Ibon Foundation

Posted on November 18, 2011

IBON Foundation is a research-education-information and advocacy organization set up in 1978.

We are a non-stock non-profit development institution committed to serve marginalized sectors. We seek to contribute to people’s empowerment by generating and collecting socio-economic data and analyses, and by disseminating these in the Philippines and abroad. We envision a world and society of prosperity, free from war and strife, free from inequality, bondage and oppression, and where everyone enjoys full sustainable development in all its aspects.

We study the most urgent socio-economic issues confronting Philippine society and the world. We explore alternatives and promote a new understanding of socio-economic issues that best serve the interests and aspirations of the Filipino people. IBON commits to bring this knowledge and information to the greatest number so that the people can effectively participate in building a self-reliant and progressive Philippines, a nation that is sovereign and democratic.

Through the decades, IBON has developed into a multi-center multi-program capacity-building institution providing research, education, publications, information work, and advocacy support. Aside from its original programs of socioeconomic research, databanking, popular publications and seminars, IBON has strengthened its presence in the formal education sector, in providing non-formal education to people’s organizations, in conducting in-depth research and information services to various sectors, in mainstream media education, and in international networking.

We build networks in the Philippines and abroad involving different civil society organizations, NGOs, institutions and agencies complimenting our aims and objectives. We lobby parliamentarians and conduct dialogues with government, bilateral and multilateral agencies and officials to further advocacy on issues/policies affecting marginalized sectors in the country and abroad. In all of this we work very closely and in partnership with grassroots organizations.

Main Programs and Centers
IBON is a multi-center multi-program institution with research-education-information as its main focus.
The IBON Databank and Research Center is a core program providing information and analysis on various socio-economic issues for advocacy support, education, policy-making, development planning and implementation for non-government organizations, people’s organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and individuals. Research is the core of its programs with the end-view of disseminating the information in various popular forms especially, but not only, for advocacy purposes.
The institution’s research agenda was developed to help provide alternatives to problems in production, livelihood and services delivered at the community level. There are extensive industry and agrarian studies, researches on transnational corporations and agribusinesses, comparative studies on different economies, resource profiles of Philippine regions, and studies on the impact of these socio-economic conditions on the social sectors.
There are also communty-based people’s action research initiatives on production, economic upliftment and advocacy. IBON uses participatory methodology in research and constantly attempts to democratize the research process through community-based people’s action research.
The Databank and Research Center also manages the quarterly IBON Surveys through which it gathers data on people’s economic conditions and opinions on various issues.
IBON’s People’s Education Resource Center (PERC), formerly the Seminars Program, provides comprehensive services in non-formal education especially to grassroots sectors. It produces popular education materials and audio-visual aids on socio-economic and other current issues, as well as training modules on skills training and leadership formation.
The IBON Partnership in Education for Development (IPED) is an alternative center for formal education and aims to promote transformative education through its partnership with schools. This includes teacher training, textbook development and supplementary educational materials for the elementary and secondary levels.
IBON International provides research and education and advocacy support to people’s movements abroad and for grassroots empowerment, as well as links these to international initiatives and networks.
To implement its centers and programs, IBON is organized into three administrative sections, seven departments and a printing press.

