but anyway, just to give you an apt closure for this entire ruckus, yes, i am personally satisfied that the mutual feeling is one of good riddance. although i have this automatic mourning process once something is lost — be it a fleeting romance or the abrupt ending of a shared friendship — i am beginning to be weary and discriminate of those which i need to let go, in contrast to those that i want to let go.

and after having gone through the rigors of scouring for friendships that will last a lifetime, i have now become adept with determining who will stay with me inevitably — be it through thick or thin, drunk or sober, happy or lonesome — and who will crumble down and abandon the friendship when it severely needs rescuing.

trust, for me, is irredeemable and non-negotiable altogether. but that’s just me.

good riddance.

it never felt so assuring to utter these words — no matter what you say, and no matter what impression you try to create, i know how things panned out, and i will forever be thankful for that moment of epiphany when i sensed — no — when i was shaken to the revolting truth, that letting go of unhealthy and injurious bonds can be oh so liberating.

good luck with your life.

it is quite sad and surreal that my last ndc as a debater would be during my first year in debating. for the longest time, and in my past life, i have always shunned the possibility of being a debater for several reasons: for one, i do not feel adequate to become one, for another, i have always been irritated with (the) debaters’ brand of obnoxious, exclusivist, and seemingly arrogant intellectual air — but once i allowed myself to be captivated by its bizarrely addictive appeal, i knew it would stay with me for a long time.

debating is so much fun, and challenging, and excruciating, and exhilarating, and demanding, and time-consuming — but none of its tiring attributes compare to the kind of high one gets when a good argument suddenly appears from nowhere, or how the heart leaps when the adjudicator nods with you as you speak.

but now, i momentarily bid debating goodbye — and to have ended my debate life by advancing to the quarterfinals (with my partner kristi in the photo) in the national debate championship (from over two hundred teams all over the philippines) in davao just last month is enough for me (although my competitive side craved for more).

the motions, the newly-acquired friends, the adjudicators, the irate debaters, the intrigues, the issues: everything will remain with me, and everything will remain in me.

debating has been very good to me — and nothing can ever quantify my gratitude to the wonders that debating and debaters have done for me — for it is here where i learned to accept that certain things are what they are, and no amount of effort can alter the course of inevitability of these established truths.

debating is a respite — it is my own solace from the gibberish of the world and the clutter of a society that has long been held hostage by materialistic consumerism (hahaha!).

seriously, i am going to miss this part of my life — and i do believe, with a certainty that cannot be questioned, that nothing can ever fill the void

but anyway, i am gearing up for my next adventure: manila. just like the rest, i will be in a very tight rat race — and i just hope i will make it out alive. here’s to luck, of which i am most needing and wanting.

IMF is Dead

The burden for any revisionist advocate in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) brouhaha as exposed by Stiglitz, himself included, is simple: he has to prove that the organization has not been enseeped entirely with the wrong principles, and it still has the potential to rise above its initial demise on what it should ideally be doing, as opposed to what it has done for the past sixty years or so of existence.

Stiglitz himself pointed out the blatant perversion of its once Keynesian principle, but after enumerating the scathing criticisms against the organizational performance of the IMF, he commences in his ranting spree and asserts that change can still be had – that the IMF can still rise above its inherent susceptibility to these external encroachments.

But can it really? Or is he merely being an apologist after strongly antagonizing the IMF?

This paper will attempt to answer as to whether the IMF has, for obvious intents and purposes, abandoned its initial purpose and if this is so, it will try to establish whether revisionism is still an apt tact, or will complete abandonment (and the resurgence of a better-crafted and well-established organization) be a better alternative.

The Initial Problem

It is conceded that the IMF, when it was established in the aftermath of the Second World War, had aspired for a noble ideal: it wanted to help in the distribution of economic wealth and, inevitably, in the advocacy of marginally uplifting the shaky economic foundations of less developed countries, especially those who were hardest hit by the war.

However, these highly-commendable aspirations were not substantially reinforced in terms of organizational thrust nor (in) the tangibility of a complete set of principles that was to guide the IMF in its future discretions. As a matter of fact, Stiglitz himself acknowledged this blatant diversion of its claimed and initial obligation with his observation that the ‘problem is with ideology, not economic analysis and valid observation’.

