CHAPTER 17 More Than a Hero

Euripides Rubio was born on March 1, 1938 in Ponce, Puerto

Rico. Were he alive in the year 2003, he would be reaching

retirement age. He might be looking forward to spending more time

with his wife or his grandchildren. Captain Rubio died at age 28 in

Tay Ninh Province, the Republic of Vietnam.

Capt. Rubio was attached to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry of

the U.S. Army. He had entered service at Fort Buchanan in Puerto

Rico. He was serving as his unit’s communications officer when it

came under fire from the Viet Cong. Capt. Rubio and his comrades

were badly outnumbered. The communist forces raked the

American position with machine gun fire and launched mortar

rounds and rifle grenades into the midst of the Americans.

Had he remained where he was, Capt. Rubio might have been

safe. Instead, he left his position and moved to the area where the

firing was the most intense, distributing ammunition, tending to the

wounded, and helping re-position the Army defenders. By exposing

himself this way, he was wounded twice, but he kept on. When one

of the battalion’s rifle company commanders was wounded and

evacuated, Capt. Rubio quickly took command. Moving among his

men to rally their spirits in the face of the devastating Viet Cong

fusillade, he was wounded a third time.

When more men were wounded, Capt. Rubio attended to them

437

when he noticed something that put the company in danger of drawing

friendly fire. A smoke grenade that had been dropped to mark

the position of the Viet Cong for U.S. air strikes had fallen dangerously

close to the American and Republic of Viet Nam lines. Rubio

rushed to grab the smoke grenade and reposition it to safeguard his

countrymen and our allies, when enemy fire drove him to his knees.

Somehow, undeterred, he scooped up the grenade, “ran through the

deadly hail of fire to within 20 meters of the enemy position,” as the

citation reads, and hurled the smoking grenade into the midst of the

Viet Cong before collapsing for the final time.

Using the grenade to target their attacks, allied air strikes were

directed to destroy the Viet Cong forces and end their assault. As

the citation further reads, “Capt. Rubio’s singularly heroic act

turned the tide of battle, and his extraordinary leadership and valor

were a magnificent inspiration to his men. His remarkable bravery

and selfless concern for his men are in keeping with the highest

traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on Capt.

Rubio and the U.S. Army.”1

Capt. Euripides Rubio died on November 8, 1966. He is one of

four Puerto Ricans who have won the Congressional Medal of

Honor. All four were killed in action.

438

Afterword

The last 13 years that I have been involved in Puerto Rico’s selfdetermination

have been the most rewarding ones in my life. I

have had the opportunity to contribute to what I believe would be a

better life for 4 million U.S. citizens. I own property in and have

income from both Puerto Rico and from the United States. My U.S.

taxes go to subsidize people in Puerto Rico, who pay no federal

taxes yet enjoy all the federal benefits that my tax dollars buy. This

is both unfair and irresponsible, and it outrages me. Most of all it

outrages me because these billions in tax dollars are spent largely

due to the maneuvers of pharmaceutical firms trying to protect their

$4 billion annual “cut.”

My involvement in this process has helped me gain a better

understanding and appreciation of the genius of our founding

fathers, who developed the model for our democracy. You will

probably not find my definition of our democratic system of

government in any political science textbook, but this is what I have

learned as I have observed it in action.

Our biggest strength (and perhaps our biggest weakness) is that

our elected lawmakers and executives are limited to the amount of

integrity they can exercise in our system of government. We usually

think of integrity as something good. It typically is, but it can also

be very evil. If you look at one definition of the word ”integrity,” it

means commitment to one’s values and the guts to stick to them.

But who decides which values are good for humanity and which are

not? Hitler’s values reflected his sordid concept of a master race.

With that understanding, his actions had “integrity.” Thankfully,

439

under our system of government, that definition of integrity would

not fly because it would be filtered through the hearts and minds of

America’s voters.

False definitions of American values have played a major role

in our history. “Manifest Destiny” represented the idea that

European Americans were superior to Native Americans and had a

natural right to America’s resources. The execution of that idea

contributed to the relocation and extermination of hundreds of thousands

of Native Americans.

