Job Discussion Forums

[scot47]

Why is the country in such a mess ? Talented people. Raw materials. Near the markets of the Paific Basin, but...........................

[tttompatz]

Corruption at a level that would make Spain proud and makes Chinese corruption seem minor by comparison.

.

[rioux]

The People Power Revolution (1986) was supposed to change all that.

[kungfuman]

I agree. After my 8 day trip there I was wondering the same thing. The people obviously have pride and God and a work ethic.

Most spoke English and they didn't seem like a stupid people who ate white rice for 5000 years and bragged about it daily.

So what gives?

the country is beautiful (outside of Manila).

[tatsuo1]

The country's economics is controlled by a few very wealthy families. Everything else is trickle down, pay the corruption, and meager limited contracts for most employees.
At least that's my take on the situation over the past 8 years.

[scot47]

Studied this in Pol Sci seminars at uni in the 1960s. i have seen the reality over the last 40 plus years. It still puzzles me.

[Captain_Fil]

As someone who was born there and has traveled there 5 times, the economy is not that bad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/business/global/philippine-economy-set-to-become-asias-newest-bright-spot.html?pagewanted=all

Of course, there is still poverty. But that is true of any other country.

I was there last April and May. I noticed new construction, new highways and new modern malls. Recently, NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport) opened Terminal 3 - a super-modern facility for foreign airlines.

The Philippines is improving. I've seen it with my own eyes.

[rioux]

I'm not sure Captain. Those things may look nicer but the economic life for millions of Filipinos is really terrible. What do they pay the workers who build the bridges and improve the highways? Peanuts
A saleslady works all day (8~9 hour days) at SM or Robinson's for 250 pesos (about 6 American dollars) not per hour but for the entire day!. That's so awful.

[tatsuo1]

The wealthy benefit from much of the new construction. Foreign investment? That's a laugher! 51% of a company in the Philippines must be owned by a Filipino.
Supposedly, the education system will change from 10th grade high school to a 12th grade high school. We will see. But at least the Philippines can be proud of being the last country to change this now that Myanmar has gone this route.

[ghost]

It's not so bad. The current President, Noy Noy (Benino Aquino) is doing a lot to fight corruption and other features that held back the Philippines in the past.

There is a rising middle class. I see this every time I go the Philippines (at least once a year). The top universities in Manila (UP Diliman, De La Salle, Santo Thomas, Ateneo, and others) produce very good quality graduates in all fields.

I myself attended University of the Philippines, Los Banos (UPLB) and they have a world famous program - a PhD in 'Development Communication.' The point of all this is that education is key, and they are churning out well qualified graduates, right there in the Philippines. The problem is that most of those graduates do not land the jobs they are qualified for, and there is a brain drain, which does not help matters on the domestic front.

In fact, in the Gulf countries, the Filipinos' contribution is immense. I compare the Philippines with Nepal, another favourite country - and I feel Nepal is way behind in terms of development and prospects.

Ghost in Saudi

[rioux]

There is a bran drain because many of those graduates would earn so much more money outside of the Philippines.
Many people there are so desperate to get out. Nearly half the population earns less than $2 a day.

[rioux]

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/philippines-elite-swallow-countrys-wealth-034005290.html

