Thailand has left the Philippines far behind

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

In case Board Member Danny Uy stands by my allegation that he told me and countless media men at countless occasions that most of his colleagues were recipients of P40 thousand each from jueteng payola, he earns a propaganda quo for himself.

He, a last termer provincial dad, would get the affection of Pangasinenses.They would say “here is a man with “balls” who was not afraid to stand on what he told media men about the payolas”.But as we know, Danny boy ain’t got “balls”.He denied to heaven and earth that he told me about the payola thing.He ain’t fit for the vice gubernatorial post that I egged him to run in 2013 because of his incorruptibility.Danny boy should know, Pangasinan needs an incorruptible man with “balls.” Danny failed to get the last one.His chance to be the no.2 man of the province crashed before it was given a chance to take off.Alaga-an niyo na lang ang babuyan ninyo after your term.You ask newsman Paquito Basila: “Di ba pare, parang kolumnista din ng pahayagan na di na sumikat, diretso la-os na?”.***When Rep. Kimi Cojuangco (5th District, Pangasinan) told me recently that three decades ago our Asian neighbor Thailand has almost the same population with the Philippines, I could not get the Thais present demographic number. Thus I clicked the site of the Central Intelligence Agency’s World’s Facts Book.It says there Thailand got a July 2011 population estimate of 66,720.153 while my dear Philippines hit the 101,833,938 mark.Because I know that the culprit that helps aggravate our penury is the vigorous opposition of the Catholic hierarchy to the government’s program to thwart population explosion through contraception, they should know the economic price we are now paying.According to the World’s Facts Book, the Gross Domestic Product-Per Capita Income (GDP-PPI) (to peasants who just learned how to read, it means a approximation of the value of goods produced per person in the country, equal of the country’s GDP divided by the total number of people in the country ), lucky Thailand has a 2010 estimated Gross Domestic Product- Per Capita Income of U.S $8,700 (or Philippine peso’s equivalent of 365, 400 a year salary),while pathetic Philippines who is scared to the threats of myopic clergies and anti-RH Bill advocates got a sorry U.S $ 3,550 (P149,100 a year).Family planning conscious Thailand who is not only known as the coup’d’ tat capital of East Asia, it is also known as the Detroit of the South East Asian Region.Her industry and tourism (buttressed by legal prostitution industry that thrives despite the AIDS scare) earned her the present GDP-PPI.***My townmates and schoolmates who are teaching English language to the English handicapped Thai kids posted pictures at Face Book about the classrooms of public schools there. I died with envies how the Thais (who look like Pinoys) have trail-blazed us in the four-walls of public education. Public classrooms there – even in far-flung areas – got all the amenities of exclusive private schools here with all the air conditioned system, white boards, latest speech labs, and latest computer gadgets.Our overpriced corruption tinted public school room here that cost more than half-a-million (its real price can be as low as P350 thousand) would looked like the Thai’s stockroom.Anti RH Bill advocates might dispute my observations that Mainland China’s liberal “Constitution” that allows 100 percent foreign ownership of industries there. They would cite too China’s countless nuclear powered plants that sells cheap electricity that likewise entice investors be it Chinese and foreigners to put shop there and avail of the Sino’s strike-free basement priced minimum wage.***“So we should allow 100 percent foreign ownership, and nuclear plants in the Philippines. But we should not tinker with God’s mandates in the Bible to ‘go and multiply,” the anti-RH advocates probably would rebut me.That’s idiotic. More number of children to a poor family means poverty. Why not start first with free contraception at the villages followed later by 100 percent foreign ownership and nuclear power plants.Is that not commonsensical?Geez, China has been requiring her people with Great Premier Deng Xiao Ping’s edict in 1979 about “One child one policy” for a nuclear family to the extent of doing abortion to many mothers who violated the edict.This policy made China experience ‘the great economic ejaculations that averagely run to 8 percent Gross National Product (GNP) every year for the last two decades.Our government need not muscle our people. We are a democratic country, but for God sake my Dear Procopio can these narrow minded priests and other anti-RH bill advocates give us options.“Walang puwersahan. Kung gusto mo ng sampung anak, go ahead! kailangan mo ng tulong, at gusto mo mag plano ng anak ninyo, tatlong anak lang, you can come to your municipyo, to your health clinic at humingi ka ng libring contraceptives!(No force. If you like10 children, go ahead! If you need help and you want to plan your family like three children you can come to your municipyo, to your health clinic and you can ask for free contraceptives!)”That’s what Rep. Kimi Cojuangco recently told me.If the Texans have the battle cry “Remember the Alamo!”We Flips should have “Remember the Thais” who have long eclipsed us.These sons of guns Thais were once our “students” on how to plant high breed rice at University of the Philippines at Los Banos, Laguna in the 1960s.Now they got all the high breed rice in the world, we Filipinos got all the high blood every time our government imports the staple from them and Vietnam through another corruption tinted transaction.And we should remember too, susmariosep, the basket-case Vietnam and Cambodia who are already just below our butt in terms of economic development (You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).