Cebu Daily News will cease to exist in print version right after the close of the year. CDN will continue to exist though in its new digital format on the internet. The reason? That is where the action is now. It is also economics. What with the depreciation of the peso that makes the importation of paper and ink used in printing very expensive.
I may or may not be with you in the new CDN digital format. It is up to the management. Therefore, as we are about to close, allow me then to say thank you to all of you who follow my column since the beginning. I hope that even in a very small way, I was able to satisfy your curiosity to read my economics and me.
In my writing, I focus mainly on the economy and how it works, including what the government can possibly intervene to make it work better to meet our desire for progress as a nation. In my first article that appeared here, on February 15, 1998 to be exact, I wrote of the roller coaster ride that we went through in moving up through the ladder of development since independence up to the Ramos Administration. There were good years, but in good many years, we were not doing well. That of Marcos was the worst when the economy tanked by more than 7 percent each year in his last two years that pushed back our GDP level by five years and our per capita income by ten years.
The roller coaster ride continued up to the Estrada Administration such that by 2000 we were already far behind in development compared with our partners in the ASEAN Five, not to mention South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong near us, which successfully joined Japan in becoming part of the developed world.
Japan, when it emerged from its two centuries of self-imposed isolation from contacts with the west with the restoration of the Meiji Empire in 1868, focused all its effort to catching up with the west industrially such that by the end of the 19th century it already succeeded in joining the developed world. The proof of this was Japan’s victory in its war against China towards the end of the 19th century and against Russia ten years later. It did suffer a lot in the last war but that did not stop Japan from recovering fast again industrially in just two decades. Proof was its hosting of the first Olympics held in Asia in 1964.
The year 2000 was also the time when China, which was very impoverished under the communist regime, came to match our per capita income after only two decades of shifting to the capitalistic mode of production. Now China’s per capita income is almost three times our own that remains at just around $3,000.
It may not be true that we were second only to Japan in Asia when the first development decade started after the last war. Nevertheless, what was clearly true was that, excepting Japan, if there were any differences in development between us and our close neighbors, the differences were not great.
Unlike Japan after its reopening and resumption of contacts with the west, we did nothing much to improve our lives under Spain except in the last fifty years when the country was opened to free trade. Under the US, we did well somewhat but largely to the benefit of the American capitalists.
So here we are, still struggling because politics consumes much of our time. When will we learn that life is more of economics than politics?
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