[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | Laboring for survival’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=”]
Sunday, April 30, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
YOU must have seen the news on TV – thousands of Filipinos moving out of their homes to enjoy “LaBoracay” for three non-working days between yesterday and tomorrow’s Labor Day. It’s a coined word standing for “labor” and “Boracay.”
Ironically, they are no ordinary laborers who can splurge on travel to a tourism haven on Labor Day. Most probably, the majority of them are the “masters” for whom the laborers toil for family survival.
Fortunate are they who can depend on the laborers – the cogs of the wheel that runs the economy. The laborers themselves are less fortunate; their income hardly copes with rising prices. Ideally, there ought to be sustainable productivity for both employers and employees.
In Philippine setting, sustainable productivity is essential to the survival of Filipinos who now number 100 million-plus and counting at a growth rate of 2.36 percent. 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 meals a day.
Let’s face it: 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 expect their children to “inherit” farm work.
A better alternative would have been to strike a balance between income and consumption. An ideal family must only beget as many children as it can feed, clothe and send to school. A good education will assure the kids of better opportunities for success. Failure to do so would condemn future generations to a vicious cycle of poverty.
The solution to poverty lies not in maximizing the number of babies but in growing natural resources. We are supposed to be rich plants and livestock. Our seas throb with fishes. But have we fully utilized these natural resources?
Unfortunately, utilization and abuse are not synonymous. Logging as an industry could have been one of our strengths had illegal loggers not robbed this country of sustainable forest cover. The forest area of the Philippines is estimated to have declined from 12 million hectares in 1960 to its current level of about 5.7 million hectares. It would take decades of reforestation to recover lost trees.
Slowly but surely, however, our entrepreneurs are learning to exploit our natural resources to the hilt. The Guimaras, mango, for example, has a huge export market in Australia. During a vacation in New Zealand in June 2016, I personally saw tons of Philippine pineapples and bananas being sold in the shopping malls there.
We have creative professionals in the arts and sciences – say painting, writing, sculpting, cooking, gardening, sewing, playing instruments, dancing, singing, nursing, care-giving, among others – but there’s not enough local environment for them to bloom. Therefore we have to “export” them.
Even doctors take up Nursing, hoping to work in American hospitals and earn $3,000 to $5,000 dollars a month.
Those who remain at home have no choice but suffer starvation wages in local hospitals or, worse, work as “volunteers” in order to gain the experience needed to qualify them for regular employment. Obviously, the hospitals are the true beneficiaries of their gullibility.
As an apt quotation for tomorrow’s Labor Day, here’s one from the Bible (Proverbs 6:6-8): “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” (hvego@yahoo.com/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