Before our constitution was written, the Declaration of

Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” and that

they are entitled to “inalienable rights.” As a statement of universal

values, this document had tremendous integrity. As applied in real

time, however, it was literal, not universal, because in the late 1700s

women, indentured servants, Native Americans and slaves were

specifically exempt from those “inalienable rights.” They were not

considered “men.”

Eventually, as we all know, the definition of “men” was

expanded, sometimes under great pressure, to acquire its universal

meaning. All those wrongs that were considered “rights” at an

earlier time are now history, and our constitution and its provisions

continue to evolve.

For more than two centuries, the two forces that drove our

government and reflected our contemporary, collective conscience

were votes and capital. Every elected lawmaker and executive had to

respond to both or he would be out of business. The capital was

needed to promote the election of a candidate, and votes were needed

to secure the majority. Election reform has been the buzzword of late

and as a result, the influence of capital has been defined as evil and

corrupt. But before we start condemning capital, let’s not forget that

it is capital that provides the jobs that put the bread on the table of

those who vote. And it is America’s freedoms that allow anyone who

so chooses to accumulate as much capital as they please.

A candidate who ignored capital would not have the resources

to get his message out to the voters and a candidate who ignored the

desires of the people who elected him would be shunned at the

polls. No candidate could declare, “My conscience and my values

dictate this, regardless of what my voters and my contributors may

440

think.” That candidate would not even get out of the starting gate.

In our current effort to promote self-determination for Puerto

Rico, we sparked initial interest in our cause by using capital, but

we had no votes. The only thing that has driven our idea as far as we

have advanced it is the limited integrity that our system allowed

those brave lawmakers to exercise who believed they were doing

the right thing – Republicans like Tom DeLay, Dan Burton, Don

Young and Democrats like Dick Gephardt, Bill Richardson, Patrick

Kennedy and others like them.

If slaves could vote, would they have voted themselves out of

slavery long before the civil war brought their liberation?

Eventually, the “right thing” prevailed. That was only because there

were people who dared exercise their integrity and in some

instances at a great personal cost.

In the end, the cause of self-determination for Puerto Rico will

prevail because the “right thing” always does under our democracy.

But unlike the favorite mantra of congress that chants the lie: “It

is up to the people of Puerto Rico to decide their future,” it is

congress that controls that decision. Just like it has for every territory

that ever became a state or was given its independence and it’s

the American voters and American capital that control congress.

So, when will American taxpaying voters (and American capital)

finally get fed up with spending over $20 billion a year to support a

welfare territory just to enrich a few select pharmaceuticals?

With the Navy’s exodus, America’s Department of Defense will

not have a significant presence in Puerto Rico. To most of us it signifies

that Puerto Rico no longer has strategic value to the U.S. So,

will Puerto Rico go the way of the Philippines or, will Puerto Rico

be asked to pay its fair share of Federal taxes and the 4 million U.S.

Citizens be allowed to participate fully in our democratic process?

Only time will determine the final outcome. But until then, both

American tax payers and the 4 million disenfranchised citizens who

live in Puerto Rico will continue to be shortchanged.

441
Endnotes

1. Bob Woodward, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House

(Simon & Schuster: New York, 1994), p. 175-176.

2. Ibid., p. 292-293.

3. National Geographic, March 2003, p. 40.

4. Ibid., p. 39.

5. Howard Hills, “The Saga of H.R. 856: The ‘United States-

Puerto Rico Political Status Act,” unpublished paper in the possession

of the authors.

Chapter 4

1. Office of National Drug Control Policy (2001), The

Washington, D.C. Executive Office of the President (Publication

No. NCJ-190636). Accessible electronically at http://whitehousedrugpolicy.

gov.

http://www.pulsus.com/CARDIOL/19_02/edie_ed.htm, visited

June 13, 2003.

3. Lorelei Albanese, “Uncle Sam’s Billions,” Caribbean

herald.org/issues/2003/vol7n33/CBUncle Sam-en.shtml.

