IN JANUARY this year, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia announced that the Philippine economy in 2019 had grown by 5.9 percent, or below the government’s 6.5 percent expansion target.
The growth was a decline from 6.2 percent of 2018.
We would be lucky to hit the previous year’s 6.5 percent target in the current year 2020, largely because of our human resources – the skilled and unskilled laborers who toil for a living here and abroad.
To ordinary Filipinos, sustainable productivity is the key to the survival of our population, which now numbers 109 million.
Unfortunately, the development of our economy has lagged behind our population growth. It is said that 90 percent of the country’s wealth is in the hands of only 10 percent of the people. The poorest of the poor cannot afford three square meals a day.
Most poor Filipino parents wallow in the mistaken notion that the more babies they make, the more they contribute to productivity. This belief is especially prevalent among farmers who mistakenly expect their children to take over farm work.
Indeed, this country is rich in natural resources. We grow rice, sugar cane, pineapples, bananas and coconuts, among others. Our seas throb with fishes. But have we maximized the utilization of these natural resources?
We have mishandled our natural resources. For instance, due to illegal logging and upland urbanization, the country has lost forest cover. From six million hectares in 1990, our forest cover has dwindled to not even half as much.
A better alternative would have been to strike a balance between income and consumption. An ideal family must only beget as many children as they can feed, clothe and send to school. A good education will assure them of better opportunities for success. Failure to do this would condemn future generations to a vicious cycle of poverty.
Slowly but surely, our entrepreneurs are learning to exploit our natural resources to the hilt. The Guimaras, mango, for example, has found a huge export market in Australia. Dried ripe mangoes, done in Cebu, are available in duty-free airport shops everywhere.
We have creative professionals in the arts and sciences – say painting, writing, sculpting, cooking, gardening, sewing, playing instruments, dancing, singing, nursing, caregiving, among others – but there’s not enough local environment for them to bloom.
We have to “export” labor as well due to lack of opportunities within the country. More than 10 million Filipinos now live and work abroad. The Philippine government, of course, does not discourage this rather sad reality because our own survival at home now depends on remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFW). The country received $30 billion in remittances from them in 2019, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
They see no incentive to come home to engage in business.
Here’s why:
“All the Filipinos, as well as those who have tried to engage in business in the Philippines, know how many documents, what errands, how many stamped papers, how many ordeals of patience are needed to secure from the government business permit for an enterprise. A person must count upon the goodwill of this official, on the influence of that one, on a good bribe to another, in order that the application may not be pigeonholed, a present to the one further on so that he may pass the matter on to his chief?”
The lines could have referred to the present. But no, they are from Dr. Jose Rizal’s seemingly timeless essay, “The Indolence of the Filipinos.” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