Note that the problem with ideology, especially those that are firmly anchored in a blind subscription to the fundamental and dogmatic principles behind it, is that it has the tendency to shield itself from outside criticism and carry on with its line of work, even when it has proven to be more destructive than constructive – because this is how fundamental ideologies operate: their convictions are almost always near absolute.

Moreover conflict, adds Benjamin Friedman in his analysis of Stiglitz’s book, happens because even during its early stages, the IMF catered both to the developing countries and to the financial markets – thrusts which are often in conflict with each other, he further adds.

With this in mind, we can very well see that even during its conception as a supranational entity, it was already an organization that had no clear vision of what its priorities were – because although it was infused with the noble ideal of extending benevolence to economically-disparaged countries, it was also fundamentally skewed towards the fiscalization of international affairs. And because we cannot conclusively plot out the certainty as to which side had more substantial gains over the other, it is imperative therefore that we answer this by closely seeing how the IMF fared in the years that followed, specifically during the past decade, and especially in the execution of its duties and functions to the countries which asked for its help.

Track Record

For the past two decades, the IMF has been in the sidelines as several countries that were plagued by helplessness and economic fatalism were continually and blindly led into their demise – or to the more cynical observer, the IMF was in fact the reason why these countries have succumbed to their eventual self-destruction. And this observation is for good reason – we have the East Asian experience of 1997, the Soviet disintegration of 1998, and the Sub-Saharan collapse of 1998.

In all three instances Stiglitz claims that the IMF, in its misguided decisions, only ‘..subverted the growth of democracy, hampered local economic growth, and enriched multinational corporations.’

How did this actually materialize according to Stiglitz?

His main contention is that these developments were largely borne ‘..from a ‘shock therapy’ tact in a rush to market economies without first establishing institutions to protect the public and local commerce, and the local social, political and economic conditions were largely ignored.’ Moreover he adds that ‘..privatization without land reform or strong competitive policies resulted in crony capitalism, large businesses run by organized crime, and a feudal structure without a middle class.’

Let us attempt to localize this contention for better appreciation and for more clarity as regards his claim – and for this purpose, we can take a look at the Indonesian financial collapse of 1998.

During that year, the economy was in steep decline and as a result, Indonesia pleaded for an external intervention, or a financial bailout, in order to stabilize the economy. For its part, the IMF responded by imposing higher taxes and introducing budget cuts as part of its ‘shock therapy’ approach and in order to guarantee that the debt incurred will be paid off eventually – the cuts, mind you, were taken from the state’s initial appropriation for the basic welfare services, i.e. food subsidies and what-not.

Naturally, this resulted to food riots and more civil mayhem than there already were, because the after-events of this ill-fated move proved that the imposition of higher taxes and the substantial cuts to basic welfare services, compounded by the lack of strong local political and social institutions for sustained and prolonged stability, was a lethal and fatal combination altogether.

And even if these glaring examples of ill-informed decisions continued to plague most of the countries that the IMF purportedly wanted to ‘help out’, this same line of tact and strategy was employed time and again, triggering the consistent and systematic collapse of already hard-pressed countries that were desperately gearing up for survival.

In contrast to these unfortunate experiences of countries which strongly implemented the conditions set forth by the IMF, East Asia (specifically South Korea) and China have a different story to tell – and these are awe-inspiring stories which ought to be emulated by those that also aspire for greater economic prosperity in the long haul.

South Korea strongly resisted the IMF conditions during its turbulent economic decline of 1995, whereas China rejected any IMF money in exchange for drastic changes within its economic policies and tax schemes. Note that presently, both countries are considered to be part of the forerunners in the roster of countries that are rapidly industrializing.

This disparity of outcomes highlights the unfortunate observation that even if the IMF has failed in providing for a viable resuscitation mechanism for desperate countries, it should not, at least, be privy to the eventual demise of the same. But a look at how it has fared thus far, and in comparison to the economic prosperity of countries which deliberately digressed from these IMF maneuverings, we see that not only have they been very unhelpful, but they have, in fact, even been uberly-detrimental

Mismanagement by Accident?

One of Stiglitz’s main concerns, and one which he personally feels strongly about, is the apparent lack of transparency in the affairs of the IMF – he detests the closed door meetings and strongly calls for drastic changes in the affairs of the IMF.

But let us not be dismissive nor be oblivious to realpolitik as we raise the question: Is it really coincidental that these meetings inconspicuously happen behind closed doors and not within places that guarantee full public disclosure?