4. Bureau of the Census, “Federal Expenditures by State,” 1981-

1993, 1995-1997, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,

“Consolidated Federal Funds Report,” 1994, 1998-2001; Joint

Committee on Taxation, “Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures,”

1986-2001; Department of the Treasury, “The Operations and Effect

of the Possessions Corporation System of Taxation,” March 1989;

General Accounting Office, “Puerto Rico and Section 936” Report

GAO/GGD-93-109; in Robert J. Shapiro et al., “The Costs of Puerto

443

Pay to the Order of Puerto Rico

Rico’s Status to American Taxpayers,” prepared for the American

Alliance for Tax Equity, April 2003., p. 8.

5. The federal government’s fiscal year and Puerto Rico’s fiscal

year do not coincide. The federal fiscal year begins on October 1 of

each year and ends on September 30 of the following year. Puerto

Rico’s fiscal year runs from July 1 of each year through June 30 of

the following year. This difference, and the use by Puerto Rico of

carry-overs from previous year’s grants, accounts for variations in

the numbers as reported by the federal Office of Management and

Budget and Puerto Rico’s Planning Board. Unless otherwise indicated,

the numbers in this chapter reflect the federal fiscal year.

6. Lorelei Albanese, op cit.

7. John Mueller and Marc Miles, “Section 936: No Loss to

Puerto Rico,” undated article, for Lehrman, Bell, Mueller and

Cannon consulting firm, Arlington, Va., circa August 1998, p. 3.

8. U.S. Census Bureau, The Statistical Abstract of the United

States, 2002 Edition, Washington, DC 2001, Table 1291, p. 806.

9. Lorelei Albanese, op. cit.

10. James Dietz, “The Impact of Commonwealth Status on

Puerto Rico’s Economic Development,” in The Costs of Puerto

the American Alliance for Tax Reform, April 2003, p. 40.

11. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002 Edition, Table

1297, p. 809; Albanese, op. cit.

12. The Family Portrait, “A Compilation of Data, Research and

Public Opinion on the Family” (Family Research Council,

Washington, DC 2002). See especially pp. 18-20 and pp. 117-121.

13. Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, “The Social Costs of Puerto Rico’s

Commonwealth Status,” in The Costs of Puerto Rico’s

Commonwealth Status to American Taxpayers, prepared for the

American Alliance for Tax Equity, April 2003, p. 56.

14. “Puerto Rico Received More than $54 Million from Justice

Department Last Year,” press release, Office of Communications,

Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, April 22,

2003, p. 1.

15. Joanisabel Gonzalez-Velazquez, “Government Announces

New Measures to Halt Crime,” WOW News, September 4, 2003,

reprinted in the Puerto Rico Herald, at www.puertorico-herald.

444

org/issues/2003/vol7n36/Media1-en.shtml.

16. Idem.

17. Pantojas-Garcia, op. cit., p. 71.

18. Idem.

19. Idem., p.74.

20. J. Tomas Hexner and Glenn Jenkins, “Puerto Rico: The

Economic and Fiscal Dimensions,” prepared for the Citizens

Education Foundation, 1998, p. 13.

21. Idem.

22. John Mueller and Marc Miles, “Unemployment and

Government Policy in Puerto Rico,” Lehrman, Bell, Mueller and

Cannon, Arlington, Va., unpublished paper, July 30, 1998, p. 32.

23. Ibid., p. 35.

24. The major political parties do hold primaries in Puerto Rico

and voting delegates attend the national party conventions.

Republicans, for example, held their 2000 primary in Puerto Rico

on February 27. George W. Bush won the primary with 87,375

votes, 94 percent of the total cast. On an island with more than 3.9

million people and a history of higher than average voter participation,

the scant voter turnout reflects the cynicism with which the

Puerto Rican people greet the fact that they have no say at the finish

line.

Chapter 5

1. A Joseph Campbell Companion, Diane K. Osbon, editor

(Perennial Books, Reprint Edition, 1995), p. 18.

