Mixed Thoughts

When I read the title of an article (please click here) a day ago, I cringed instead of being proud. I mean, seriously, Philippines lent $1B to the euro zone fund? I thought, "is this really my homeland or there is another Philippines in this world?" However, after reading through it, I know I am not dreaming. It is indeed about our BSP's (Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas or CBP for Central Bank of the Philippines) recent activity.

As far as I know, we are still a third-world country (any economist/ financial analyst can correct me here). There are a lot of other things that the BSP should work on in the Philippines alone. What they claimed in the article that our economy is not that bad anymore unlike in the past is for most Filipinos an illusion. While the malls and high-rise condominium buildings, the facade of the economic status, increases in number, the infrastructures that the majority of the Filipinos need decreases. It would have been a good news if there are no high-priority issues to be addressed in the country. 

What made me think and say that there are still unanswered issues in the Philippines:

1. There are still a lot of unemployed citizens in the country.
2. Not all children are able to go to school due to:
   • their parents are unemployed and cannot afford school
   • not enough schools available on their area
   • does not receive proper nourishment
3. The health of the people are not at its best. The health benefits they receive are not enough.
4. Not all people can afford to have their own house. I think, instead of building expensive condominiums in the cities, why not put these money to build homes at a more affordable price for everybody?
5. The environmental aspect of the country is crying.
6. The morality of the people decreases.
7. There are still millions of OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers) around the world (and the number is increasing!). Why don't they put these money to build more opportunities for jobs in the Philippines instead?
8. Our military group receives not enough compensation, both for retired and still on duty.
9. The farmers do not receive enough support.
10. While all the prices are increasing, from gasoline to all commodities, the regular employees' salary barely increase, or not at all for the past 10 years. This situation results to number 7.

These observations are just but a few of those that I have seen personally while I was still living in the Philippines. It is not bad to help others, but it won't hurt if they thought first of helping their citizens.

On the lighter side though, the second up to the last topics on that said article made me smile in a way. The top businesses in the country are still on the positive side, I just hope that they would do something to help the fellow Filipinos to stay on the positive side too. As for DMCI projects, it is good, but I do hope that the price of their projects would be at the price that regular employees can be able to pay. And lastly, the initiative to renovate and modernize local airports is totally awesome! It is so far the best project I have ever read. I do hope that the tourism would increase after that, so that the country can move further up.

Again, these are just my opinions. I do not ask you to agree on me.