-industry. This should be our last opportunity to dove-tail on global trade. Third, since the continued affluence of China’s economy is dependent on its goodwill, it would not do much to offset South Asia security - although the 200-mile EEZ is now irretrievably lost.

Petropolitik, Sapian and China - Third in a Continuing Series

Sapian National High School (SNHS) is perched over a ridge terminating to a hill called Garrison. We were told that there was a Japanese garrison on the hill’s summit presiding on a mile long Dalit ambush area. Strategically located, it could literally shut down Poblacion from westerly traffic. In the mid-80s, Garrison peacefully ruled over the northwest side of Poblacion. It gave a good view of Sapian Bay and beyond it, Sibuyan Sea. On a nice weather, silhouette of Sibuyan Island could be seen on a horizon that stretches to approximately 180 degrees.

For SNHS students, that was a sprawling view of the world. Exhilarating but still tangible. It should have been enough world-view for us in high school. But our economics teacher, now Professor Norma J. Flores, insisted that there’s more world to see. Our Marcos-type classrooms have corrugated steel roof riddled with holes, both from corrosion and rocks hurled by students who want to leave their mark. On a rainy day, we would joke that classes are suspended because the chalk is wet. On sunny school days, streaks of light from the holes move about the floor as the sun progressed through the day. As our teachers belabored to school us, the streaks of sunlight, slowly moving on the roughly finished pavement and through rough, dismembered chairs, have been good digression. Sometimes, they would even tell exactly how soon the next change period would be. But Miss Flores, on one warm late morning, showed us two streaks of light into world-views hitherto limited as the horizon seen from Garrison. She explained to us the concepts of geopolitics and laissez-faire. Then, she talked about agrarian reform, money velocity, inflation rate, taxation as a regulating economic mechanism, and so on. As we delve into China’s unquenchable demand for petroleum, its transformation to the league of G-8 nations, and its implications for Sapian, the economic principles that Ms. Flores taught us three decades ago are still the same.

In fairness to China, we in Sapian also benefit from its abbreviated economic transformation. It brought us cheaper goods and commodities. A decade ago, many products would have been expensive to acquire and difficult to own. But because China produces them strike-free, with depressed wages, less stringent environmental regulations, government subsidies, centrally planned production system, input distribution network, and in such very large quantities, it is now easier to acquire them in Sapian. Nike made in the U.S. could have been prohibitive than the Nike made in China today, considering that raw materials and manufacturing process are essentially the same. The lowered cost of consumer goods allowed us to enjoy conveniences we do not have today if commodities are still being manufactured in Western nations. Take the example of cheaper electronic components. Cheap ICs, memory chips and flash memories allowed manufacture of cheaper cell phones, among hundreds of electronic goods and consumer durables. My former employer, a Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., invested billions of dollars for a wafer fab in China. A classmate in Manila who manufactures household plastic products complained that Chinese imports are killing their family company. Better quality products are being imported into the Philippines from China with less than half the price if they are made in the Philippines. In fact, their raw materials, polyethylene (PE) and polypropelene (PP), are imported from napha-crackers in China. Such that, after costs for import duties, middlemen and transport, plastic products manufactured in Manila cannot stand a chance against those from China. On the plus side, this situation benefits consumers in Sapian. But the minus on domestic industries will be taken up on a future post.

China, even with its vast capital, cheap labor, controlled industrial system, and subsidized industries, would not be where it is today without laissez-faire. Ms. Flores told us that it is French concept by an early English economist, Adam Smith, that means “produce what you want, when you want, and sell where you want, at a price you want.”

In one holistic worldview, and a little dose of contemporary history, there was a geopolitical movement soon after the downfall of the former Soviet Union to disarm China of its age-old antagonism against the West, enlist its stable and centrally-planned economy as the factory of the world, harness it cheap and educated labor force, and enter its 1.3 billion people market. After the Cold War, it was learned that when you starve an enemy nation, it gets more ruthless to its citizens and connive more against you. But if you trade more with them, laissez-faire economic forces would materially reward their participation, creating a new middle class, and hasten economic liberalization that, in the end, will democratize key socio-political institutions. A facility to do this was the decades-old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an economic club meant to remove trade barriers (i.e., tariffs, import taxes) among Western nations and their junior leagues. By mid-1990s, it was expanded into a new and improved GATT/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO).