Chapter 6

1. Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, “The Social Costs of Puerto Rico’s

Commonwealth Status,” in The Costs of Puerto Rico’s Commonwealth

Status to American Taxpayers, prepared for the American

Alliance for Tax Equity, April 2003, p. 70.

2 James Dietz, “The Impact of Commonwealth Status on Puerto

Rico’s Economic Development,” in The Costs of Puerto Rico’s

appearing with this chart cites “Rivera-Batiz and Santiago, 1996,

45; U.S. Bureau of the Census, International database.

3. Vazquez Calzada, La poblacion de Puerto Rico, p. 286;

445

Pay to the Order of Puerto Rico

Whalen, From Puerto Rico to Philadelphia, Chap. 3; in Pantojas-

Garcia, op. cit., p. 62.

4. Pantojas-Garcia, op cit., p. 62.

5. J. Tomas Hexner and Glenn Jenkins, “Puerto Rico: The

Economic and Fiscal Dimensions,” prepared for the Citizens

Education Foundation, 1998, p. 7. Hexner is the chairman of Hex,

Inc. and Jenkins is the Director of the International Tax Program at

Harvard Law School and Fellow of the Harvard Institute for

International Development.

6. Dr. Joseph Pelzman, “Imported Capital Dependency as an

Economic Development Strategy: The Failure of Distortionary Tax

Policies in Puerto Rico,” Occasional Paper Series No. 50, The

European Union Research Center, The George Washington

University, Washington, D.C., December 17, 2002, p. vi.

7. John Mueller and Marc Miles, “Section 936: No Loss to

Puerto Rico,” Lehrman, Bell, Mueller and Cannon, Arlington, Va.,

undated, circa August 1997.

8. Dietz, op. cit., p. 47.

9. Pantojas-Garcia, op. cit., p. 75.

10. Ibid., p. 77.

11. Shapiro, R., et al., “The Costs of Puerto Rico’s Status to

American Taxpayers,” prepared for the American Alliance for Tax

Equity, April 2003. Not to paint too rosy a portrait, real average

weekly wages have been on the decline in Puerto Rico since 1986,

and this trend has continued its steady stair-step downward.

12. Marialba Martinez, “Manufacturing Industry Hopeful of

Economic Recovery in FY 2004,” Caribbean Business, reprinted in

org/issues/2003/vol7n37/CBManuflndus-en.shtml.

13. Mueller, J. and Miles, M., “Unemployment and Government

Policy in Puerto Rico,” Unpublished paper, July 30, 1998,

Arlington, Va., p. 2.

14. Hexner and Jenkins, op. cit., pp. 15-16.

15. Hexner and Jenkins, op. cit., p. 46.

16. Pantojas-Garcia, op. cit., p. 69.

17. Hexner and Jenkins, op. cit., p. 17.

18. Pelzman, op. cit., p. 81.

19. Bryan Hiscox, “Princeton U.: Puerto Rico Governor Speaks

446

at Princeton on U.S. Relations, History,” Copyright 2002 U-Wire,

reprinted in the Puerto Rico Herald, at http://www.puertoricoherald.

org/issues/2002/vol6n16/CalderonPrinceton-en.shtml.

20. Hexner and Jenkins, op. cit., p. 35.

21. Lawrence A. Hunter, “Leave No State or Territory Behind:

Formulating a Pro-Growth Economic Strategy for Puerto Rico,”

Institute for Policy Innovation, Washington, D.C., July 28, 2003, at

www.ipi.org/IPIPublications.nsf/PublicationLookupFullText/

OADAB458A7FFB375.

22. Marialba Martinez, “Local Shipping Industry Moves Into

21st Century,” Caribbean Business, reprinted in The Puerto Rico

2003/vol4n47/CBShipping-en.shtml.

23. Idem.

24. Jose Martinez, “Puerto Rico Telephone: A New Way of

Doing Business,” Caribbean Business, July 6, 2000, in the Puerto

Rico Herald, at www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2003/vol4n27/

CBPRT-en.shtml.

