Walden Bello
 Walden Bello    (activist, politician) | |
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| Born | 11 November 1945 Manila, Philippines |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Alma mater | Ateneo de Manila University, Princeton University |
| Party | Akbayan |
Filipino activist, academic and politician who has proposed a deglobalization instead of globalization, where the economy is locally based.
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Walden Flores Bello is a Filipino activist, academic and politician. He has proposed a deglobalization, where the economy is locally based, instead of globalization.
Early life and career
Bello was born in Cardona, Rizal. His family paid for his Jesuit schooling at the Ateneo de Manila University. During his stay in the Ateneo, he was the Editor-in-Chief of The GUIDON in 1965. Subsequently, he attended graduate school at Princeton University While attending Princeton in the United States, he was introduced to the anti-war movement and led an occupation of the Woodrow Wilson Center. The confrontation with police during these protests radicalized Bello and inspired him to pursue a life of activism. For his graduate studies, he traveled to Chile and stayed in shanty towns following Salvador Allende's socialist rise to the presidency.[1]
When he returned to the United States to defend his dissertation, he lost his ability to return to the Philippines after his passport had been revoked when the declaration of Martial Law by President Ferdinand Marcos on September 21, 1972.[2]
Bello has campaigned for years for the withdrawal of US military bases in the Philippines, Okinawa and South Korea and helped set up several regional coalitions dedicated to denuclearisation, demilitarisation, and developing a new kind of security plan based on meeting people's needs. After September 11, 2001, he was a leading voice from the Global South urging the US not to resort to military intervention – which he believed would exacerbate the problem.[3]
His theses are mainly received in the southern countries and strike the mood of many activists there. In 2003, together with Nicanor Perlas, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for his outstanding efforts in educating civil society about the effects of corporate globalisation, and how alternatives to it can be implemented".[3]
From 2007 to 2015, Bello was a member of the Philippine House of Representatives for the leftist Akbayan Party. In 2010, he gained some attention when he denounced the corruption of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in a parliamentary speech.[4]
On October 20, 2021, Bello filed his candidacy for vice president in the 2022 Philippine elections as the running mate of presidential candidate and labor leader Leody de Guzman.[5]
Deglobalization
Bello tries to contrast globalization with deglobalization, for which he suggests 11 key pillars:
1. Production for the domestic market must again become the center of gravity of the economy rather than production for export markets.
2. The principle of subsidiarity should be enshrined in economic life by encouraging production of goods at the level of the community and at the national level if this can be done at reasonable cost in order to preserve community.
3. Trade policy — that is, quotas and tariffs — should be used to protect the local economy from destruction by corporate-subsidized commodities with artificially low prices.
4. Industrial policy — including subsidies, tariffs, and trade — should be used to revitalize and strengthen the manufacturing sector.
5. Long-postponed measures of equitable income redistribution and land redistribution (including urban land reform) can create a vibrant internal market that would serve as the anchor of the economy and produce local financial resources for investment.
6. Deemphasizing growth, emphasizing upgrading the quality of life, and maximizing equity will reduce environmental disequilibrium.
7. The development and diffusion of environmentally congenial technology in both agriculture and industry should be encouraged.
8. Strategic economic decisions cannot be left to the market or to technocrats. Instead, the scope of democratic decision-making in the economy should be expanded so that all vital questions — such as which industries to develop or phase out, what proportion of the government budget to devote to agriculture, etc. — become subject to democratic discussion and choice.
9. Civil society must constantly monitor and supervise the private sector and the state, a process that should be institutionalized.
10. The property complex should be transformed into a "mixed economy" that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations.
11. Centralized global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank should be replaced with regional institutions built not on free trade and capital mobility but on principles of cooperation that, to use the words of Hugo Chavez in describing the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), "transcend the logic of capitalism."[6]
A Document by Walden Bello
| Title | Document type | Publication date | Subject(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Bloody US-Directed Raid Destabilizes Philippine Politics | article | 1 March 2015 | "War on Terror" The Philippines | American fingerprints are all over a botched commando raid in the southern Philippines that left dozens dead and shocked the country. |
References
- ↑ http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2015/05/26/1458669/kentex-fire-conversation-walden-bello
- ↑ http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2006/02/24/professor.2.others.nabbed.(2.29.p.m.).html
- ↑ a b https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/walden-bello/
- ↑ https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2010/08/04/599207/bello-could-face-ethics-probe-over-gma-tirade
- ↑ https://www.rappler.com/nation/elections/ka-leody-de-guzman-walden-bello-tandem-plans-economy-politics-social-development-elections-2022/
- ↑ https://www.tni.org/en/article/the-virtues-of-deglobalisation
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