A Reaction on "REASONS WHY PHILIPPINES IS POOR, ACCORDING TO IMF -- by Roderick T.

dela Cruz"

The article in consideration tells about the major factors impeding the Philippines' progress towards first world status. Among the factors cited from the study "The Determinants of Economic Growth in the Philippines: A New Look" by Willa Boots Tolo, were weak government spending concerning research and development, agricultural productivity, and education. Prevalent government debt, corruption, political uncertainty, episodes of financial crises and strong population growth were also included. And in order to catch up with other fast growing East Asian countries, both authors of the report and news article are convinced that Philippines should maintain macroeconomic stability, redirect public expenditures towards those previously stated major factors, and expand its fiscal space.

However, dissecting further the ideas presented within the article we could affirm if those mentioned above indeed describes the true nature of Philippines' slow growth. Among the problems listed, I would agree to all but one, that strong population growth is a hindrance. For in my opinion, human resource is one most valuable resource a nation possesses. The aim therefore of our efforts must be raising the quality of life of individual Filipinos and consequently advancing our workforce. And improving the quality of life entails sufficient food production, and the backbone of our nation's production lies in our ability to tap our agricultural potential. If I may suggest, hand in hand with better irrigation, farm-to-market roads, and storage facilities, efforts must also be made to make better farmers. Because we cannot deny the fact that in our local context, our thoughts of farming and being a farmer are prejudiced. Farmers struggle to make their children professionals and unfortunately none of their children also wants to stay in the fields. Improving the life of these farmers and equipping them with modern machineries nay, modern farming techniques may shift their view and in turn, boost our food production. Courtesy of the law of supply and demand, prices of several commodities would lower down.

Regarding financial crises and government spending, I would agree that expanding our fiscal space is one solution. Raising the tax revenues, implementing strict tax administration, and reform in excise taxes may avail us substantially. However, this may be ineffective if corruption would still prevail. I'm afraid regardless of our authorities' vigilance, the prevention of corruption among our government's ranks lies in our privilege of choosing our officials. On education, research and development, and technology, it is undeniable that we are at a setback. Students are ill-equipped with rooms, facilities, faculties, learning materials and encouragement. It is a long and rough road before our government can actually provide affordable and quality education for all, but granted that we boost our food production, a situation wherein most Filipinos do not anymore suffer hunger, then most of the population will be able to go to school and improve our over-all literacy rate. With many intellectuals, investment in research and development, as suggested in the article may very well return profits essential to our goal of attaining first world status.

My opinions, especially some disagreements made within this paper, may have been brought about by my bias towards public policies that has direct impact to the commoner rather than those which affects enormous institutions and industries. It may have been also affected by my yet lack of deep rooted knowledge of economic policies. But I am confident that the ideas presented here throughout essentially intend to express my sympathy towards the slow growth of the Philippines' economy.