Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Editorial: Belt-tightening and sharing
WORLD finance experts agree, and so do the religious, greed was behind the world market crash; and it will take some time before it recovers even if governments will prop the markets up with their funds. After all, never before since the Great Depression has this happened, and the greedy -- the same ones who caused the crash -- will not allow their money to feed unstable markets. No way.
Since the US market crash and now the world market crash, however, all we get from National Government are assurances that the country's economy will not topple in a like manner. Just assurances, no illustration on why it can be more resilient than the world economy. Maybe because it's so down, it can't go any lower? But that too is speculation since we cannot illustrate how down it is compared to the world economy. Our government officials, however, are not so timid about coming up with assurances without giving solid bases beyond saying that "strong economic fundamentals make Philippine economy under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo more resilient in the face of global recession". Repeat ad nauseum.
That's a lot of long words when overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are fearing for their jobs. How that "strong economic fundamentals" will withstand the return of hundreds and thousands of OFWs, cutting off their family's lifeline as well, has never been explained.
But since all we're getting down here in the regions are verbose assurances from Malacañang, this only means one thing: We are on our own. We should be able to fend for ourselves and make sure that when our local government will likewise say that strong economic fundamentals are in place, the people understand what this means and they will know from where the food on their table will be coming from.
Belt-tightening is a must, even if indeed we still cannot comprehend nor feel the gloom in the global markets. Live within our means, take it slow, because even if most of us do not understand the economy nor can we comprehend what all the crashes are all about, all of us know where most of our spending money is coming from -- our sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers abroad, a number of them in the land of milk and honey where even long-time residents are fast losing their homes and defaulting on their mortgages and the ritzy rich are disposing of their Ferraris, fast.
The holidays are coming, the time to spend in fact has already arrived, several weeks before along with those Christmas carols in the malls. May we temper our spendings and our grandiose plans.
We need not look far to see who will be most affected once all other world economies start tightening their belts as well. They're just over there, just a few hours away, thousands of evacuees living in cramped quarters and depending on relief assistance both from Philippine government and international aid, the same aid that will be coming from tightened belts.
If you can't comprehend why there's a need to forego of grandiose plans for the holidays because of a tottering world economy, then just examine your conscience if you can bear to party thru the holiday season while thousands in evacuation centers just right over the next region wait for the next relief ration to come. And while pondering on that, maybe you'd even want to share the coming season's joy, instead. These people need every little help that come their way; a need so bad, urgent, and basic, assurances of strong economic fundamentals can never make it go away.
