Our struggle for survival
OUR HUMAN resources – the skilled and unskilled laborers who toil for a living for the survival of their families – are the cogs in the wheel of sustainable productivity.
In Philippine setting, sustainable productivity is essential to the survival of Filipinos who now number approximately 105 million at our annual 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 eat three square meals a day.
Worse, 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 where parents expect their children to take over farm work, only to end up disappointed when these children ironically seek “greener pasture” in the city.
Indeed, this country is rich in natural resources. We grow rice, sugar cane, pineapples, bananas and coconuts, among others. Our seas throb with fishes. But have we maximized utilization of these natural resources? Unfortunately, “no” is the answer.
We have mishandled our natural resources! Due to illegal logging and upland migration, the country has lost forest cover. From six million hectares in 1990, our forest cover has dwindled to not even half as much.
A better alternative would have been to strike a balance between income and consumption. An ideal family must only beget as many children as they can feed, clothe and send to school. A good education and stable career will assure them of better opportunities for success. Failure to generate income would bind them and the succeeding generation to a vicious cycle of poverty.
Learning by example is how most children learn to cope. parents teach their children ways to escape being poor by seeking opportunities, their children may be picking up the sign that this is all that is for them in life.
Fortunately, on the other hand, we have entrepreneurs who are now capable of exploiting our natural
resources to the hilt. The Guimaras mango, for example, has a huge export market in Australia. The Davao pineapple sells like hotcake in New Zealand. Dried ripe mangoes from Cebu, are available in duty-free airport shops everywhere.
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.
We have to “export” labor as well due to lack of opportunities within the country. More than 10 million Filipinos now live and work abroad – an indicator that our own survival at home now depends on remittances from them. Never before have we seen mass migration of Filipino nurses to escape starvation wage. Even doctors take up nursing in the hope of working in US hospitals, which pay them from $ 3,000 to $5,000 dollars a month.
While in Thailand, President Rodrigo Duterte vowed before the Filipino community to make labor export “no longer necessary” without explaining how.
Unfortunately, in the first eight months of the Duterte presidency, the scenario of underemployment has not changed. For instance, most nurses and other health workers still work hard for low income in both government and private hospitals. There are even “volunteers” who work for free in the hope of gaining experience that would qualify them for employment abroad. Naturally, the hospitals benefit from their gullibility.
God provides, we console ourselves while scanning the Bible for advice. Here’s one from Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise; which, having no guide, oversee or ruler, provides her meat in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.” (hvego31@gmail.com/ PN)