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Saturday, February 28, 2004
Editorial: To dream the impossible dream
The problem of making the otherwise grand proposal a howling success could even be compounded with the election of a less than competent president.
TO what depths of despair the Philippine business sector has fallen in the face of the May 10, 2004 seemingly make-or-break elections is glaringly revealed by a proposed 100-day business agenda for the next president.
The group, spearheaded by former finance secretary Jose Pardo, includes such highly respected names in Philippine business circles as Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co. (PLDT) chairman Manuel Pangilinan, Washington Sycip and San Miguel Corporation (SMC) president Ramon Ang, is toying with an idea that would "help build a momentum towards economic growth."
The group has committed to pool a P100-million guaranty fund to provide affordable credit to low income Filipinos, i.e. small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that would in turn, hopefully, "provide the catalyst that will ignite the spark needed to build the momentum towards economic growth."
The idea sounds grand, especially when one takes into account the ominous words of task force head Butch Jimenez, who calls the project "the Filipinos' one last shot at becoming great again". One last shot?
It is ominous because the proposed business agenda includes among other things, the legalization of jueteng, the reduction of the congressional pork barrel, restoration of peace and order through talks with the MILF and the communist rebels, the dismantling of protection rackets of some men in uniform and a moratorium on the death penalty.
Well-meaning may the proponents be, but are such pre-conditions doable at all? The legalization of jueteng and the moratorium on the death penalty will surely raise a howl from Church people. Congressmen are loathed to have their pork barrel tampered with. Talks with the MILF and communist rebels remain in limbo. Eliminating scalawags in uniform, many of them with high ranks, is an impossible dream.
The problem of making the otherwise grand proposal a howling success could even be compounded with the election of a less than competent president. Because of the concern over what the proponents describe as the "hopeless situation the country is in" -- any Filipino who shares their feelings can only hope that the proposed 100-day business agenda be given a try, bearing in mind the saying: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
(February 28, 2004 issue)
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