Bad news is the best news!

This is a country where the good are resented, effective performers are stabbed in the back by jealous and envious cohorts, but the slackers and criminals are rewarded. We have crimes which are exposed without any criminal being identified. We have awful mistakes made by “some government official” but no official in the vicinity owns up to the error. Nobody accepts blame. Nobody apologizes. Nobody gets caught. But people get killed, banks get robbed, and GMA gets her nose pushed out of joint just when she believes that we are on our way to economic progress.

We’ll have scores of thousands losing their jobs here, if investors get sick and tired of the ills and spoils of our malfunctioning bureaucracy. They can easily pack up and leave headed toward a country that offers them a better potential, more security and better infrastructure. Actually, many have already left – will we wait for more to bid us adieu? Those who have been looking at our country diverted and went to Vietnam? Imagine that! What’s in Vietnam? We have all the right stuff (Filipinos have proven themselves around the world) but the government has become an obstacle for our growth and opportunity. If GMA wants to leave a legacy – the best way would be to clean up the bureaucracy. Cleanse up the whole system Madame. You have the powers, don’t you?

This is no call for complacency. The Arroyo government, distracted as it is with the worsening election fever must spur production in agriculture and industry as an antidote to the bad times ahead.

The government seems to be fast asleep in the sectors it must accelerate most. For instance, the urgent infrastructure developments outside Metro Manila, in the most productive and job-intensive areas have begun to develop cobwebs.

I am glad the President at long last is staying home after having undertaken so many trips abroad to attract foreign investors. However, the investors who answered those invitations in the past few years and have established factories and other enterprises here are now mired in disappointment. Why? The cheerful promises have not been kept.

Take a look at the Calabarzon adjacent to our metropolis, which has been, from its inception, the fast-growing development zone in our economy. Have we completed the construction of the major roadways through the concerned provinces already? What is taking them such a long time to complete it? It’s all talk and so little action. If they are satisfied with the existing infrastructure – I think they should take another look.

Where are those “sound economic fundamentals” the GMA propagandists keep on bragging about? Why don’t they create new roads leading to the Industrial Parks within the Philippine Export Zone Authority region. Remember these industries give us big employment opportunities. They are big taxpayers and dollar-earners. The operations of the firms located in these industrial parks are grievously hampered by traffic gridlock and lack of access for raw materials and egress for finished products. Thousands are daily stuck in traffic – delivery trucks, motorists, bus and jeepney commuters, thanks to the inaction of the DPWH. Is this the way to the Philippines 2010? Or the road to ruin?

To this day we still face the problem of traffic at EDSA, SLEX and NLEX. Think of the other roads leading to our homes and provinces. This summer we all the more see the frustration of Filipinos all over the nation – bad roads, poor infrastructure. Go to Tarlac, Baguio, Ilocos, Cordillera – nothing has changed nor improved. Sanamagan! Go to Visayas and Mindanao – no major changes there either except for a few in Cebu. Of course, the new road to Subic is an accomplishment but is that all we can do? Compared to Subic and Clark where much attention and subsidy is given by the government, the Industrial Parks in Laguna and Cavite get little support from the government and yet, they bring in billions of investments to our country. I am not only talking of infrastructure here. I am also talking of protection. Many claim that they need to give a ‘revolutionary fee’ to the NPAs in the area. So they also need to seek help from the PNP to protect their welfare and interests. I am confused – a developed area still infiltrated by NPA. Are they really NPAs or godfather-like Mayors? Can this possibly be a false pretense concocted by the local PNP units in the area? Shouldn’t the government combat this problem? Are we saying the NPA is still a threat in such a region? What is the government doing then?

What will foreign investors say to their worldwide associates and friends, that they get frustrated with the ‘red tape’ system and concern of security over here? That the Philippine government has failed to do their part? They will tell everybody (or must have they already told would-be investors) that it does not pay to answer GMA’s call for investors, because once you bring your hard earned cash over, you’re forgotten and left to your own resources. Surely, they will trumpet such message of disappointment. While many have already left, others are still trying their luck over here – thank God! But if our government will not demonstrate more interest in improving the situation of investors over here, it will be doomsday for us.

The Senate and Congress must focus their attention into issues especially those that hamper our country’s progress? Change the laws goddamnit. You seem to be snoring through the crisis period when you should be giving our investors their full-backing and applauding their contribution towards keeping us chugging along.

I believe that we have the potential to become an economic Tiger one day, but this will happen because private Filipinos and the private sector will make it so. The Lakas-Buwaya government has proven a disappointment and a hindrance. The Cabinet has deteriorated into a bad joke (and the joke’s on us). It has become the haven of the mentally and morally retarded. But we’ll get there, dragging our government officials and bureaucrats kicking, screaming and resisting to the Promised Land.