GMA AT WEF:
“We must not neglect those who feel the hardship of the global downturn the most and that is the poor. Any solution must take that into the account. We need to have represented in the coordinated policy-making of the world diverse kinds of economies – if we don’t have then perspective will be lost and new ideas will not be gained. It is ironic that developing countries now are doing better than the developed countries and yet if they will not have a say in the how to restructure the world economy, that is really wrong.
We need a fundamental reform of the global financial regulation. Doha (WTO trade negotiations) must continue, must be completed – interest of the developing countries can take the rightful place in the global structure of the economy.
We took our bitter medicine years ago when we implemented painful fiscal and financial reforms. So when it struck we had revenues to be able to invest in people as well in infrastructure for the fiscal stimulus.”
Pres. Arroyo struck the right notes in her remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, putting emphasis on how the poor should be factored into how global economic policies are shaped in these hard times.
To be fair, GMA having a doctorate in economics under her belt, knows what she talked about.
Setting aside modesty, she even touted the Philippines’s macro-economic experience under her reign, taking credit for the sustained economic growth of the country these past several years (not that the benefits have trickled down).
But I have a funny feeling in my tummy.
It’s about how Mrs. Arroyo quite conveniently left out how grinding poverty has barely eased in our cities and rural areas; how corruption in the highest reaches of her government festers uncontrollably; and how even the World Bank was forced to blacklist Filipino construction firms for collusion with the air filled with talk about Arroyo’s own spouse being in bed with a favored tongpats-giving contractor.
Her remarks in Davos sounding like a lecture, Mrs. Arroyo also did not mention how sustained efforts by concerned citizens to make her regime tell the truth about corruption scandals have either been ignored or stone-walled.
If she had only used the World Economic Forum to give a candid and truthful accounting about her style of governance and her lack of public accountability, the applause she got would have been well deserved, to say the least.
But that would have been out of character.
Popularity: 1% [?]
THE TRUTH IS THE POOR WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US.
NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD HAS ELIMINATED POVERTY.
SOME OF US, FOR SOME SITUATIONS, CIRCUMSTANCES,
ETC. ARE HIT BY ECONOMIC OR PERSONAL DOWNTURN IN
OUR LIVES.
SOME RECOVER, SOME REMAIN WHERE THEY ARE. SO,
WE HAVE THE POOR.
PROGRAMS TO REALLY HELP THE POOR MUST BE FORMULATED
TO REALLY HELP THE POOR.
TO GIVE A MAN A FISH, WILL GIVE HIM ONE DINNER.
TO TEACH HIM HOW TO FISH WILL HAVE HIM DINNERS
THRUOUT HIS LIFE.
“If she had only used the World Economic Forum to give a candid and truthful accounting about her style of governance and her lack of public accountability, the applause she got would have been well deserved, to say the least.”
actually, i think everyone would have been stunned into silence.
Spot on, Manong Gab.
Isa lang masasabi ko sa ispits ni Ate Glow: Pfsh!
And
To be fair, GMA having a doctorate in economics under her belt, knows what she talked about.
With the way the economy is going, anybody with a doctorate in economics ought to be ashamed. It’s their fault.