Networks
IBON is an active participant in a number of networks tackling various people’s issues both on the local and international arena:
AidWatch Philippines – a broad national network of grassroots-based and -oriented NGOs working on official development assistance (ODA) issues in the country. It aims to bring together and deepen relationships among the widest possible range of organizations for collaboration between NGOs on aid-related issues and concerns. It also looks forward to constructive engagement with official government and donor agencies on the basis of fundamental development principles.
Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) – established in 1998 as a result of networking among research organizations and NGOs in Asia after a number of conferences in 1997, its objective is to channel and focus NGO research efforts towards supporting information, education and advocacy needs of grassroots organizations.
Better Aid – an international network aiming for aid effectiveness
Buy Pinoy Build Pinoy– a venue for Filipino producers and consumers to work together in building a world-class, pro-Filipino economy. With the slogan “Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy”, it aims to give Filipino producers the means and opportunity to excel in local and foreign markets while encouraging Filipino consumers to patronize locally-produced goods and services.
No Deal! Movement Against Unequal Economic Agreements – a coalition of organizations and individuals opposed to unequal economic agreements. It stands for democratic governance, economic sovereignty and building the national economy and advocates for economic relations based on equality and mutual benefit.
Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change– a broad-based national movement for the people to make their voices heard. It fosters “new politics” meaning government from below; advocates the supervision of leadership by a politically-aware and empowerd people, encourages support for leaders with a track record of being pro-people, pro-Filipino, honest and morally upright, and calls for a government that relies on the continuing consent and support of the governed rarther than coercive means to maintain itself in power.
Our World is Not For Sale (OWINFS) – a worldwide network of organizations, activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment.
People’s Movement on Climate Change (PMCC) – a global campaign that aims to provide a venue for the grassroots, especially from the South – who are the worst-affected and yet the least empowered to adapt to climate change – to participate in the process of drawing up a post-2012 climate change framework.
People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)- a growing network of various grassroots groups of small food producers particularly of peasant-farmer organizations and their support NGOs, working towards a People’s Convention on Food Sovereignty.
Philippines Transparency and Accountability Council (PTAC, an Independent People’s Council) – a gathering of non-partisan individuals, groups and sectors opposed to corruption.
RESIST! – an international campaign to draw the broadest aggregate of people around the world opposed to neoliberal globalization and war.
The Reality of Aid — the only major north/south international non-governmental collaboration focusing exclusively on analysis and lobbying for poverty eradication policies and practices in the international aid regime.
Water for the People Network – a campaign involving research, propaganda and education, people’s struggles and direct action, legislation and legal struggles, local and international networking, aimed at opposing moves by government, multilateral funding institutions and big local and transnational corporations to privatize water resources, systems and utilities and amass profits at the expense of the people
IBON also actively participates in the following networks: Consumer International, World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), and Commission Number 2 of the International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS).

 

 

 

 

 

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NEPA Says Open Skies May Lead To Job Loss

Posted on November 18, 2011

NEPA Says Open Skies May Lead To Job Loss

GMA News TV

05/03/2011 | 04:18 PM

 

The open skies policy adopted by the Aquino administration will only lead to job losses and undermine the country airline industry, a group that protects Philippine industries said Tuesday.

The National Economic Protectionism Association (NEPA) said ia statement that open skies would be detrimental to Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific.

The policy is an “ill-thought and badly-motivated executive order on open skies[that] shoots the lights out of Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific,” said NEPA president Bayan de la Cruz.

The group is supporting the position of Lance Gokongwei, president and CEO of Cebu Air Inc. — the owner-operator of budget airline Cebu Pacific — that the policy lacks any consideration for the interest of local carriers.

“As correctly pointed out, Aquino’s executive order opens the country’s skies without any measure of reciprocal gesture from foreign countries,” De la Cruz said.

What local airlines are seeking is equal, and not favorable, treatment, the NEPA president say, citing Gokongwei.

“NEPA, too, does not advocate protectionism if it means protection of monopolies like the Philippine Airlines during the Marcos years,” De la Cruz said.

NEPA was established in 1934 to protect and promote local industries so they can compete both in the national international arena.

For competition to flourish, government must foster the atmosphere of a level playing field so that any airline can compete, de la Cruz said.

President Benigno Aquino III has signed Executive Orders 28 and 29, which essentially opens the country’s skies to more foreign carriers.

“We are not asking for special favors,” Gokongwei recently said. “All we ask for is the opportunity to compete on a level-playing field. Let us have open skies for all, not open skies for foreign airlines and closed skies for Filipino carriers,” he added. — VS, GMA News

 

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NEPA Urges Aquino Not To Follow US Lead in Facing Economic Crisis

Posted on November 18, 2011

NEPA Urges Aquino Not To Follow US Lead in Facing Economic Crisis

GMA News TV

07/24/2010 | 07:19 PM

 

An organization advocating economic nationalism and national industrialization is urging President Benigno Aquino III not to follow the US lead in addressing the present economic crisis because it is destined to fail.

National Economic Protectionism Association (NEPA) president Bayan de la Cruz told GMANews.TV over the weekend that the US economic pump-priming and austerity measures are not applicable to the local economy because it lacks the manufacturing and industrial base and strong domestic market.

“The Philippine response has always been to follow the US lead. The previous administration initiated its own version of a stimulus package and austerity measures. But these failed because of the lack of manufacturing and industrial base and strong domestic market with which to maximize any pump priming activity,” De la Cruz said.

