Babe's Eye View article

It’s been exactly 39 days since President Benigno S. Aquino took over the leadership in this country, and the symbolic changes he initiated had undoubtedly made a significant impact on many Filipinos and most especially with the international community. People see this as a positive sign and are beginning to be hopeful as reflected by the result of the most recent Pulse Asia survey where majority of Filipinos expect a better quality of life next year. The changes may be rather slow in coming but people are patiently waiting for the government’s solution to the enormous problems this country is facing.

In my previous columns, I described the precarious situation in the Philippines like a bag with a ticking time bomb that has been passed from one administration to another, and it remains to be seen who will be the last President “holding the bag,” so to speak. It is he who will either defuse this time bomb or will preside over the biggest explosion this country will ever experience. Every year more and more people are born in this country, and it has become pretty obvious that President Noynoy is the person many Filipinos are looking at as the one who will defuse this bomb.

At the Manila Overseas Press Club last Thursday, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima talked about plugging the holes in the country’s tax collection without having to resort to raising taxes right away. A tall order considering the billions lost in tax revenues every year, but there seems to be some headway being done judging from the recent filing of cases against alleged tax evaders and the discovery of mis-declared goods worth billions of pesos. Indeed, I totally agree with Cesar that it will be useless to raise taxes without plugging the leaks first. After all, you cannot keep squeezing the same law abiding citizens who already pay the right taxes. The biggest challenge for Secretary Purisima is to increase the tax base and make it equitable for everyone to do his share in helping plug these leaks.

Cesar Purisima also mentioned plans to put up a website where people can anonymously tip off the names of alleged tax cheats and smugglers. Although people laud such initiatives and are more than wiling to cooperate, there is however a need to install safeguards to prevent legitimate businessmen and honest taxpayers from being harassed by BIR or Customs operatives, or by the usual envious characters in this country. If controls are not instituted and this goes out of hand, the website could be used as a venue for vengeful citizens who just have an ax to grind against innocent persons.

Last Thursday at the Manila Rotary where I was the guest speaker, I challenged the members of the oldest club in Asia to start anew and stop the petty politics that has plagued the club over the recent past. I told them it’s time to start being relevant to these fast-changing times. Manila Rotary president Gert Gust, a longtime Manila resident, has come to love this country as his own. He says the international community is very positive about the new administration.

Yet while many are ecstatic and hopeful to see the changes taking place today, people are still concerned at the fact that we continue to lag behind our neighbors. People are eagerly waiting to see what the future has in store, because time is really not on our side.

I got hold of a report from the UN in Paris forwarded to me by my schoolmate Gilbert Jose, wherein several reasons are cited why the Philippines may not be around 50 years or less from now, and could end up a “failed state” engulfed by its more powerful and prosperous neighbors. The report says that by 2020, rice production will decline by as much as 70 percent due to global warming—which could be the catalyst that may trigger the so-called time bomb. The situation can be made worse by our bottom ranking among Asia-Pacific countries in terms of economic performance, government and business efficiency and infrastructure, making economic growth and progress difficult to achieve.

The dismal state of the military is also cited: only one vintage destroyer; no jet fighter aircraft; poorly-trained and ill-equipped personnel who have difficulty even eliminating Abu Sayyaf bandits and renegades. But the worst of all is the country’s unmitigated population growth projected to reach over 100 million by 2015 based on a World Bank report which will render useless any significant economic gains, increase in food production, climate control and energy conservation for very obvious reasons.

The report concludes that unless fundamental changes are implemented particularly in the area of population management and education, the Philippines will find it difficult reversing its downward spiral to self-destruction. Yet no matter how bleak things may look at the moment, and as I told my ex-future fellow Rotarians, we could still reverse the situation and overcome the enormous problems faced by our country if we all move in one direction and do our part no matter how small. But we need to start now, not tomorrow. The President has already spelled out fundamental changes that need to be done—and that all of us must stop the old mindset of “business as usual.”

As things stand, the Philippines is like a time bomb that sometimes ticks slower or faster depending on who’s in charge. But when all is said and done, all of us are in this together. Unless people look at it from that wider perspective and start being part of the solution rather than being the problem—that ticking time bomb will explode sooner than later.