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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Is It Really Hopeless? By Antonio C. Abaya June 27, 2002 According to a nationwide survey conducted by the polling organization Pulse Asia from March 22 to April 10 this year, 19% of Filipinos agreed with the statement �This country is hopeless and if it were only possible I would migrate to another country and live there.� This was the gist of the banner story in the June 26 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Last year, according to Pulse Asia research director Pepe Miranda, that percentage was 14. This corroborates the findings of a nationwide survey done by Social Weather Stations from March 4 to 23, which showed, among other things, that 21% were pessimistic (vs 26% who were optimistic) about their conditions in the next 12 months. In the previous year, the numbers were 16% pessimistic and 31% optimistic. That SWS survey also said that 38% believed economic conditions will worsen over the short term and only 17% think they will get better. Last year, the numbers were 25% pessimistic and 28% optimistic. (See my article �The Human Face of Despair� in the website www.tapatt.org). What is even more disturbing in the Pulse Asia survey is that 31%, not just 19%, of the ABC middle and upper classes � the foot soldiers of EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 � agreed with that statement, that this country is hopeless and they would, if possible, migrate to another country and live there. By contrast, only 12% of the Class E socio-economic class, the lumpen proletariat of both the communists and the Partido ng Masang Tanga of Erap, agreed with that statement. There was also a pronounced geographic distribution of hopelessness: in better-informed Metro Manila, 26% agreed that the Philippines was hopeless, but only 11% in rural Luzon concurred. ***** The survey, however, did not pinpoint the specific causes of this hopelessness, so we can only make educated guesses. That only 12% of the poorest of the poor, but 31% of the ABC middle and upper classes, feel this hopelessness suggests that the reasons for it are not economic but, more likely, social and/or political. And what could those social and/or political causes possibly be? SWS and Pulse Asia would be doing the country a big favor if they were to try to pin down the causes of the grievances of what are arguably the most important, though less numerous, sectors of Philippine society. Respondents should be asked to tick off which of the following reasons cause them to despair about the future of this country: 1) widespread corruption in government; 2) rampant lawlessness; 3) lack of jobs and economic opportunities; 4) runaway population growth rate; 5) high cost of electricity; 6) all-around shabbiness of Metro Manila; 7) poor governance at all levels; 8) no respite from trapo politics and trapo politicians; 9) lack of leaders that one can trust; 10) no meaningful changes after EDSA 1; 11) no meaningful changes after EDSA 2; 12) bad choices in economic strategies; 13) communist control of labor unions; 14) poor ability to solve problems; 15) untrustworthy police and military; 16) corrupt judges and justices; 17) no rule of law, only rule of lawyers; 18) inability to solve the traffic problem; 19) inability to solve the garbage problem; 20) lack of social discipline; 21) flawed political/electoral systems. The political leadership should not underestimate the impact of their inability to solve the traffic problem of Metro Manila. When I was writing a thrice-a-week column in the Philippine Star, I deliberately reserved my Saturday column for issues relating to the traffic and transportation problems of Metro Manila. Of the 50 to 75 letters, faxes and emails that I received every week, easily 70% were reactions to my Saturday column on traffic and transportation. That is a gauge of how strongly the middle and upper classes feel about traffic. And understandably so, since they have to grapple with it everyday when they commute to and from work, school or shopping. The government�s inability to solve the traffic problem is a daily reminder of the government�s apparent inability to solve other problems. ***** President Arroyo has lashed out against media for playing up the negative results of these surveys, calling their purveyors �false prophets.� She said media could have emphasized the more positive aspect, namely that 60% did not consider this country hopeless and thus were not inclined to leave it. But the gut reaction to such a positive spin would be, �ONLY 60% of Filipinos do not consider the Philippines hopeless? Then there must be something terribly wrong with that country.� To be fair, the despair and disenchantment felt by 31% of the middle and upper classes did not happen overnight or only during President Arroyo�s watch. This is an accumulation of anger and disgust that built up during the Marcos kleptocracy, was assuaged considerably by their successful revolt that toppled Marcos, but which reverted back to disappointment and indifference when they realized that Cory Aquino was not going to be the visionary, revolutionary leader that they had implicitly expected her to be. The middle and upper classes were reasonably happy with Fidel Ramos, especially after he was able to solve the power problem inherited from Cory Aquino. But Ramos was not a visionary, revolutionary leader either, and he made no lasting mark on Philippine society, aside from doubling everyone�s monthly electric bills with his now infamous PPA add-on. Passive contentment swung back to disgust and disappointment with the election of Erap, the criminally inclined ignoramus who would not have been allowed to run for public office in any other self-respecting country. The EDSA 2 revolt of the middle and upper classes that toppled him from power was not necessarily meant to install Gloria Arroyo in Malacanang, but that was the inevitable legal and constitutional effect. So President Arroyo has had to run faster than her predecessors just to stay in place. She has inherited a 30-year accumulation of disgust, disappointment and disenchantment which have now suppurated into despair. Unless she can transform herself soon into a visionary, revolutionary leader, she too will be hopeless. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the July 15, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |