In review and in prospect
Not a day goes a by without Filipinos being reminded of how increasingly left behind their country is as their peers in the rest of southeast Asia rack up development milestone after development milestone. In the realms of public transport, education, and overall standard of living the country is being beaten. The Philippines is being overtaken by countries that used to trail in many measures. In the encompassing (albeit incomplete and sometimes misleading) measure of individual prosperity — Gros Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, the Philippines now trails Vietnam and Indonesia, for example.
Filipinos routinely wail and rant about the imaginary “anti-progress” bogeymen their revered demagogues put up to demonise giving them big English names that, ironically, defy translation into the vernacular: Corruption, Cronyism, Nepotism, Imperialism, etcetera etcetera. You’d think the solution to “solving” Philippine poverty is to “eliminate” those “evils” of society. Yet the very leaders Filipino voters foolishly entrust to do just that are, themselves, the sources and embodiments of those “evils”. Indeed, for most Filipino politicians, corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and imperialism are entire ways of life!
It really comes down to their enormous numbers. On average, every new Filipino that joins the workforce has a high probability of becoming an overseas foreign worker (OFW). Every new Filipino baby born has a high probability of becoming a street urchin. Every new voter, a potential non-thinking contributor to her country’s dysfunctional politics. In short, the average Filipino is not an asset to the state but a liability. With every new warm body added to the ballooning workforce of Filipinos, incremental problems mount. The only value proposition the Philippines has so far pitched to the global community is as a source of cheap labour and a vast market — read dumping ground — for the rich world’s manufactured goods.
Blog posts over the last 2 weeks
Label yourself a DDS, BBM, or Yellowtard supporter and you lose all credibility as a writer
September 24, 2023 by benign0
"This is why Get Real Philippines persists as the one and only real objective blog outlet on the Philippine social issues landscape. It’s because we’re not in this space to make friends or form alliances."
I Guess Pinoys Consider Themselves A Football Nation Now
September 12, 2023 Gogs
"The people who argued with me just proved my point that I was making. They are OK with: 1) no work locally regarding soccer 2) locals being excluded 3) Enjoying the fruits of the labor of the American institutions."