EDITORIAL
(January-February issue of The Benildean)

Starving Philippines: Something to chew on

You are being lied to.

Malacañang, lately, has been reveling in the country’s popularly-supposed fiscal development because of the growing strength of the peso over the holidays and the so-called positive economic upshot due to the implementation of the Extended Added Value Tax law.

However, these facts will reveal the contrary. Prepare to be disturbed.

The Philippines is suffering from the appalling problem of chronic malnutrition that is worse than that of North Korea, a country plagued by enduring famines, bad Stalinist policies and recurrent harvest failures.

According to UNICEF, the crisis of malnutrition in the Philippines for 2005 has reached an alarming 56%, ten notches higher than North Korea’s 46%.

Hypothetically speaking, the Philippines, being an agricultural country, should have a very low risk of facing the crisis of malnourishment. In a country where liposuction and South Beach diet are the furor, starvation is such a sad paradox. Indisputably, the country’s high tax rates and the government’s deep-rooted corruption are the guilty parties. Discernibly, brethren, we are being menaced.

But if you think it stops there…

In 2005, think-tank, a US-based firm researching on the economic stability of different countries reported that the Philippines ranked 90 out of the 161 countries included in their Directory of Economic Freedom. This connotes that the Philippines experiences low economic freedom and that the government has failed to establish sufficient reforms.

In 2006, the crisis only magnified when new reports came out that the Philippines slipped farther down the grave by ranking 98 out of 157.

Ouch.

However, the ever-spirited Filipinos are still surviving beyond hunger and adversity. With such a conniving administration running the mill, Filipinos just have one thing to conscientiously ponder on: If you don’t run your own life, someone else will.