ALBAY-FB NEWS: Binay: No band-aid solutions to unemployment problem By Jose Rodel Clapano (The Philippine Star) MANILA, Philippines - The government is exerting all efforts to address the unemployment problem in the country, Vice President Jejomar Binay said yesterday. The administration of President Aquino is looking into the high unemployment rate and is addressing it as part of efforts toward inclusive growth, Binay said, adding the government is not engaging in “band-aid” solutions to the unemployment problem. Militant labor groups, however, slammed the government for failing to resolve the country’s high unemployment rate. The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said the high unemployment rate indicated the high economic growth being touted by the government was not really true. “Aquino is so desperate in selling his illusion of economic growth that he even resorts to absurd excuses just to cover up the worsening hunger and poverty that he has brought upon us workers and the Filipino people,” KMU chair Elmer Labog said. Labog said Aquino has already run out of excuses for the ever-increasing unemployment rate that reached 7.5 percent in April. Aquino and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) assistant director general Rose Edillon attributed the high unemployment rate to the El Niño phenomenon that affected the agriculture sector. Labog, however, said NEDA’s claim was absurd, and the main problem of the agriculture sector is the prevailing landlessness among peasants. Labog also took exception to government claims that the high unemployment was due to extreme weather conditions. The record high unemployment, Labog said, was a result of the Aquino government’s cheap labor policy. Economic adviser Albay GovSirChief TourGuide Joey Salceda said the government should invest in the countryside to address the country’s high unemployment. Salceda said it was not just the unemployment rate that rose but also the number of those laid off. He said President Aquino should take risks and “advertise more” to smash structural obstacles to the Philippines’ sustainable growth starting in the countryside. He warned that “social injustice is very much stubborn and structural, historically persistent and policy-immune” as evidenced by the huge jobs losses despite the country’s stellar economic performance. “We have a fresh and good start with the President who is honestly reformist and sincerely egalitarian but his intentions, no matter how pure, are invariably negated by the rest of the dominant players in our society,” Salceda said, referring to well-entrenched families, businesses, and other powerful interests blocking reforms. Salceda said the Philippine predicament has been “over-studied and over-discussed but undersolved,” adding the administration must go beyond the usual portfolio of solutions bandied about by his economic managers. “Although employment may be affected by the way the government chooses to spend and the way it chooses to tax, employment is an outcome of a far more complex set of economic processes and policies, thus the employment picture must be addressed far beyond fiscal policy,” Salceda said. “It is time for the government to take risks and use its most potent weapon to strike hard at the two-headed monster of unemployment and poverty, and that tool is its institutional capacity as a binding force for wealth creation,” he said. ‘Go for low-lying fruits’ Salceda also revealed new investments in the country were not directed to employ the jobless. He said $21 billion of investments that entered the country went to the stock market, and only $1.4 billion were real investments. “The $1.4 billion were all invested in the construction of condominiums and not in factories,” he said. Salceda added that the investments were focused on the industry of the rich. He said the country’s growth rate focused on just 76 percent of the country’s 40 richest families. Salceda called on the government to change the focus of its investments from Metro Manila to the countryside, saying the problems in competition, high power cost and lack of investment in infrastructure contributed to more joblessness among Filipinos. “Go for low-lying fruits or where the growth is easy because the base is lower, and where else but the countryside. How far can we squeeze growth out of the National Capital Region when in fact the solution is decongestion,” Salceda said. Salceda lamented the focus on investments was on property development. “They are promoting property investments such as condominiums which is the focus among the richest in the country,” he said. – With Celso Amo, Paolo Romero, Mayen Jaymalin
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:09:13 +0000
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