Last week the government and the group of rebels known as NDF-CPP (National Democratic Front-Communist Party of the Philippines) began the third of the present round of Norway-brokered negotiations aimed at ending one of the two remaining communist rebellions in Asia. Both parties to the negotiations have indicated that the current round will take on the issue of “socio-economic reforms” and that one of the reforms to be discussed is industrialization.
In a September 8, 2016 column on the issue (“What kind of economic reforms?”) I made the point that, since socio-economic reforms were going to be addressed by the negotiations, it was only right, in the interest of transparency and fairness, that the Filipino people be told what the “socio-economic reforms” phase of the negotiations will cover. They need to know what existing socio-economic policies and arrangements the government—in representation of the nation—will be asked to reform or give up.
Today I intend to focus on “industrialization.” This presumably means manufacturing. The NDF-CPP presumably means the improvement of existing manufacturing industries and the establishment of manufacturing industries that are missing from the economic landscape.
And so I ask, what exactly do our communist friends mean when they tell the government that they want to discuss when the word “industrialization” appears on the negotiations’ agenda?
Do the comments mean the installation of manufacturing industries that are not on the scene, the re-establishment and the re-installation of manufacturing industries that have ceased to exist and the closure of manufacturing industries whose operations are thought to be inimical to the people’s welfare as perceived by them? The government negotiators—and the people whom they represent—need to know. And the NDF-CPP should give them specifics, not motherhood-type information.
How about policies and programs? What industrial practices, mechanisms and procedures does NDF-CPP want to see discontinued or reformed (almost certainly radically)? Do our communist friends disfavor subsidies, incentives, preferences and other accepted means employed by economic policymakers to encourage manufacturing industries that they regard as desirable parts of the nation’s industrial infrastructure? Again, the government negotiators—and the Filipino people—want, and deserve, specifics.
Finally, after the ‘what,’ there is the ‘how’ of industrialization. How do our communist friends want their desired manufacturing industries to come into being? Do they want them to be installed on the basis of government funding—and therefore be publicly owned? If the answer is yes, that will mean allocations in the national budgetary allocations for other desirable government expenditures, including those for social services. The question bears asking whether at this point, when the government is in the midst of privatizing publicly owned assets, a fresh round of government financing of manufacturing industries is the desirable way to go.
Putting up government-owned industries—if that is what our communist friends mean by industrialization—is a very expensive business. Manufacturing industries do not fall out of the sky. They must be financed, and the costs must be borne by somebody. They do not come into being on the basis of ideologically based wishing, no matter how elegantly done.
And so I return to the title of this column. When it speaks of industrialization, what does NDF-CPP really want? The Filipino people awaits the answer with bated breath.
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