Again, Friedman says that these are not just random mistakes, but a ‘..Washington Consensus’ – which add up to something unattractive, if not outright repugnant, in several different ways..’

These persuasions and this embodiment of their market principles: they define the underlying conviction of the IMF – for these are the tangible gauges of what the IMF has advocated for thus far – and the people which populate its roster of officers and directors are strong testaments to the inherent principles of the organization and the degree of entrenchment that Neoliberalism has within the established psyche of those who sustain the existence of the IMF as an organization.

Right at the onset of the IMF’s creation, it was clearly an extension of the Reagan experiment as it facilitated the diffusion of his own brand of ‘trickle down’ economics into the world setting. However, now we question: Is this still true today?

Again, Friedman tells us that this is the case even today – as a matter of fact, he asserts that even until now, this is betrayed by the fact that both IMF Managing Director Stanley Fischer and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin both left for multimillion dollar jobs at Citigroup – joining their erstwhile bosses in the IMF as well who have left earlier to work for the corporate giants in the US.

Again, the message that this gives out needs no further elaboration – an average reasonable person can concoct, from these damning expositions, the hidden truths behind the organizational workings of the International Monetary Fun – and the degree of neoliberal entrenchment inevitably makes us ask: is it still viable for us to resuscitate the IMF as a potent distributor for international economic wealth?

Conclusion

Given all these factors, I am of the impression that revisionism will not be a viable strategy for the IMF if it genuinely wishes to redeem itself in the international political and economic scene.

Revisionism presupposes that something can still be done – that intervention is still possible and the organizational workings of the IMF still manifest that it can be infused with a new principle – but fact is, it has failed in those respects, and it would be futile to even attempt to resuscitate the dead.

As substitute to these inherent failings of the IMF, there ought to be a creation of another supranational entity which has established principles and a clear definition of how it will carry out its duties to its member-states – this time, there should be no room for ambiguities because it is often these gray areas which are abused by certain exploitative and opportunistic elements to advance their selfish and self-serving aims.

And with the establishment of a tangible working program for this new body, I personally believe that the IMF can find its redemption as an organization which truly caters to the economic needs of countries who continually look up to the IMF as the beacon of international democracy and worldwide solidarity.

I felt silly over my adj exam results (pardon to those who are not familiar with debate jargon):

Question number 4: An OO that doesn’t challenge a squirrel may be penalized.

My answer: Yes, he should be penalized but only minimally – after all, everything still hinges upon the prerogatives of the LO, and enduring the aftermath of his lack of dynamism should be enough penalty for him.

Question number 9: Once the OO has accepted the definition of OG, the closing teams may no longer challenge the definition.

My answer: Of course not! (with such enthusiasm mind you J) If the parameters/issues/clashes prove hard to work with, then the closing sides may present a counterprop – it’s the adj’s call later on, depending on what he feels is right or appropriate.

Hahaha!

And by a bizarre twist of fate, and however revolting and downright scary, I got a relatively high score in the adj exam – which catapulted me to the position of adj chair in the first round. Imagine my horror when the teams were already in their seats, waiting for the round to start, and I was panicking inside because I did not know how to formally begin the round with the PM’s speech. Good thing a panelist sensed my apprehension, and so he scribbled these words (that I also retrieved from my debate portfolio, haha) for me to read: I call this house to order on the motion that this house will ban all forms of animal experimentation. I had to refer to his note during the next few rounds because I had to solo adj in the subsequent rounds. Haha! J

Then my adj notes – aah, my adj notes. In retrospect, I was an asshole adjudicator back then. See, I have this ‘personalized’ style of adjudicating, whereby I scribble down notes in the local vernacular – even when a debater says that a certain development is bad, I scribble it down in bisaya, such that it becomes ‘makadaot ni siya’. Haha! Because personally, I understand it more when the language is more intimate and easily comprehensible. But on the downside, I had several comments which I would rather not share because they were downright condescending – yes, I also write down my feelings towards the debater as a person, and his arguments as well. Evil, I know – but then again, this is my way of personalizing my adjudication notes. J

And, just to satiate my strong urge to share some of the highlights of the tournament back then, I will share some of my adj notes which will surely stay with me for the rest of my debate life.

Motion: This house condones anti-drug vigilantes

PM’s Speech: the mechanism will consist of the following: (1) the proper packaging of medicines; (2) how to look for the perfect ingredients; (3) how to disseminate the information that these herbal medicines are available for consumption.

