UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
After some 20 years, I flew to Kuala Lumpur upon the invitation of a friend. There, I developed a case of country envy. This is akin to penis envy, a Freudian concept wherein females realize they don’t have a penis, which triggers a competition with the mother for the affection of the father.
In my case, it was the shock of going back to KL after 20-something years and seeing the massive progress and development it had undergone. What struck me first was how massive their airport is, where you have to board a bus for a five-minute ride to the immigration area from the terminal you disembarked from. The airport looks spanking new and the air conditioning was chilly.
On the way from the airport to KL, I asked the driver more questions because there were wide expanses of land with verdant, well-maintained landscapes and modern buildings nestled among them. He said the airport area is 100 square kilometers, making it one of the world’s largest airport sites. Wow! And here we are with very cramped airports that abut many subdivisions and business centers, a surefire invitation to disaster if a mishap occurs.
My amazement deepened further when crisscrossing expressways greeted my sight on the way to the city. There were many new buildings gleaming in the sun, with nary a sight of squalor or congestion. Within the city, it looks like a first-world landscape. There were no traffic congestion, no squatters, no street beggars and no homeless people. Everything was clean and orderly.
Going through Asian Development Bank (ADB) statistics supported my impression. Malaysia’s poverty rate is zero percent ( Philippines, 18.1 percent), and per capita income is US$11,830 (Philippines, US$3960). Yet we boast of a GDP of 5.6 percent versus their 3.7 percent.
So, if the Philippine economy is growing at a much faster rate, why have we been left in the dust by many countries in the ASEAN region? Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia all have higher per capita incomes than us. Don’t even think about comparing ourselves with Singapore or Brunei.
Maybe, the reason is that we have a very large population, now 112.89 million, whereas Malaysia only has 33.4 million. A large population needs more resources than a smaller one. But if our economy is growing at a faster pace, we should be able to muster enough resources to lift people out of poverty.
Or is it the other way around? Much had been said about the trickle-down effect, but we haven’t seen any effective trickle down to the poorest of the poor. Are our budgets being diverted to favor those in power? Is this a deliberate strategy to keep Filipinos poor, so they have to rely on ayuda from politicians who dispense it to gain votes from grateful voters come election time?
Corruption is universal But whereas other countries seem to be able to moderate the greed of some government officials, to the point of imprisoning them, we seem to have given carte blanche to the ruling classes to do as they wish with our tax money. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be enough and we have to borrow from international banks to “finance” our development and leave future generations with a heavy debt burden.
Note that the poorest provinces in the country are the ones that have political dynasties, where they pass elective positions on to their sons, daughters, grandchildren, etc. They effectively function as fiefdoms, as if it’s their birthright to hold on to power forever in the guise of democratic elections. With patronage politics, it will be business as usual for them.
The way things are going, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and other ASEAN countries will pass us by in the economic sphere.
On the way home in a Grab car, I struck up a conversation telling the driver that I just came from Kuala Lumpur and how impressed I was with their developmental progress, lamenting why we’re being left in the dust when KL was an economic backwater in the recent past.
Naturally, the discussion veered into politics and he agreed with my point of view that we need better leadership. When he asked who I would vote for, I told him my choices, who are persons of proven integrity, ability, and genuine concern for our downtrodden masses. Enough of incompetent, corrupt, and ignorant candidates who just do a sing-and-dance routine to get themselves elected. He kept nodding his head, and vowed he will look up my choices.
I sure hope I had planted the seeds of change in his mind. If enough of us do this with persons we deal with , we may yet change the political landscape for the better. In a mid-term election, the chances of our choice candidates are higher than in presidential elections. Are you game?