The real indicator

By Johanne Macob

 

THE presentation of the administration seems to be very obsessed with the idea of the Philippines’ increasing gross domestic product (GDP) or gross national product (GNP). If I’m not mistaken, every State of the Nation Address by the President always has a portion dedicated to showing how the nation’s GDP or GNP has become greater.

In the last quarter of 2015, the country’s GDP went up by 6.3 percent, the highest quarterly growth for the year. The Philippines was then dubbed the “East Asia’s Rising Tiger” with its growing economy. We were even reaffirmed with the BBB Stable long-term sovereign credit rating, also in 2015, which meant that the country has an adequate capacity to pay its debts responsibly.

Despite this ‘great’ economy performance, the first quarter survey of the Social Weather Station in 2015 revealed that about 11.4 million families or about 52% of the Filipino populace still consider themselves poor. So does the GDP or GNP growth really matter? I’d say not much, or perhaps for the few; but for the majority of the Filipinos, such gauge does not matter.

In a recent discussion in one of my classes, we were asked to think of indicators of societal progress and well-being of nations aside from the metrics of economic development, GDP and GNP. Our group sponsored an activity wherein we asked our classmates to think as if they were the Republic’s new president and come up with a development plan that will promote sustainability, what they think are vital indicators of progress. What surfaced in majority of the outputs were not only economic in nature but social, political, and environmental, as well.

Under the social aspect, the focus was on the improvement of public health services including the sufficiency of medicines; provision of free and quality education, scholarships and skills training; assurance of peace and safety; improvement of infrastructures; provision of just compensation and livelihood opportunities; and tax reform. In regard the political sphere, the class agreed on the promotion of evaluation and reinforcement of government agencies and officials. Another consideration in the well-being of the nation was the promotion of environmental protection and preservation. Lastly, in the economic stratum, emphasis was put on the provision of support to the agri-fishery and tourism sectors.

All these indicators made me proud noting that the provincial government of Pangasinan is apparently on the right track toward sustainable progress. Sadly, the rest of the country may not be doing the same.

Our present society is largely neoliberal where power and opportunity lie in the hands of few corporate-families. While the administration trumpets investments from the business process outsourcing industry mainly for its job- generating capability, the fact remains that multibillionaire owners of such companies are only getting richer while the rest of the nation who are poor remain poor, or get poorer. Looking closer into this industry, we’ve seen that those who benefit most are not the Filipinos but the owners and the other countries outsourcing the skills of our fellows. There could not be a problem for our country if we are already fully economically developed and stable but we are not.

To sum it up I hope our next set of leaders should realize that GDP or GNP may be important but there are a lot more way significant things beyond it. They must focus on the real indicator of a nation’s sustainable progress: the people’s satisfaction, particularly, the marginalized sector.

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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