Definition of term: vigilantes – tasked to distribute these herbal medicines.

Arguments: (1) economic development since these products will be distributed to the grassroots; (2) promote a healthy lifestyle as these vegetables can be grown in school backyards; and (3) poor people will be acquainted with the healing power of vegetables.

Hahaha!

So little time, so many debate motions. Cheers guys and see you all in davao!

it was not my intention to muck up that bad, and now, i will need to face the consequences for that night — and i seriously mean it when i say i hope it does not ruin my chances to push thru with davao this october.

but perhaps, this was a much-needed jolt to my uber-indulgent lifestyle, and my penchant for not thinking certain things through.

rest assured, i will now try to temper my impulsiveness with doses of reality, however disruptive (yuck feeler), and not be as adventurous as before.

goodluck clyde — and again, thanks my dear old friends.

My reservation, as a matter of fact and outright concession, actually comes from answering this question during the first day: what is your year, and how old are you?

The first part of the question, I have an easy time answering – as a matter of fact, I have mastered the art of confidently telling people that I am in my senior year, that I am expecting to graduate soon. But the second part of the query, the part where I divulge my age, I get anxious – because as I have managed to do so in past introductions, I often get mixed reactions, from people who try to feign their curiosity and say that I don’t look my age, to those who are less subtle and instantly insinuate that I am a school junkie, a degenerate who has managed to extend his college years unreasonably longer when I should be out in the real world milking big companies dry and, as my good friend RJ put it, doing damage to the world.

I do realize that there is something glaringly odd with the fact that I am aging inelegantly in school while my classmates are getting younger (most of them now were born in the 90s, sheesh, talk about being a dinosaur in college), but if only they ask me why this came to be, I am more than willing to let them in on my life and share snippets of my life story so they will understand, so they will know, and so they will, hopefully, come up with better decisions in their own lives.

Fact is, I am not alone – there are a good number of students who have also extended in college, and if only you spare them a moment to ask what their life story is, I guarantee you that there is a story behind the seeming delinquency and the assumption of them being fatalistically destined for mediocrity – for it is never easy to, day by day, face people who have given up on you and are convinced beyond reason that you will never change and that you will inevitably spend the rest of your life wallowing in misery.

But is it not that life and life decisions are enmeshed in a context where there is constant struggle? Is it not that college affords you that extra shot, that extra chance, when every dream you have starts to fade into obscurity and you desperately try to guard your sanity from slowly dissipating?

I have not always been like this.

In high school, I was considered as one of those who were destined for greatness, and I was convinced as well that I was meant for greater things – but in retrospect, I was not a child of the universe back then. I was confined within a world that was so comfortable and familiar, the kind that was so hard to let go.

Life, back then, was all about getting good grades, adhering to an early evening curfew, and condemning those who did not conform to what was acceptable behavior in society.

Now, I can only cringe in shame for being so sheltered and unquestioning back then, for being so fatally submissive and dismissive, for feeling contented over being a mere observer when I can possibly initiate ripples of change to a society that is plagued by hypocrisy and undiscerned exclusivism.

For in the course of my genuine college exposure, I have learned that sometimes, it’s not about sleeping early at night and savoring scrumptious breakfast meals with your doting and uberly-proud parents, but it is about drinking heavily with your friends after the midterm exams and nursing a head-splitting hangover the next day; that it’s not just about memorizing the prophets and reciting all the virtues in your religion class, but it is about joining an outreach program and extending assistance to those who are marginalized in society; that it’s not just about being safe and foolishly submitting to your teacher’s every whim, but it is about asserting for what is rightfully yours and ensuring that those who belong to the upper echelons of power do not remain unchecked nor unmitigated in their propensity for abuse.

College breaks you and thrusts you into the world in the hopes of altering your predispositions and situating you in a world that throbs with life; it introduces a reality that digresses significantly from the lethargic and oftentimes dehumanizing worldview of resumé-whores who perceive it as trivial and easy.

Fact is, living is not rosy all the time and loving is not always exhilarating – both can scathe you, sometimes irreversibly, and college is where you accept this bitter and disconcerting truth.

And, no matter how some people might take this against me, I am thankful that I have been broken to the world, its intricacies and complications included.

And I am convinced, beyond reason, that no grade can ever quantify my painful acceptance of this gut-wrenching and palpably painful version of what is real – for even if I may have overextended in college, I know that I now have, more or less, what it takes to battle it out in the real world when, hopefully, my formal schooling officially commences this October.

