The Obama and the Aquino governments
The other day, President Barrack Obama delivered his State of the Union address before a Republican-dominated Congress. Both Houses of the US Congress are now dominated by the opposition Republican Party but President Obama offered to work with the Republicans to craft legislations that shall provide social protection to the vulnerable sectors of the American society. Our president, B S Aquino III, on the other hand, has both Houses of the Philippine Congress behind his Liberal-dominated administration. But his government has not really provided adequate safety nets to the poor Filipinos.
President Obama presented a proposed package of socio-economic agenda that includes increases in minimum wages, offering free college education in community or public tertiary schools, and his usual Obamacare, a package of medical aid to the poor. He also has proposals on unemployment, as well as on migration, social protection for women and for the minority sectors, including African-American, Latinos, Asians that include Chinese, Taiwanese, Indians, Japanese, Vietnamese and, of course, Filipinos.
The present Philippine administration has not presented any long-term, coherent, much less integrated and viable strategic plan and programs to address the unemployment and under-employment problems. We have ten million unemployed workers and twenty million underemployed and the government merely contends itself with job fairs ''ad nauseam'', and ''ad infinitum''. The government has no other program to address the run-away population growth, except the highly controversial RH Law. Government drives our people abroad to seek employment as OFWs. No less than five thousand Filipinos are leaving daily to work in other countries. This Diaspora is being seen by this government, not as a problem but as a solution.
Labor migration is destroying the Filipino Family, which is the basic foundation of our nation. Hundreds of our OFWs had been executed abroad, many by beheading, and all the government has done is to solicit for contribution to pay for blood money to the victims of murders allegedly committed by Filipinos abroad. The government does not admit that it is pushing our people to work abroad and yet, the labor attaches' performances are assessed based on number of OFWs deployed, and they pushed them to do marketing of Filipino workers.
Medical care in this country is not affordable to minimum wage-earners. These workers cannot even afford to buy basic foods, how much less medicines and hospital care. Quality education is not accessible to the children of farmers, fishermen, and laborers. How much less to those who are employed and underemployed? The conditional cash transfer is adding insult to injury. It abets mendicancy and dole-outs and is just being used by local politicians to buy loyalty and support. It is a bad program and is being run badly. This administration has no viable program like the Obama government. While the US is pro-people, our current government is pro-business, pro-employers, and utterly neglects the working class.
We do not wish to compare the Philippines, a third world country, to the US, a first world, well-developed and progressive nation. But the way it is unfolding, the Philippine government favors the economic elite, the taipans, moguls, and owners of business empires who contribute immensely to election coffers. The millions of jobless, homeless and hopeless Filipinos have only God to save them. Government has neither mercy nor compassion.
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