It was designed not only to counterbalance the growing influence of European Community, but also to enlist new nations, especially China. I did not have the opportunity to tell Miss Flores how her economics effortlessly replayed on my mind as I sat few paces from former presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos in Malacanang’s State Dining Room for the frequent Cabinet deliberations on GATT/WTO and petroleum deregulation.

Petropolitik, Sapian and China

The recent upsurge in world petroleum prices brought uncertainty to the global economy and brought stark reminders of the oil crisis of the 70s. In 1981, Ms. Ligaya Ofalla-Oro gave me an oratorical piece at a Sapian National High School contest. The topic was on oil crisis. It was surreal for me; all I had was a bicycle. Sapian then, while closely entwined with global petropolitik, did not have strong demand for gasoline.

In any event, it is worth to revisit. The oil crisis three decades ago was a showdown between the cartelized Western transnational oil companies and oil producing autocracies united under the then newly formed Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC). OPEC, including the former USSR, brandished its newfound power at the height of Cold War, primarily against the United States, the largest petroleum trader and consumer. The induced shortage due to lowered supply was to assert OPEC power - a purely political theme.

At that time, impact on Sapian was muted. The highway system was in sad state so very few invested on vehicles even in Poblacion. Traffic of public transport plying Bilao-Damayan-Roxas City was probably less than one every hour. As such, per capital petroleum consumption, diesel at that, had been negligible. So no one really cared much about oil prices more than whines from commuters. Capiz Electric Cooperative (CAPELCO) had only installed power transmission lines so consumers did not really have any historical sense of increasing prices. The first flicker of incandescent was enough consolation. Probably, the worst impact may have been upon fisherfolks using motorzied boats, but gas burden may have quickly dissipated in upstream pricing of their abundant catch. In fact, it was the early start of the future boom on fishery export to Iloilo and Manila. At the whole, Sapian was isolated from the petroleum crisis, so I mumbled my oil crisis piece with pure detachment from the issue.

Thirty years hence, oil crisis came back with a vengeance. This time, it is the same assertion by OPEC autocracies, but it comes with genuine economic supply-demand dimension - the enormous demand by China. In this sense, crisis has metamorphosed from a basically artificial political pressure in the ’70s to one that’s a real economic pressure to supply and demand. China is a cash economy, in fact, a debt-free, highly liquid economy, with the state having infinite power over economic fundamentals. For all practical purposes, China is able and willing to pay any cost to sustain its industrial transformation. Naturally, oil producers and traders, even with the best of their intentions, would have to give in. In short, all pipelines now lead to China.

Sapian, 30 years later, has a gas demand of its own. The improved road system has encouraged ownership of vehicles. Although impact on mobility could be cushioned off by readily available public transport network, transportation costs would have to take its toll. Power connections to the farthest households in the Municipality integrate most Sapianons to bunker fuel demand. Cost of production would markedly increase in agriculture and fisheries, including aqua culture, because practically all input are imported. Increases to our prices to offset the cost of production make our products less competitive than, say, Thailand or Vietnam. The Philippines does not have any control over oil supply and production and the government has very little macroeconomic control mechanisms (e.g., interest rates, taxes, etc.) - so much underground economy. Since buying power in Sapian can only stretch so far, the immediate observable result would be cuts in non-essentials, diminished general local demand, and reduced production, and net a economic slowdown.

Thirty years hence, Mrs. Ligaya Oro’s piece is more relevant than ever. In fact, it is a stark reminder at the onset of what could be a greater economic challenge for Sapian and the world for years to come. So, next, we will discuss more about the challenges and opportunities for Sapian in the midst of the brewing oil shortage and the industrializing China.