Common Denominator

May 2010 election is at the tip of the Filipinos tongue. Philippine politicians have started to expose their political advertising campaigns using various means of communication. One plausible objective is to help out Filipinos from poverty. Persuasion is the best political defense in order to get the attention of the electorates. One common question, what makes sense of the Political ads?

In March 2006, the Library of Congress, Federal Research Division on Philippine Profile disclosed that the economy of the Philippines has lagged behind other economies, such as those of Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. From a position as one of the wealthiest countries in Asia after World War II, the Philippines is now one of the poorest countries. Since the 1970s, which were a relatively prosperous decade, the Philippines has failed to achieve a sustained period of rapid economic growth and has suffered from recurring economic crises. This persistent underperformance has occurred in spite of the Philippines’ rich natural and human resources. Poverty is a serious problem in the Philippines. The reasons are rooted partly in history, partly in policy.

Carlo Albano, a Filipino student at the University of Wisconsin, reported that some conference participants talked about the economic pressures behind immigration. He noted what Oswald Katipunan, BAYAN USA member said that in the Philippines there are teachers that have left their country to become domestic care workers in countries abroad for better pay, lawyers that have left their homes to work as security guards. Katipunan added that these people have worked hard to get their education but the lack of national opportunity forces them to continue their struggle abroad just to support their families. This is the effect that we see worldwide in the waves of migration today. This is the push and pull of the single superpower and the oppressed of the world.

Philip Gerson as referred to his Working Paper on International Monetary Fund (Washington) in 1998 entitled, "Poverty, Income Distribution, and Economic Policy in the Philippines wrote that poverty is both more widespread and more persistent in the Philippines than in neighboring ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries. While the poverty rate has decreased in the Philippines over the past 25 years, the decline has been slower than in other ASEAN countries. Some of the blame for the Philippines' slow progress in reducing the incidence of poverty can be attributed to past economic policies that retarded growth by discriminating against agriculture and discouraging investment in human capital. These policies, in turn, sustained powerful interest groups that blocked or delayed economic reform. Poverty in the Philippines, as in most countries, tends to be associated with low education levels for heads of households and with large family size. Poor Filipinos are disproportionately employed in agriculture, fishing, and forestry.

Aubrey Sc Makilan, a news writer of Bulatlat interviewed Cecilia Diocson; an Ilocana nurse working in Canada since 1975. “We explain to them the reasons behind the labor-export policy of the Philippines, tracing the root cause to the socio-economic and political problems besetting the country; why Filipinos had to work abroad to earn a decent income; and why Canada needs our cheap labor,” Diocson said. She added, being the main force that keeps the Philippines’ ailing economy afloat, migrant workers are regarded as ‘modern-day heroes’ by the Philippine government, but the government does not match the adulation it confers on OFWs with deeds. The OFWs toil as modern-day slaves abandoned by their government. We are just being viewed as numbers, she lamented. She also criticized the Philippine Consulate for not setting a shelter to accommodate domestic workers running away from abusive employers. She stressed that trade and investment promotion continues to be the primary concern of Philippine officials in Canada. Although they have left the country several decades ago, they never lose hope that they would eventually go back home. She asked, who does not want to return to his/her own country? She argued that due to the difficulties of earning a living in the Philippines, one needs to have a lot of savings to be able to live a decent life when one returns. Diocson said that her two children, who were born in Canada, had their integration in the Philippines. She related that they had a positive experience, but they also realized that earning a decent living is difficult in the Philippines. She assured that even as they are miles away from their native land, they will still respond to the ‘call of service, the call for change.’

The growing of political advertising campaigns nowadays is a sign of conceiving a new array of hope. These political ads simply speak the persons who can get the Philippines out from the box of poverty. However, through the years as reflected in the Philippine politics, this merely becomes political odds allowing people to live in misery instead of teaching people the best way of life. One common answer, these political ads simply remind our significant role in Philippine politics and society advertising the best that we can to make Philippines a super power nation in the future with common denominator that is sharing as one to be the number one.