I am Clyde – I am twenty-four, and I am proud of being twenty-four.

do i forget the comma, or do my conjugations suck? or do i forget my subject verb agreement? or is my spelling wrong?

i honestly don’t give a shit — i just want an honest opinion of how i degenerate when i’m drunk — or how i show snippets of my humanity and fragility when i’ve had too much alcohol. but seriously, i do not fuc*ing care — because no one cares — no one really gives a sh*t — and no one is sincere. haha

mwahlavyah!

and with this, i should be ecstatic; i should be looking forward to more intensive tanduay sessions with a bunch of people whose instincts are dictated by, and whose sole purpose of existence for the time being is, this perverted need: alcohol. my friends who are also battered by the uncertainty of the future; by the inconsistencies of fate; and by the deception of temporary bliss.

i should be — but fact is, i am not.

for once in my life, i want to be invisible — to be in a room where no one notices me, or they choose to ignore me — and for once in my life, i long to be somewhere where i am not expected to be enviously happy nor pathetically optimistic, brimming with feigned bliss and affection, a superficial and lethargically-conjured poster boy for makulay ang buhay sa sinabawang gulay.

i want to be miserable, and i want people not to care — or at least be happy for me and my misery. i want to be in a crowd which looks at me and senses that i am in a bad place, an awful place, but they are not compelled, nor do they force themselves, to reach out and say, with a deceptively ingenuine heart buried deep under the willed, pathetic show of concern and gesture: i know what you are going through — you will be okay.

fact is, you do not know what i am going through — and i will not be okay anytime soon, not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

deep and turbulent currents of doubt and despair brew inside my mind — and for once, i want to wallow in MY misery, and i want people to understand that like their individual shit, i too, am hard to understand.

In the Eyes of a Child

by Alvin Clyde O. Gregorio

‘Innocent Voices’ is a poignant story of innocence, carnage, and idealism in war-torn El Salvador during the 1990’s, just as the country was gripped by a military dictatorship, backed by the United States of America.

It chronicles the travails of an eleven-year old child, Chava, as he desperately lives up to the expectations of his mother and younger siblings of being, quite ironically, the man of the house – this, after the original man of the house, her husband and their father, had abandoned them, in hopes of seeking greener pastures abroad.

With its unapologetic treatment of the storyline, and with hints of humor to couch the thick mist of dread underlying the film’s tone in its entirety, the movie is both unsettling and engaging, serious yet candid, sordid but captivating, and revolting however redemptive.

The movie’s central irony, and one which mystifies and lures the viewer into watching the film even if it’s theme verges on incomprehensible carnage and butchery, is the juxtaposition of unadulterated innocence with the recklessness of man’s anger and spite – and it is this juxtaposition which tugs at the heartstrings, the wretchedness of war made more atrocious by the glaring disparity of a child’s worldview vis-à-vis the general foment of hatred that had so consumed his countrymen –

For all that he needed was a solace, a place where he can strike a balance between claiming his childhood and asserting his raw and newfound authority as the man of the house; an affirmation that his existence meant something, anything.

As I was watching the movie progress, I was perplexed and revolted by the conflation of circumstances that stripped Chava of his innocence, seething with rage over the adeptly-orchestrated deception of Western-constructed freedom, the superficiality of the American notion of liberty, the temporariness of bliss, the incomprehensibility of war, the unjustifiable encroachment of poison in the minds of men, the vulnerability of the young, and the helplessness of the innocent amid the incivility of a world that is so deeply-entrenched in hate, remorse.

For in the aftermath of any war, its justifiability or superfluousness notwithstanding, and when the rubble of violence and despair has settled, how are you to address the questions of a child? How do you get him to understand that war is both inevitable and humane?

No war is ever justified – not to the architects of war, nor to the innocent lives that are, in an instant, thrust into the crossfire.

For in the mind of a child, the rhetoric of eventual freedom and military victory is a hazy concept, an alteration to the natural order of things, a rupture to the societal and social fabric – for in the heart of a child, he can only see the devil masked in a military uniform, consumed with the dark and sole intent of perpetuating evil –

And sometimes, it is essential that we find wisdom in viewing the world from the lens of innocence – to counter the ubiquitousness of evil, and temper the unbridled proliferation of mayhem and madness.