"In our country, the economic toll has been quite heavy."
"In our country, the economic toll has been quite heavy."
The French, who are generally snobbish, raise their eyebrows when they see someone who became instantly rich, whether provenance is good or bad. They call them, with derogatory air , the “nouveau riche” as in newly wealthy compared to the “ancien riche” who have had their wealth preserved through generations. It’s like royalty versus the bourgeoisie-turned-wealthy, along with the usual parvenu habits of flaunting their newly found wealth.
The pandemic has caused the economies of almost all countries crashing down in differing degrees. Still, the country of original infection — China, is intent on bouncing back well, and the initial signs show it is succeeding, where its nemesis on the world stage, the US of A, is floundering if not crashing.
In our country, the economic toll has been quite heavy, tossing almost 5 million jobless and unable to pursue even the most menial of livelihoods. Social Weather Stations survey estimates are much, much higher. Tax revenues are hard to come by, expectedly, after a lockdown that has spanned more than six months thus far, and 2019 “normalcy” not likely to return even in the next year. This state of revenue losses impairs government’s ability to help the poorest of the poor, let alone generate jobs through the Build, Build, Build initiatives.
Much of the P4.5 trillion budget still in Congress will be financed by borrowing, at a time when the national debt has reached extremely high levels. But then again, what alternative responses could the government avail itself of?
Returning to the country after six months and a half in my foreign posting in Taiwan, I have heard “horror” stories about middle-class income earners now becoming the nouveau pauvre, or the newly down-graded poor in the economic ladder. Most of these are self-made small and medium-scale entrepreneurs who have spent almost a lifetime of building moderate assets, now faced with closures from which rehabilitation is very difficult, unless massive government resources come to their rescue. Which does not seem likely.
Worse off are those who borrowed to expand, or even in the normal course of operations. A particularly sad story is a highly-capitalized restaurant in Bonifacio Global City that opened just a few days before the lockdown, closed, and hasn’t re-opened. So much money down the drain. With enterprises locked down, and incomes zilch, the gnomes of the banking industry will soon take over their assets. From fairly rich (B levels) to middle class (C). From upper middle-class to low middle-class. From low middle-class to the ranks of the poor.
There are also the newly unemployed. And foreign contract workers whose contracts have expired and not renewed. Or OFWs working for businesses that have come closing down because of the global crisis brought forth by the pandemic. Workers such as in the tourism industry, serving at hotels, restaurants, and even ancillary services such as spas and massage parlors now gone kaput. Jeepney drivers, already “isang kahig, isang tuka” all their lives, now left begging as the transport industry has failed to fully normalize due to contagion restrictions.
How in the name of heaven’s tender mercies are we as a society to respond, and prevent the social implosion of a people whose hopes were high just a Christmas ago?
And then you see our elected representatives squabble for political kingdoms claimed, even as they scramble for the last slabs of pork in the barrel of the budget.
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There is an air of trepidation among some South China Sea analysts about how Trump, back in the White House, would intensify his blame game against China on the “China virus.”
Some of his Republican backers want to hold China accountable for “giving our president the virus.” A Republican fund-raiser even said that the “Chinese Communist Party has biologically attacked our president.” US Representative Mark Walker, a Republican member of the House Sub-committee for Intelligence and Counter-terrorism, asked “if it’s fair to make an assessment that China has now officially interfered with our election.”
How Trump, facing an uphill battle to win re-election, would now use his irresponsibly-induced illness, and convert the same to “pogi” points by escalating tensions in the SCS and the Taiwan Strait bears keen watching.
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A Filipino worker in Taiwan was arrested and is being prosecuted for touching a sea turtle at a resort area off the coast of Liuqiu in southwestern Taiwan. Photographs showed the 45-year old man forcibly grabbing a sea turtle near the offshore coral reef island, which is outlawed by the Wildlife Conservation Act, as acts of “disturbing, abusing, hunting or killing protected wildlife.”
Liuqiu in Pingtung County is a famed habitat for marine turtles, and despite warnings and appeals from the Ocean Affairs Council, ten incidents of touching the sea turtles have been previously reported. Violators can be imprisoned for a year, and/or fined between close to P100,000 to half a million, after prosecution.
Masyado kasing pasaway.