The refusal of more than 11,000 overseas workers to leave Libya despite the violence and unrest there speaks volumes about the state of the country’s economy and merely highlighted a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey released on the day of President Benigno Aquino III’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) last week.
Already the national government assured that it would provide air fare and other needs of overseas workers, including waiving any travel requirements so they can leave the strife-torn country.
But most workers refuse to move out and the national government is forced to appeal to their relatives to convince them to go home.
Would the workers be willing to come home if they got wind of the SWS survey last June that showed that 12.1 million families rated themselves poor, or up by 11.5 million or over half a million in the same period last year?
President Benigno Aquino III’s promise to build a stable economy that can accommodate overseas workers from all over the world is far from being realized.
Rather than coming home, these OFWs are petitioning their families to become citizens of the countries they work in.
It’s too late in the game but in last week’s SONA, President Aquino announced major infrastructure projects including the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for Cebu City, to help pump prime the economy.
His administration’s admission that it over-relied on services and remittances as the backbone of economic programs may have come three to four years too late but at least he still has time to build a strong economic foundation for his predecessor to work on.
Poverty is such an over-arching problem that one or two solutions won’t be enough to reduce it.
With its all consuming passion to eradicate corruption, the Aquino administration had failed to jumpstart the economy to a degree that spread benefits down to the masses and the middle class amid reports of improved credit standing and renewed investor confidence.
True the government can always use supertyphoon Yolanda and the Oct. 15 2013 earthquake as well as the series of typhoons that batter the country annually as alibis to explain the increased poverty incidence in the Visayas and the rest of the country.
Again, poverty won’t go away soon but we hope that even during the short time that he has left, President Aquino will reinforce that foundation for economic recovery that his predecessor can build on.
Whether it be more livelihood opportunities, a workable agrarian reform program, increased investments in infrastructure, the President has to work on it fast.