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A LOT of good will come from the administration’s P2-billion
subsidy to small electricity users, 10 of whom received P500 each at
a quiet program at the presidential palace on Tuesday.
The money will help four million poor
“lifeline user” households meet their power bills, which have
risen mercilessly in the past few months. Lifeline users are the
families or individuals who consume 100 kilowatt-hours or less of
electricity each month. The money is a one-time handout.
The project borrows from the Ahon Pamilyang
Pilipino Program, a conditional cash transfer project launched by
the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The program
provides cash benefits to families on condition they invest in their
children’s future with health checkups, enrollment in school and
maternal care. The maximum benefit is P1,400 each month for a family
with three school-age children.
To ensure government-subsidized rice for poor
families, the administration has issued access cards for heads of
poor families to save them from long queues and worries that they
may have to buy rice above P18.25 per kilo, the ceiling for the NFA
variety.
Because college education has become expensive,
the President has ordered state universities and colleges to freeze
their tuition fees. Turning her attention to public school students,
she made school uniforms optional to reduce the costs of basic
education, which include transportation, food, class projects and
school supplies.
The palace has also fended off petitions from
public transportation owners to raise bus and jeepney fare and has
encouraged the idea that sending text messages be made at no cost to
the users. It has encouraged regional wage boards to raise the
minimum pay.
Promote self-reliance, not mendicancy
Much of the public has welcomed the
administration initiatives aimed at ameliorating rice and food
prices, electricity charges, oil and gas-related expenses and
tuition worries. Analysts however have observed that many of the
programs neither address the basic causes of our national ills nor
offer long-range solutions to them.
They have warned against short-term solutions to
inflation pains. They claim the administration is perpetuating
mendicancy instead of promoting self-reliance. “Knee-jerk
reaction,” “tokenism” and “palliatives” is how they have
described the actions crafted by presidential advisers.
Above all these criticisms, we believe the
government and its critics have not focused on a national program we
need and could work on—creating and maintaining jobs. Filipinos
need jobs desperately. Many of the employed are not paid
sufficiently and must look for extra work or a higher-paying job.
The President could borrow an idea from her
father—President Diosdado Macapagal—who launched the first
nationwide public works project in history, the Emergency Employment
Administration. The program hired thousands of jobless men and women
who earned honest pay with their toil and sweat. They came out of
the experience not richer but with more money to pay for their
needs, buy a few amenities and appreciative of honest labor.
Create jobs in the cities and the farms
There are countless jobs that could be done in
the cities and the farms. Hundreds of irrigation systems need
repair. There is work to be done to fix farm-to-market roads and to
improve post-harvest facilities, to mention a few examples.
We do not have to wait for international
conferences to beautify and clean up our surroundings. The
government said recently public buildings require inspection for the
next big earthquake. Repairing, repainting and maintaining
government buildings require manpower.
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority
under Chairman Bayani Fernando is a big employer. Forgetting his
public portraits, we look with admiration at how BF’s “Metro
Gwapo” project has used brawn and muscles to sweep the streets,
direct traffic and keep discipline on the sidewalks.
Local governments—the provinces, towns and
cities—could embark on similar projects, using paid hands and
volunteers, to help the administration cope with a big headache and
to enable millions of Filipinos to earn a living that dignifies them
and that honors their skills.
Organize a national jobs program
Small and medium businesses need a strong boost
through affordable loans and credit. The underground economy or the
informal sector is a strong pillar of the economy that employs half
of the labor force, produces services and products. Active
entrepreneurship, open to women and young Filipinos, is the
alternative to wearying 9 to 5 office or blue-collar jobs.
Private business has an important role but will
not of course hire the hands it does not need. The problem,
according to a Department of Labor survey, is that many employers
could not fill up their vacancies because the skills needed are not
available. This takes us back to the job-vacancy mismatch because
the schools are educating and training people in the “wrong”
vocations.
We will have to continue engaging the overseas
job market as we replenish the talent supply. The work of the
Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Labor and
Employment and the Technical Education Skills Development Authority
for education, training and marketing is important.
Giving as many of our people jobs is the way out
of poverty, ignorance, idleness and crime. Malacañang, together
with the private sector and local governments, must put a national
jobs program in place.
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