What Poverty and Global Warming Share in Common
All signs are pointing to only one direction…up! The peso appreciation, strong interest for local investments, warm reception to government issuance of bonds and treasury bills, the IMF’s praise on the Philippines’ fiscal progress, and so on generates positive energies among the Filipino investors. While the peso’s continuing rise against the US dollar is exacting its toll against the country’s exporters and multinational BPO firms, the country on the other hand is saving billions of pesos on payments of foreign debts. The average Juan may not be interested at all with the statistics. All they care about is getting the basic needs at affordable prices. While the government is doing its best to address poverty (or so it seems), the economic gains we see for now can only be felt at the national level. That is, those gains are spread out on development infrastructure, public roads, public services, etc.
The average Juan should not expect those gains at the per capita level because of a great barrier called poverty. Poverty is so widespread and so great an issue that it needs an extraordinary solution to be addressed. To use a rough analogy, the country can be likened to an airplane whose economic gains can be likened to a little gain in mileage, but inside, the passengers (the average Juan) are cramped like sardines begging for air. Those who are unfortunate gets kicked out of the bumpy ride while the majority are on the tailend of the plane on the verge of falling into the abyss!
While the local surveys show that poor Filipinos do blame the government for their plight, they don’t necessarily depend on the government to alleviate their condition. That’s a good thing. Save for the Marcos dictatorship which every Filipino is vowed to fight against, the best we can do is to work out our share of contributing to production of goods and services.
That’s the big anomaly our country is facing right now. OFWs contribute a great deal of remittances but produces a negative result at the expense of our exporters. The country’s dollar gain is a dollar loss (or a fraction thereof) for our exporters or any affected industries for that matter. The OFW services that should have been produced locally are being harvested instead overseas. Goods and services must be generated locally so the wealth likewise is being enjoyed locally.
So what are we going to do? If you are an employee, give the best out of every peso being paid to you. If you are unemployed, why not consider starting a business? If you are not employed or if you are not into business, just do something positive. Do something that will bring out the best in you. You will become what your mind sets into. Don’t let the dark cloud of pessimism shroud your enthusiasm and passion for life.
We must do something that will contribute to production of goods and services that will benefit our country.
Hey, we’ve been through the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, the Space Age, and right now the Information Age. Why is it that the poor Filipinos’ mentality still lounges in the Dark Ages?
So where does this post leads to? Regardless if the economy is going up or down, it’s not right to blame others or the economy. Instead of blaming, why not just pick up the pieces you have left on the floor and move on. Poverty as complex an issue as global warming needs to be addressed by each and everyone of us now and into the future, day in, day out. Everyday. Because, if we just idle and do nothing, poverty level piles up much as carbon emissions do everyday.