Optimism is soaring that the Philippines is finally becoming an Asian tiger economy, but critics caution a tiny elite that has long dominated is amassing most of the new wealth while the poor miss out.
President Benigno Aquino has overseen some of the highest growth rates in the region since he took office in 2010, while the stock market has hovered in record territory, credit ratings have improved and debt ratios have dropped.
"The Philippines is no longer the sick man of East Asia, but the rising tiger," World Bank country director Motoo Konishi told a forum attended by many of Aquino's economic planning chiefs recently.
However economists say that, despite genuine efforts from Aquino's team to create inclusive growth, little progress has been made in changing a structure that for decades has allowed one of Asia's worst rich-poor divides to develop.
"I think it's obvious to everyone that something is structurally wrong. The oligarchy has too much control of the country's resources," Cielito Habito, a respected former economic planning minister, told AFP.
He presented data to the same economic forum at which Konishi spoke, showing that in 2011 the 40 richest families on the Forbes wealth list accounted for 76 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
This was the highest in Asia, compared with Thailand where the top 40 accounted for 33.7 percent of wealth growth, 5.6 percent for Malaysia and just 2.8 percent for Japan, according to Habito.
According to the Forbes 2012 annual rich list, the two wealthiest people in the Philippines, ethnic Chinese magnates Henry Sy and Lucio Tan, were worth a combined $13.6 billion.
This equated to six percent of the entire Philippine economy.
In contrast, about 25 million people, or one quarter of the population, lived on $1 a day or less in 2009, which was little changed from a decade earlier, according to the government's most recent data.
Some of the elite families have dominated since the Spanish colonial era that ended in the late 1800s.
Prominent Spanish names, such as Ayala and Aboitiz, continue to control large chunks of the economy and members of the families are consistent high placers on Forbes' annual top-40 wealth list.
Their business interests range from utilities to property development to banking, telecommunications and the booming business process outsourcing industry.
Many of the ethnic Chinese tycoons, such as Sy and Tan, got their start soon after the country gained post-World War II independence from the United States.
The tendency for the same names to dominate major industries can be partly attributed to government regulations that continue to allow near monopolies and protections for key players.
For decades after independence from the United States in 1946, important sectors such as air transport and telecommunications were under monopoly control, according to a Philippine Institute for Development Studies paper.
Despite wide-ranging reforms since 1981, big chunks of the market remain effective oligopolies or cartels, it said.
Habito said the path to riches for the few is also helped by a political culture that allows personal connections to easily open doors.
The Aquino government's mantra since succeeding graft-tainted Gloria Arroyo's administration has been good governance and inclusive growth, and their efforts have been applauded by the international community.
The government is spending more than $1 billion this year on one of its signature programmes to bridge the rich-poor divide.
The conditional cash transfers programme will see 15 million of the nation's poorest people receive money directly in exchange for going to school and getting proper health care.
However Louie Montemar, a political science professor at Manila's De La Salle University, said little had been done at the top end to impact on the dominance of the elite.
"There's some sense to the argument that we've never had a real democracy because only a few have controlled economic power," Montemar told AFP.
"The country dances to the tune of the tiny elite."
Nevertheless, the government and economists say there are many other reforms that can be taken to bring about inclusive growth.
Analysts said the most direct path out of poverty was improving worker skills, using higher tax revenues to boost spending on infrastructure, and rebuilding the country's manufacturing sector.
To this end, many economists endorse the Aquino government's cash transfer programme as well as reforms to the education system, which include extending the primary and high school system from 10 to 13 years.
But for people such as mother-of-five Remy del Rosario, who earns about 1,500 pesos ($36) a week selling cigarettes on a Manila roadside, talk of structural reform and inclusive growth mean little.
With her bus driver husband out of work, the family has no savings and her income is barely enough to cover food, bus fare, and prescription medicines.
"Other people may be better off now, but we see no improvement in our lives," she said.

[Prof.Gringo]

[rioux]

The terrible plight for too many continues....



http://ph.news.yahoo.com/more-pinoys-remain-poor--says-nscb-064206049.html

More Pinoys remain poor, says NSCB

The country's poverty situation hardly improved nearly two years through the Aquino administration.

In fact, poverty has become harder to escape, results a Cabinet official said was below expectations.

Some 22.3 percent of Filipino families were considered poor as of the first half of 2012, slightly lower than 22.9 percent in the same period in 2009, the National Statistical Coordination Board said Tuesday.


The numbers represent those below the poverty threshold, which determines the monthly income that will satisfy a family's food and non-food needs.

In 2012, the poverty threshold was pegged at P7,821--higher than the P7,040 in 2009 and P5,586 in 2006.

To meet food needs alone, a family needed P5,458 in 2012; P4,903 in 2009; and P3,894 in 2006.

Worse, the income gap--or the amount Filipino families need to escape poverty--also increased to P2,284 in 2012 from P2,042 in 2009 and P1,682 in 2006.

Based on the income gap, NSCB estimated that the government needed a total of P79.7 billion to eradicate poverty in the first half of 2012.

The first semester 2012 result on poverty is "not the dramatic result we wanted," Socioeconomic Planning Sec. Arsenio Balisacan said in his speech following the release of the data.

The Cabinet official, however, said the government remains hopeful that, "with the timely measures we are now implementing, the next rounds of poverty statistics will give much better results."

Such improve figures, he added, "will reflect the government's massive investment in human development and poverty reduction, which understandably needs time to take full effect."

The latest poverty data also "demonstrate the diversity, not only of existing geo-economic conditions across regions, but also the different responses to policies on growth and development," Balisacan said.

This, as he urged that "the problem of poverty requires a comprehensive, multi-pronged, multi-sectoral solution involving many stakeholders."