Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno has always enjoyed a reputation for being a good economist with the ability to look at the bigger picture. He knows how diverse and separate economic events affect each other and contribute to the whole. He has decades of knowledge in economic theory. We do not doubt that he has a clear idea of the macro and micro forces that influence the Philippine economy.
Of late, however, he has also been developing the reputation for saying all the wrong things and being insensitive to the plight of the poor.
Earlier this month, amid the ban on deployment of workers to Kuwait and the call for those already there to come home, Diokno said: “I think if you’re hardworking, you won’t go hungry in the Philippines.”
Diokno was roundly criticized for the implications of his words—that those who are hungry and jobless here are not working hard, looking hard enough. In short, they are lazy.
Millions of Filipinos make the painful decision to leave their loved ones behind and work in a foreign land because they have tried looking hard, and still failed.
This week, Diokno is at it again.
“I think we should be less of a crybaby,” Diokno said at a forum Wednesday, referring to growing complaints of high prices of goods and services arising from the record prices of oil in the global market, aggravated by higher excise taxes.
“Remember, we had $135 per barrel under [the administration of former President Arroyo],” the secretary said. He added that the higher prices would eventually redound to the benefit of the masses in terms of transit systems and other infrastructure.
Diokno also pointed out, and pointedly, that a big chunk of the population does not pay taxes “and these are the people who are complaining.” The poorest 10 percent gets free education, free health care, conditional cash transfer, and others, he said, arguing that tax reforms should not be suspended because infrastructures would be stalled.
But the poor do pay taxes, every time they buy goods which come with consumption taxes.
Diokno thinks objectively and logically and we have no reason to doubt the soundness of his arguments. He forgets however that the prices of goods literally make up a gut issue—this determines how and whether Filipinos can still provide for their families the basics of decent living.
He probably would not know how it is to wonder where his next meal will come from, or whether he could afford to give money to children for public transportation even, much less buy books or other means for them to improve their lot.
Anyone who derides long-suffering Filipinos as crybabies, for merely expressing how difficult it is to survive from one day to the next, should be taught basic compassion and decency. Unfortunately, these cannot be learned from any fancy economic school.