6 Philippines International Airports

Given the minuscule scale of our economy and our meager revenues – a sizeable part allocated to debt-servicing - we have to make do with what is left. And, the bulk of the crumbs are still siphoned off by a greedy elite and predatory and incurably graft- and corrupt-ridden bureaucracy where small- time perpetrators and members of the Political Opposition go to jail, while the big ones (as always) and self-righteous members of the YELLOW CLICHE are shielded from the long arms of justice (while yet in office) by portraying themselves to be laboring cleanly for God, country and people.

How was P142.23B in DAP funds released for 2011-2012 spent? Too huge an amount to itemize, huh! The P10B Napoles Scam is much easier to track down …

Bear in mind though … business is business!!! You can short-change a tax collector, but never a big-time businessman. And, no businessman invests on a losing proposition.

In an economy where monopolies, oligopolies, collusions and conspiratorial business transactions remain entrenched, social conscience is inversely proportional to gains. The more opportunities for profit, the more the tycoons venture to expand, put up holding companies, diversify and gobble up everything in their path. Social conscience, thus, approaches zero. Hahaha … forgive the skewed logic, but there is no better way to describe the situation on the ground other than in this context.

So the elites continue … Filipinos should be proud, instead!

Hotels … malls … commercial buildings … high-rise condominiums … themed amusement parks and entertainment centers … they grow like mushroom everywhere in the metropolis – to the delight of the eyes, especially after dark.

The rumbling stomachs of the less fortunate and the sorry state of the depressed countryside have to wait. Not much of economic values, anyway.

The illness is already advanced. Only palliative care is needed to relieve the extreme pain – in the form of sub-standard farm-to-market roads, fair wear and tear- and typhoon-vulnerable shanty school-buildings and improvised bacteria-laden water systems. These are as well presented as sweet “toppings” in the counter-insurgency cake. All temporary solutions prescribed as absolute cure by the YELLOW GOVERNMENT wacky doctors and pretentious do-gooders.

Let us include the pig-pen structures and dog-houses that dot the relocation centers for the calamity victims and squatters. At least, there were the feeding and packing and relief goods distribution centers (at times fully air-conditioned) crowded by E-pal politicians and Government functionaries and exclusive school co-eds well-covered by the media more than featuring the despicable sanctuaries of the evacuees.

There, too, are the numerous billions of pesos Government housing projects all over the country with almost no takers (see them in Tarlac, Las Union, Zamboanga City … etc.). OMG! What a blatant waste of tax-payers money. If it were in Japan, the Project proponents, implementers and contractors would have long committed suicide in shame.

This is the two-faced image of development and delivery of basic services … one side for the poor, the other side for the rich to earn some more.