WHILE on the road in a new Grab car in Metro Manila, I asked the driver, “Is this car yours?”
“Yes,” he answered, “katas ng Saudi Arabia. I could have kept on working there had my iqama been renewed. But it was not fun working in that hot country.” Iqama, by the way, is residence permit issued to working expatriates in Saudi Arabia.
To keep our long conversation short, he narrated how long and hard he had worked as truck driver in Saudi Arabia to enable him to buy a car – with a little help from his accountant daughter – with which to earn a living in his native land. He made his point clear: If only the local job market could provide better-paying employment, laborers would stay home with their families.
But the prevailing reality is that most of them who come home after back-breaking employment in oil-rich Middle East countries are disappointed. They have either gone back to joblessness or “suffering” from jobs that pay less than half their salaries abroad. Gone is the sunny future they used to look forward to.
The truth of the matter is that the Philippine government itself is half-hearted in welcoming returning overseas Filipino workers because its own survival hinges on remittances from seamen, nurses, teachers, teachers-turned-house helpers, welders, carpenters, masons and plumbers, among others.
The OFWs have the advantage of coping with the depreciation of the Philippine peso vis-à-vis the US dollar – now P54 to a dollar – because their adjusted income rises with the prices of goods and services. The salary-stagnant local workers, on the other hand, lose to inflation.
According to Filipino architect Felino Palafox – who has designed a number of high-rise buildings in the Middle East – the rapid growth of cities thereat stems from their practice of selling oil very cheap in their local market, but very high in the world market.
Deregulation of the oil market in the Philippines has become a convenient excuse for government to simply shrug off oil price hikes. Never has President Rodrigo Duterte raised hell against the cartelized oil companies that dictate the simultaneous rise and fall of gasoline and diesel prices on the pretext of “adjustment” with the world market.
While in New York City in June this year, this writer took note of cheaper gasoline prices there. Premium gasoline ranged from $2.80 to $3 per gallon; a gallon equals four liters. At that time, a dollar was worth P50 and premium gasoline in Iloilo City was averaging P50 per liter.
If you have relatives in the United States, ask them what the pump prices are. They will no doubt tell you that premium gasoline there still retails at $3 per gallon.
Needless to say, the government aggravates the problem. A chunky portion of the amount we pay for oil products is the 12 percent value-added tax (VAT). Despite public clamor for minimizing the VAT, Malacañang has not only turned a deaf ear but imposed additional excise tax.
No less than the World Bank has warned that the Philippines is among the “highly exposed” nations to rising poverty, with 33 percent of us Filipinos living below the poverty line.
Since the end of World War II in 1945, the Philippines has declined from being one of the richest countries in Asia (following Japan) to one of the poorest. Growth immediately after the war was rapid, but slowed over time.
The layoffs in locally-based industries, either due to closure or retrenchment, could impact foreign investments that now lag behind our regional neighbors, who could not understand why a fertile agricultural country like ours still imports rice. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
