06 December 2005
EDITORIAL: Hang together or hang separately
WHATEVER administration detractors, angry militants and other cynics may say, it cannot be denied that the economy has never been this vibrant since about four, five months back and especially as December now trots in.
Word is that dollar remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers who have long been coming to the aid (albeit, coincidentally, according to critics) of their motherland’s financial distress is about to hit $12 billion and the Philippine peso has thus grown that much stronger.
The rosy signs are there: Higher demands for RP bonds, robust trading at the stock market and President Arroyo’s now buoyed up spirit seriously considering more non-wage benefits for workers to tide them over hard times even without the cash equivalent yet.
The figures of course are hard to dispute because these are official and the more sober-minded oppositionists, while acknowledging these grudgingly and making some dire warnings of these developments being at best temporary or artificial, seem to give things now the benefit of the doubt. This is as good a bargain as any for the once-beleaguered administration – to have a breathing spell from the myriad of stink bombs thrown at its direction every which way in the past months. Now, if it can only sustain the momentum, this country will be in business once again.
This section realizes there are national issues that have yet to see a firm and final closure. But it shares the belief of some in the center that it would be unfortunate if in the quest for political resolutions, the economy is summarily sacrificed or left to rise on its own. We are after all talking about national survival in these globally perilous times and without unity – even only temporarily – we have but two bitter choices on our fate as a nation: to hang separately or to hang together.
Your choice, fellow Pinoys, fellow Pangasinenses!
Word is that dollar remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers who have long been coming to the aid (albeit, coincidentally, according to critics) of their motherland’s financial distress is about to hit $12 billion and the Philippine peso has thus grown that much stronger.
The rosy signs are there: Higher demands for RP bonds, robust trading at the stock market and President Arroyo’s now buoyed up spirit seriously considering more non-wage benefits for workers to tide them over hard times even without the cash equivalent yet.
The figures of course are hard to dispute because these are official and the more sober-minded oppositionists, while acknowledging these grudgingly and making some dire warnings of these developments being at best temporary or artificial, seem to give things now the benefit of the doubt. This is as good a bargain as any for the once-beleaguered administration – to have a breathing spell from the myriad of stink bombs thrown at its direction every which way in the past months. Now, if it can only sustain the momentum, this country will be in business once again.
This section realizes there are national issues that have yet to see a firm and final closure. But it shares the belief of some in the center that it would be unfortunate if in the quest for political resolutions, the economy is summarily sacrificed or left to rise on its own. We are after all talking about national survival in these globally perilous times and without unity – even only temporarily – we have but two bitter choices on our fate as a nation: to hang separately or to hang together.
Your choice, fellow Pinoys, fellow Pangasinenses!
