spot_img
27.7 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Pope cited economy’s 2 most serious problems

- Advertisement -

In the normal course of things, the head of the Roman Catholic Church is kept particularly well-informed by the Papal Nuncio about conditions in general and particularly about the state of the Catholic populations. This is particularly true of the eve of a Papal visit to one of those countries.

Last week’s Papal visit to this country was no exception. Prior to his arrival on Jan. 15, Pope Francis must have been brought up to date by Papal Nuncio – this title is equivalent to ambassador – Monsignor Ponti on the state and near-term prospects of the Philippines. On the basis of the Nuncio’s briefing Pope Francis chose two issues that in his view were the gravest serious problems confronting the Philippine economy.

Pope Francis chose inequality and corruption. He could not have chosen more, right-on-the-nose issues to bring to the attention of the leaders of the Philippine government in the only non-pastoral speech he delivered during his five-day visit, namely, the speech he delivered in Malacanang in the course of his head-of-State courtesy call on President Aquino.

Inequality of wealth, income and economic opportunity is without a doubt the No. 1 socio-economic problem confronting the 102 million people of this country. The Gini coefficient, which economists use to measure the relationship between a country’s population and its wealth, has been variously computed, but whichever Gini coefficient one chooses – say, the one which has 80 percent of this country’s wealth being owned by the richest 5 percent of the population – the picture of economic inequality that emerges is truly stark.

Perhaps, there is no more vivid presentation of economic inequality in the Philippines than the juxtaposition of the Forbes magazine list of the 20 richest Filipinos with the Social Weather Stations survey finding that approximately 30 percent of Filipino families missed at least one meal during the three-month survey period. That’s the bad news. The worse news is that the situation has not been improving. PNoy Aquino and his economic management team appear to have all-but-forgotten about the first of the UN Millennium Development Goals, namely, reducing by approximately 50 percent extreme poverty in this country during the MDG campaign period (2000-2015).

- Advertisement -

The conditional cash transfer program? That has undoubtedly ameliorated the situation of the very poor, but a Band-Aid solution also temporarily eases the pain of a surface wound. There is no substitute for a restructuring, through appropriate fiscal policies, of the pattern of wealth distribution in this country.

Like inequality, corruption was an excellent choice of economic issue for his holiness to bring anew the consciousness of his Malacanang audience. “Corruption,” Pope Francis said, “diverts resources away from the poor.”

It sure does. It diverts resources to, among other things, overprice of public infrastructure, to illegal commissions that raise the cost of transacting with the government and the acquisition of assets with public officials’ unexplainable wealth. I can imagine that the face of at least one high-ranking official turned red upon hearing the Pope Francis’ remarks about corruption.

Thank you, your holiness, for reminding our government leaders about the Philippine economy’s two greatest scourges. Above all, thank you for your visit.

 

E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles