Agree ako dyan Arlene… mahirap
sabihin we are doing well when yung pera ngayon pakonti ng pakonti
nabibili… just because there are other countries doing worse than us in
other areas doesn’t mean you are better off…
I believe that the Phils has
the potential to do well. But to say
that "The Philippines is (currently) doing
very well" ...Do we
honestly believe that we can tell this statement
with a straight face
to the thousands of Filipinos living in poverty?
Usually, I belong to the optimistic bunch but with
what's happening
in the Philippines now...I just feel so
frustrated.
Got the following from a Newsweek's article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8444215/site/newsweek/
The backdrop to this sordid political soap opera
is a country that's
become truly bleak. Once at the vanguard of the
political change that
swept the globe in the 1980s, the Philippines has
turned out to be
the clown in a class of new democracies. Its
economy is growing but
hamstrung by a serious debt problem, 25 percent of
the population
lives in abject poverty and corruption is arguably
as bad as during
the Marcos era. Perhaps the saddest measure of all
is the daily
exodus. Last year the Philippines
"exported" more than a million
people to work fishing boats in the Pacific, build
skyscrapers in
Dubai or change nappies in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.
Ironically, even the chief architect of
democratization now
perceives "a fatal flaw" in the system.
In an essay published last
April, former president Corazon Aquino argued that
entrenched
institutions, including the police, the courts and
most ministries,
remained arrayed against change in the Philippines.
"Even the best
and the brightest... could not wrestle governance
out of the grips of
corruption, patronage, and inefficiency," she
wrote. According to
polls by Pulse Asia, the public's trust in
government has eroded
dangerously because successive administrations
have failed to deliver
what average people want most—a better
standard of living. Between
1990 and 2002, the average annual growth of per
capita income was 1.1
percent.
The country's fiscal condition is indeed dire.
Today a third of
government spending goes to servicing foreign and
domestic debt
totaling $55 billion. The country's narrow tax
base compounds the
problem: of the 31 million workers who are
supposed to pay taxes,
fewer than a third actually do—and most of
them are middle class.
The country's total population, forecast to top 85
million this year,
is growing so rapidly that it eats up much of the
annual economic
gains. Even with GDP expanding at a respectable
4.6 percent clip in
the first quarter of 2005, most of the country's
growth is driven by
energy exports that do little to boost employment
or shrink the ranks
of the poor. Unemployment now stands at 8.9
percent. Perhaps most
disturbing: the country's middle class has
atrophied as entrepreneurs
and professionals emigrate in droves to find work
overseas.
With its weak institutions, rogue military (there
have been eight
coup attempts since 1986) and near-continuous
political turmoil, it's
fair to ask if the Philippines is a failed democracy.
Were Arroyo to resign, Vice President Noli de
Castro would take the
helm. The former television news anchor was the
top vote getter
nationally in his 2001 senatorial race, but he's
perceived as a
lightweight who would struggle to solve the many
problems facing the
Philippines. But, then, so has just about everybody else.
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