Government economic policy needs revamp

MANY economists will tell us time and again that immediately after the Korean War, the Philippines was second to Japan in the performance of our economy. Yet, as the decades passed, even the devastated country of South Korea not only recovered from the terrible consequences of the South Korean Peninsula War; it is now one of the top ten economically developed countries of the world.

Time and again this column has reminded the politicos who have held government powers about the various countries that have overcome their poverty-stricken economies -Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and, of course, the People’s Republic of China. Well, for emphasis I repeat what I wrote years ago: that according to Deng Xiaoping, he did not care what was “the color of the cat as long as it caught mice.” He meant the Maoist system was passé – not to mention disastrous programs like “The Big Leap Forward,” creating an industrialized China by encouraging small-sized factories. Many Chinese starved to death under that program. Deng further said the difficulty of governing China needed a communist government system, but the economic policies would be socialist, Chinese style. We now know that under that system China has become an economic and world power competing with the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world.

At this late date, we have our local Maoists still talking about Maoist policy that utterly failed in China. One such policy is land reform. For example, they talk about land being given for free for anyone who asks for it. Is it land for the landless or is it land for the tiller? The 24-hectare homestead policy during the time of President Quezon was successful because at that time we had so much government-owned land, compared to our own population. In 1942, we were 16 million people. Today we are over a 100 million. That’s why we have large successful communities in Mindanao like Gensan City, short for General Santos, the one who was in charge of the settlement in that area.

Land reform is a completed concept or program. In the future, government investments should be poured into programs to industrialize our country, such as steel and other metal products made from our iron ore, copper, and other metals. We should be exporting ready-made goods not raw materials.

The Department of Agrarian Reform should be phased out and its functions given to other government departments. The financials should be given to the Land Bank, the production of agricultural products to the Department of Agriculture, infrastructures should be given to the pertinent departments. DAR personnel should be reassigned to the other departments where their qualifications fit. Still others should be allowed the privilege of early retirement.

If we did the above early, we would have no problems with the other corporate agricultural products like pineapples, bananas, and to some extent the sugar industry. Besides there are not enough billions to pay for the just compensation of the lands subject to land reform. I dare say 99% of land acquisition has been grossly under- valued. The acquisitions are unconstitutional. Concentrating on the production of rice and corn for self sufficiency should be enough. The subsidies and the budgets allocated to the DAR could very well provide more benefits if the country creates more jobs by investing its funds to help many industries that create jobs with higher incomes than those who will inherit poverty by being beneficiaries of 3 hectares of land under DAR.

For those local chaps that are brain-washed in some form even in the state universities about the Maoists’ economic model, perhaps they should look at how the PROC has become so successful in its “capitalist economic policies” that are officially labeled “socialism” with Chinese characteristics.