SWIMMING AGAINST THE CURRENT By DR. JESUS P. ESTANISLAO Dr. Jesus P. Estanislao Our constituency, our people, have 6 essential daily, basic needs. These are: food,  health, housing, electricity, transportation, and education. The strategic priorities we need to pursue in the next few decades should revolve around the efficient and cost-effective way by which we can address these 6 basic needs. The first strategic priority, therefore, under this perspective is a massive infrastructure development program. Such a program should not only usher in rapid economic development; it should also greatly improve the quality of life of our people.

• On Food. The typical Filipino family, earning a minimum wage, allots 42.8% of its monthly income for food expenses. We should therefore buildthe necessary infrastructure, involving both hardware and software, to help ensure, not only food sufficiency, but also food-price affordability. We should promote “grassroots industry”, by which people in an LGU can produce most of their basic food requirements (like rice, vegetables, fruits, chicken, pork, fish, basic processed meat like hotdog, sausage and ham) in their own area.

• On Health. The same typical Filipino family, earning a minimum wage, spends approximately 10% of its monthly income for health expenses. There is a crying need of a massive health infrastructure and support services program, which should ensure that in every LGU there is a fully equipped and properly staffed public hospital and a clinic in every barangay. In addition, the basic medicines and other medical supplies should be made accessible and affordable, by further strengthening the Botika ng Bayan. We should learn from the experience of Cuba, which is reported to have one of the best health program in the world, with one doctor per 200 people. In this regard, we need to be open and flexible, while remaining smart enough to learn from the experience of others as we adapt practices to our peculiar circumstances.
• On Housing. It is estimated that some 5 million Filipinos today are either homeless or illegal settlers in the land they presently occupy. In Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, minimum wage earners cannot afford to buy decent housing for themselves within the metro cities where they work. We should learn from the Chinese mass housing program for their poor: it builds the mass housing structures, where they keep the rent low and affordable, thereby allowing everyone to live with dignity in a decent environment.

• On Electricity. We now have the highest electricity rates in the whole of Southeast Asia, the second (2^nd) highest in Asia, and the fifth (5^th) highest in the world. No wonder, electricity cost makes normal life expensive for most families, and it cuts down the competitiveness of Philippine industries. While we should not get back to a situation where electricity supply falls way below demand in part because of nationalized and populist-oriented pricing, we should revisit the decision to fully privatize the energy industry.

• On Transportation. The long lines at MRT stations in Metro Manila and the traffic congestion as well as chaos in many Metropolitan cities and areas call for our having to build a modern, reliable and cost-efficient mass transport system. There is no need to repeat ad nauseam the extreme urgency of this initiative.

• On Education. Needless to say, we need continuing education for life for all. Accessible and affordable quality education should be available to all our people!

We cannot underscore this point enough: the massive infrastructure program in the six areas specified above must have the goal of making the costs of these most essential and basic needs affordable and accessible to our people.