Bad, Good News sa Ekonomiya ng Pinas

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Ang Pilipinas at Indonesia na daw ngayon ang may pinaka maraming mahihirap sa ASEAN 10 ayon sa United Nation Development Program (UNDP) na sinulat sa Philippine Star.

Ang ASEAN 10 ay kinabibilangan ng Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, and Laos.

Mantakin ninyo ba naman sa declaration ng UNDP pati si Laos na matagal ng panahon na laos sa kahirapan tinalo at nila-os na niya now si Pinas sa dami ng mahihirap, anak ng bakang dalaga!

Glaring Poverty in the Philippines. Photo Credit: RC

Ang dahilan kung bakit dumami ang mahirap sa bansa natin ay dahil lumubo ang population natin sa 103.3 million noong 2016 (World Bank), iyon ang sumaling kaagad sa isip ko noong binabasa ko ang news article.

Parang rabbit kasi ang Pinoy pag nanganganak! Tapos kung sino pa ang pobre iyon pa iyong madaming anak. Sobrang fertile naman ni tatay at ni nanay – rabbit nga!

Pero noong kino-compute ko ang figures ng population ng mga selected na bansa sa ASEAN 10 mukhang mali ang computation ng UNDP na mas maraming mahirap sa Laos kung ikumpara natin ang kanilang Per Capita Income versus sa bansa natin.

Kaya e compare ko na lang dito si Thailand sa Philippines kasi noong 1975 halos magkapareho lang ang population natin sa kanila dahil sa high fertility rate and the same population living under poverty rate.

Ayon sa Word Bank noong 2016 ang Pilipinas ay may 103.3 million na population at may Gross Domestic Product (GDP) na U.S $ 304.9 billion na kung saan ay lalabas ang $3,883.00 bawat Filipino kung ito ay e divide sa population.

Sa mga mahilig pumunta ng C.R o nagbubulakbol noong college, sa Economics 101 tinuturo po ng professor natin na itong formula na sinasabi ko ay Population divided by GD equals PCI.

Ang PCI po ay hinde po iyan iyong banko na na bankrupt, tawag po diyan Per Capita Income.

Ang Thailand noong 2016 ay may GDP na $406.8 billion, may 68.86 million population at may PCI na $5,907.00.

$5,907.00 ng Thailand versus $3,883.00 ng Pilipinas ay ibig sabihin mas marami ang pera ng Thailander sa theoretical na division of wealth through PCI.

Imaginative lang naman po ito dahil hinde naman dini divide ang wealth dahil sa Pilipinas pa lang mas malaki na ang kabig ng mga Oligarch na sila Ayalas, Pangilinan, Sys, Gokongweis, Aboitiz, Gaisanos at iba pa.

Madami nga sa oligarch na ito pasok sa Fortune Top 500 ng pinakamayaman sa mundo. Siyempre kasi katasan nila ang 103 million Pinoys sa duopoly o oligopoly. Kasi blame natin ang mandated law sa Constitution na 60% ng business sa Pinas control nila ang board of directors and capital versus the foreigners na halos ayaw ng pumunta dito kasi 40% lang binigay sa kanila.

But economists usually used them (PCI) to gauge at mukhang meron namang tama kasi nga madaming Filipino teachers nagtuturo ng Inglis sa mga Thais na kayang tapatan ang pasueldo ng DepEd at mga private schools na sobrang baba ang pusueldo dito sa Pinas.

Talagang mapera ang Thailand!

Ang Good News

Last year naungusan na natin ang Indonesia at Thailand sa padamihan ng Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) sa ASEAN 10.

Ayun sa ASEAN Investment Report as featured by the Philippine Star ang may pinakamaraming investors ng FDI ay from highest to lowest:

1.      Singapore U.S $ 53.91  Billion

2.      Vietnam               12.6    Billion

3.      Malaysia               11. 33 Billion

4.      Philippines             7.  93 Billion

5.      Indonesia               3. 52 Billion

6.      Thailand                 2. 55 Billion

The other last four countries where the Philippines used to belong in the past years were laggard in snaring the FDI.

Doon sa column/blog ko na “Culprit why Filipinos are Poor:Population Explosion” sinabi ko na noong 2014 ang FDI sa ASEAN 10 from highest to lowest ayon sa United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD):

1.      Singapore $67.5 Billion

2.      Indonesia    22. 6 Billion

3.      Thailand      12.6 Billion

4.      Vietnam        9.2  Billion

5.      Philippines    6.2  Billion

Malaking nawala na FDI presence sa Indonesia at Thailand kaya nahulog sila sa Top 4 last year.

The reason for this significant decreased on the presence of foreign investors according to the article “Philippines moves up to 4^th place in ASEAN FDI” ^{were single significant divestment, acquisitions of foreign assets by ASEAN companies in their home countries, large repayments of intra-company loans in one member state, and cross-border merger and acquisition sales in ASEAN fell 25 percent from $10.3 billion in 2015 to $7.7 billion last year.}

Mabuti na lang naging colony tayo ng mga Amerkano. Kaya kahit high school marunong ng Carabao Inglis dahil sa English million na Filipinos na katulong ang nagta-trabaho sa abroad gaya ng Middle East, Hongkong, Singapore, at iba pa.

Aside from house helpers are medical workers and teachers whose number reached 2.2 million in 2016 according to the government website’s psa.gov.ph who sent $28 billion or P1.4 Trillion (2016 WB) to the motherland.

Our sunshine industry the Business Process Outsourcing- Information Technology (BPO-IT) whose workers were at 1.5 million last year and already eclipsed India as No. 1 in the world, in this subcontracting business thanks to our better accented English, with corporations in the United States, Canada, European Unions, and Australia.

BPO-IT whose workers are call center agents, animators, medical transcriptionists, and others infused $22 billion or P1.1 Trillion in the economy in 2016.

Without the OFWs and BPO-Its, this country goes to the dogs like Venezuela where its present President Nicolás Maduro is on a life and death struggle with the 700% inflation that kills its people.

Worse, the huge market United States would not buy its export because Maduro, just like his big mouth predecessor Hugo Chavez – a former paratrooper – spewed anti-Yankee slogans and emulated the xenophobic posture of Marxist apologist Cuba’s Fidel Castro versus the evil Americans.

Worse, oil-rich Venezuela did not diversify thus its people could not be OFWs and BPO agents like the Pinoys because they are effing “No Habla Inglis” or English illiterates.

So Venezuela goes to the dogs while the Filipinos eat the dogs despite the presence of the anti –dog eating statute while the Philippine government diversified its economic strategy by sending its people overseas and by accepting BPO-ITs on its shore.

Result: Multiplier-effect that create more balut vendors, tricycle drivers, school teachers at newly created or expanded private schools, construction workers, others that make the Philippines one of the fastest economy in the world through its present 6.99 percent GDP’s growth third quarter of this year. 

Moreover, pray tell that the lifting of the Supreme Court of the injunction against the implementation of our Reproduction Health Law or Family Planning sans the two medications could mitigate the population explosion in this country that could better off our people in getting employed just like in Thailand.

(Note: Probably a lot of you were surprised I used the vernacular in my article here. This column's sources used to be my data on my radio program that you can accessed at 101 TALK RADIO in Face Book)

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)