Publisher's Synopsis
About the Book: LESS AND MORE Henares experiments with a unique format for this book, a series of articles arranged chronologically under POTPOURRI, during the early years of the Cory Administration just after the EDSA Revolution and the end of Martial Law, the day by day unfolding of many stories, starting from the day he wrote his first column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, under the name "Bullseye", its name change to "Make My Day", up the the convening of the Constitutional Commission to draft a new constitution, and up to the first midterm elections. This narrative of day-by-day events was no furtive tapping on the window sill, but clamorous pounding in the public square, blow after blow, like a monstrous dropforge, beating into shape the times to come. And the time did come. Extrapolating from the events of these early years, one can almost divine what was to come. First is the heralding of the return of the Mother Principle, the emergence of Cory Aquino as a national leader, following the lead of Cleopatra of Egypt, Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and following at the heels of Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Burma, Golde Meir of Israel, Indira Gandhi of India, and Evita Peron of Argentina - the flowering and fruiting of the Feminist Movement. Second, Henares' illicit love affair with his own wife, following the Sexual Revolution that came after the discovery of the Birth Control Pill, leading up to extramarital copulation, the capitulation of the Catholic Church to the demand for divorce, euphemistically called "marriage annulment", and the debate on Reproductive Rights Third, and most important, is the continuing imposition of Western, especially American Imperialism, out of the imperatives of the Cold War against the Soviet Union and Communism. Filipinos who worked for American companies were deemed more worthy than Filipino entrepreneurs, nationalists and industrialists. To them were given the power to shape the Philippine Economy. Secretary of Finance Jaime Ongpin and his claque, collectively known as the Council of Trent and Cory's Seven Dwarfs, proceeded to collaborate with the IMF, the World Bank, American Embassy and the American Chamber of Commerce (1) to eschew industrialization as a policy, (2) to pursue a policy of land reform that impoverished the landed class, without empowering the tenants to be productive, subsidizing the importation of agricultural surplus of American farmers, while refusing to provide price support for Filipino farmers, (3) to allow the unrestricted importation of all American products, while allowing the Americans to establish restrictive quotas on major Philippine exports, (4) to impose regressive taxes that increase the burden of the Filipino poor and decrease the burden of the rich American monopolists (5) to make the Philippines a vegetable garden for the industrial economies of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Cory's policy of national reconciliation among the leftists, the nationalists and the anti-communist ultra-right, was shamelessly sabotaged by Jaime Ongpin and the Opus Dei, by easing out the leftist Bobbitt Sanchez and the nationalist Joker Arroyo from the cabinet. At the moment of his greatest triumph, as he prepared to take over complete control, Ongpin himself was inexplicably fired by President Cory Aquino. A few days later, Ongpin pointed the barrel of a gun to his head and blew his brains out. Fourth, the American CIA, the McCarthyists of the Republican Party, the religious freaks of the the Opus Dei and the Korean Moonies, corrupted the entire Philippine Armed Forces to carry out Ronald Reagan's Low Intensity Conflict policy by which activist students and their professors, priests, labor leaders and nationalists are tortured and murdered wholesale, as they were in Guatemala and El Salvador, without wasting precious American blood. All these leading up to the throwing out of the American Bases in 1991. Karma, karma, karma!!!