“Austerity measures tend to prioritize big capitalists over labor, the big banks and big corporations over small entrepreneurs. That practice has contributed heavily to the present financial and economic crisis,” he added.

Accroding to him, “President Aquino’s economic program is not comforting to say the least.”

He cited the president’s speech before the Makati Business Club last February, capitalizing on anti-corruption efforts and the focus on what the American Chamber of commerce is rooting – agriculture, business process outsourcing, creative industries, infrastructure, manufacturing, logistics, mining, and tourism; fiscal reforms grounded on a no-new taxes promise.

He said that on its own, the anti-corruption platform will not immediately translate to the reduction of the budget deficit as corruption is deeply ingrained in almost all economic and governmental activities.

On the other hand, he said, “Going after plunderers and big-time grafters will most probably get bogged down in the judiciary system. And if the Marcos and the PCGG experience is any guide, it will take decades before any verdict is handed down, and not necessarily to the interests of justice for the people.”

“The no-new-taxes policy is misguided and just plain political propaganda. The Aquino administration is looking at the more than P300-billion deficit and a P600 billion yearly debt amortization and increasing. Simply removing the estimated P280 billion losses to corruption and plugging it to the fiscal deficit in a year or so will not cut it in the real world,” he added.

NEPA’s president feared that the Aquino administration might just be copying “verbatim” the economic agenda of foreign chambers of commerce and the US chamber of commerce in the Philippines.

“By doing so, the Aquino administration will only be replicating the economic pattern started by his immediate predecessor, and reap the same or worse results,” he said.

De la Cruz said, the BPO industry is “plateauing” due in part to the slowdown of business activity in the US.

“The mining industry is generally limited to the issuance of exploratory permits, and what little practical real-world mining existed is bogged down by serious environmental concerns,” he said.

As to the manufacturing sector, mainly making of electronics chips and car parts, is dependent to the US market.

The thrust in agriculture is not also promising as it focused on high-value crops, and that it cannot escape a serious social challenge as it require vast tracts of land already occupied by farmers.

Also, he said that tourism effort is not any better either. “It is hard to imagine Americans or Europeans doing much traveling to the Philippines these days except maybe for the Koreans,” he said.

Furthermore, he said that the infrastructure program is promising only on paper, unless the Aquino administration defines in detail what projects to prioritize and more importantly, how it will be funded.

He said NEPA proposes economic nationalism because it has been proven right during the only period when the country experienced high economic growth – that is during the ‘50s.

It was clear at the time, he said, “our country managed to build its industry and manufacturing sector and became the second most developed nation in the whole of Asia when it practiced protectionism.”

NEPA proposes the following:

  • Increased state investment in and promotion of local manufacturing, more state support for small and medium-size entrepreneurs in the form of increased and relaxed credit windows and technical support;
  • Review of export processing charters with the view of putting into place stringent import substitution and technology transfer requirements for locators in various export processing zones in the country;
  • Immediate suspension and review of all tariff reduction commitments that had negative impact on agriculture and local manufacturing industries;
  • Immediate suspension of the automatic appropriations for debt service, a moratorium on payments to tainted loans public or private loans (with sovereign guarantees) and the implementation of a more rational debt payment mechanisms;
  • Government assistance in the promotion and development of nationalist ideals among young entrepreneurs; and
  • Creation of a body to formulate a national industrialization strategy.

NEPA history

Seventy-five years ago, NEPA was born out of the historic necessity to hasten the industrial development of the country under colonial powers.

The centuries of Spanish rule and decades of “free trade” under the Americans made the Philippines dependent on the outside world on almost every manufactured commodity—from toothpicks to nails! [see: National Economic Protectionism Association]

The dream of achieving economic independence led to the founding of NEPA in late 1934.

Right after its founding, NEPA launched a nation-wide campaign to promote economic protectionism, which paved the way for “Filipino first, others later” advocacy.

Due to the global economic crisis in the 1960s, the Diosdado Macapagal administration put an end to the “Filipino First” policy. Decontrols, peso devaluation and open-door to foreign investors became the order of the day.

This policy reversal, formulated by the International Monetary Fund and implemented by a rising group of so-called technocrats, was continued in the first term of President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

In the 1970s, the Philippines literally became an open economy—open to foreign capital, foreign loans and foreign economic advisers. Filipino capitalists were relegated to junior partners under the policy of labor-intensive, export-oriented, transnational-dependent industrialization. — LBG, GMANews.TV

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