Re: widening gap between rich and poor in the philippines


"Cheeze" <csmarasigan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1128135894.586251.217900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> kiko matsing wrote:
>> By Godofredo M. Roperos
>> The widening gap between
>> our rich and poor
>>
>>
>>
>> WHEN I took a cab the other day from the office to our house, I talked
>> with the driver as I always do. But rather than the usual talk about
>> the weather and the growing heaviness of traffic in the city, the
>> driver complained about his fast diminishing take-home earning in spite
>> of the new flag-down rate of P30 and P2.50 per so many feet distance.
>> He claimed the increase did not really go to their pocket.
>>
>> When I became silent and looked at him, he probably thought I needed an
>> explanation. He elaborated that the present situation of increasing the
>> pump price of gasoline many steps at a time and rolling it back one
>> step once in a while is slowly strangling them. He said that every time
>> the price per liter went up, their actual daily take went down because
>> it was from it that they get to pay the increase in pump price.
>>
>> "Before," he said in the vernacular, "our daily rental for the
>> unit was very much higher than our gasoline consumption for the day.
>> Today, our total consumption sometimes goes up to as much as P800 to
>> P1,000, while our daily rental ranges from P500 to P700. And to think
>> many of the operators charged us by increasing the rental for the cost
>> of calibration of the taxi meter recently which they said has gone up
>> to P1,500."
>>
>> Thus, according to the driver who claimed he was supporting three
>> children in school, two in high school and one in the elementary, he
>> felt like giving up driving a cab entirely to look for other ways of
>> making a living. There must some other way of raising his children and
>> feeding his family. And driving a taxi or a jeepney at a time when the
>> price of gasoline is going up like crazy is no longer worth it.
>>
>> It seems the disparity in the social and economic condition between our
>> rich and poor is glaring. The gap in the lives of our many poor and the
>> very few rich is inequitably widening, instead of narrowing, which has
>> always been the goal and aspiration of many a President who sat on the
>> "throne" at the Palace by the Pasig. It is said the very poor now
>> has unduly increased.
>>
>> In fact, it is said, we need only look at the prevailing national
>> condition as a typical example, since the disparity between the rich
>> and the poor appears now to be glaringly perceptible. Efforts to
>> equalize the social and economic circumstance of our citizenry have
>> been the oft-repeated dream of our aspiring politicians over the
>> nation's governance through the decades, but none ever did succeed.
>>
>> Their efforts to "bridge" the gap between the affluent few and the
>> needy are withering under the heat of economic elite's political
>> pressure. The current problem of the President with her critics and
>> political detractors is obviously the result of her failure to
>> perceptibly narrow the gap between the very rich and the very poor,
>> which has been her vow upon her ascent to office. What came out instead
>> are reports of jueteng payola and rank corruption.
>>
>> In her report to the nation, she vowed to tackle not only the
>> entrenched vested interests in the country and make them more
>> responsive to the plight of the poor, but to "keep a tight lid on
>> consumer prices and go after profiteers . . ." It is, in a sense, a
>> kind of declaration of war in the economic front. But she has been in
>> office for some four years now, and nothing much has really happened to
>> the life of our impoverished many.
>>
>> There appears to be an obvious failure of the President in succinctly
>> appreciating the lay of the social and economic "battlefield" in
>> the country. Now, she is reaping the fruits of her failure as she faces
>> now the almost daily rallies and demonstrations in various parts of the
>> country. Had she succeeded in narrowing the economic chasm among the
>> nation's rich and poor, she would certainly not be asked now to
>> vacate her "throne" at the Palace.
>>
>> In so far as the Philippines economic demography is concerned, the
>> off-the-cuff data often cited may just be estimates rather than hard
>> figures, is that only 10 percent of Filipinos belong to the very rich,
>> while 20 percent belong to the in-between and are neither poor nor
>> rich. The rest of the 70 percent are those who are essentially the
>> working class-the daily wage earners, the self-employed,
>> underemployed and unemployed.
>>
>> While they constitute as the nation's human backbone, they also
>> represent the grim social burden that the government must bear, whose
>> survival it must sustain and fight for, but appears to have dismally
>> failed to attain.
>
> Great example. The solution of course... is what? Stricter
> regulations on gasoline? Restrict the economic elite?
>
> NO!
>
> Deregulate Taxi cabs!!! Stop government from interfering in the
> market!!!
>
> Both the Taxi operator and the passenger would know what is in their
> best interest. Why restrict one's freedom to contract from the other?!
>
> This is precisely why socialism doesn't work! And this article blames
> it on the economic elite?! Duh- that is just ignorant!

Deregulated taxis work like this:
A Foreigner arrived in Manila. He wanted to take a taxi to Makati. The
driver told him that the fare is 600 Pesos. He thought it was too much and
argued with the driver. Along came another taxi driver and told him: I take
you there for 100. On the way the driver made a phone call and told someone
where he was going. Arriving at the address a few of the drivers buddies
surrounded the taxi. That will be 100 US Dollars said the driver.
That's how capitalism works.

>


.

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