Hunger, poverty and corruption

VIRTUAL REALITY

- TONY LOPEZ

In 25 years, the Philippines suffered massive declines on three fronts: 1) in the output and growth rate of agriculture, once the economy's mainstay and biggest employer; 2) in economic growth, down to just 5.55 percent average in 2023 and 2024 from 7.6 percent in 2022 and 3) in the quality of governance. Corruption is rampant, massive and breathtaking in impunity.

Combining these three, the result is the Philippines falling from being the richest nation in the 10-nation ASEAN and the second richest in Asia (after Japan) to an economic laggard, left behind by Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, in economic growth rate and per capita income. When the Philippines became Asia's first republic in 1898, Thailand (1932), Indonesia (1945), Malaysia (1957), and Singapore (1965) were not even nation states.

Singapore, when it began as a nation in 1965, did not even have water, toilets nor electricity.

The Philippines was an economic powerhouse. It established Asia's oldest waterworks system, the Nawasa or MWSS, in 1878, 18 years before Rizal was killed at the Luneta. It founded Asia's first electric and railway company, in 1903. That is why Meralco means Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company. The Philippines also founded Southeast Asia's first bank, Bank of PI, in 1851. The country had plenty money then, funneled into the Manila Stock Exchange, Asia's oldest stock market, founded in 1927.

Agriculture's output as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) has fallen from 27.6 percent in 1974 when Marcos I achieved a rice surplus with his Green Revolution to 13.9 percent by 2000 and to eight percent in 2024, the lowest ever.