25. Idem.

26. Evelyn Guadalupe-Fajardo, “Paying the High Price of

Crime,” Caribbean Business, October 12, 2000, reprinted in The

Puerto Rico Herald, at www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2003/

vol4n41/CBCrime-en.shtml.

27. Joanisabel Gonzalez-Velazquez, “Calderon Reaffirms

Policy Against Privatization,” WOW News, August 22, 2003, in the

vol7n35/Media3-en.shtml.

28 Hunter, op. cit.

29. Joanisabel Gonzalez-Velazquez, “Calderon: Slight

Improvement in Economic Development,” WOW News, June 2,

2003, in the Puerto Rico Herald, at www.puertorico-herald.org/

issues/2003/vol7n26/Media3-en.shtml.

30. John Mueller, and Marc Miles, “Unemployment and

Government Policy in Puerto Rico,” p. 21.

31. Ibid., p. 5.

32. Hunter, op. cit.

33. Jose L. Carmona, “The Little Engine That Can,” Caribbean

447

torico-herald.org/issues/vol4n28/CBSmallBus-en.shtml.

34. Hunter, op. cit.

35. Jude Wanniski, The Way the World Works, Gateway

Contemporary, 4th Edition (September 1998), p. 299.

36. Ibid., citing Irene Philippi de Soto, “Is There Life After 936

in Puerto Rico?”, The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 1993.

37. Hexner and Jenkins, op. cit., p. 47.

1. This discussion owes a great deal to an unpublished dissertation

by Sandra Suarez-Lasa, “The Domestic Political Mobilization

by U.S. Multinational Corporations; The Protection of the

Possessions Corporations System of Taxation, 1976-1986” (Yale

University, 1994), UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor,

Michigan. The early activity of U.S. business enterprises in Puerto

Rico after the Spanish-American War is described in Gordon K.

Lewis, Puerto Rico: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean (New

York: Monthly Review Press, 1963).

2. Arturo Morales Carrion, Puerto Rico: A Political and

Cultural History (W. W. Norton & Co, New York: 1983), p. 212.

3. Ibid., p. 162, citing Luis Muñoz Rivera, Campanias Politicas

(Madrid, 1925) 2:136. Muñoz was a leader of a party that became

known as the Federalists. They were pro-American in outlook and

favored a system of U.S. citizenship with real local autonomy of

government for the island. Many aspects of their worldview

continue to characterize mainstream Puerto Rican political thought

today, even as the use of the island as a factory has continued.

4. Ibid., p. 226.

5 Detroit Free Press, May 10, 1953, p. 7 as quoted in Milton

Taylor, “Industrial Tax Exemption of Puerto Rico, National Tax

Journal, December 1954, p. 163.

6. Suarez-Lasa, op. cit., p. 88.

7. Congressional Record, July 21, 1982, p. 17235.

8. Suarez-Lasa, op. cit., p. 167.

9. Ibid., p. 192.

10. Public Law 103-66, signed into law by President Clinton on

August 10, 1993.

11. Lawrence A. Hunter, “Leave No State or Territory Behind:

448

Endnotes

Formulating a Pro-Growth Economic Strategy for Puerto Rico,”

Institute for Policy Innovation, Washington, D.C., July 28, 2003, at

www.ipi.org/IPIPublications.nsf/PublicationLookupFullText/

OADAB458A7FFB375

12. Statement of Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), on the introduction

of S. 1475, Congressional Record, September 26, 2001, S 9882.

13. Robert J. Shapiro, “Federal Spending and Tax Benefits for

Puerto Rico Financed by U.S. Taxpayers,” in The Costs of Puerto

Rico’s Commonwealth Status to America’s Taxpayers, prepared for

the American Alliance for Tax Equity, April 2003, p. 9.

14. John Marino, “Section 956: Dead on Arrival,” “Puerto Rico

Report,” The Puerto Rican Herald, March 15, 2002, at http://puertorico-

herald.org/issues/2002/vol6n11/ PRR0611-en.shtml.

15. Ceci Connolly, “An Unlikely Pair Fights for Cheaper

Medications,” The Washington Post, September 1, 2003, A3.