“Arroyo: Our economy is booming.” (Inquirer, 1/24/08) The moment I read the news, my stomach turned. Really, Ms President, our economy is booming? How come? My personal experience is: I’m still working abroad, my family complains of the rising prices of basic commodities. And because I have to support my family and send my kids to school, I don’t see myself settling or going back home in the next 10 years.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo must be dreaming. And how insensitive for her to say that money remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), because these allow our kids to go to school, are helping expand our country’s manpower and raise its quality. To become what, Ms President? To become OFWs like us?

Instead of dreaming, the President should take concrete steps to bring us home by creating jobs that pay decently so that we can afford to stay with our dear families. Why not adopt a policy of genuine national industrialization instead of selling out our natural resources at international bargain?
I don’t see a booming economy; what I see is my children becoming OFWs just like me. There are no basic industries being put up that would employ my children in the future, right here in the country. What I see is a sellout of our young to foreign labor markets, because the Arroyo administration has no serious policy to industrialize or plan to reverse the policy of labor export.

The foundation of a robust and booming economy is local manufacturing and consumption. Right now, our economy imports too much, thus killing our local industries and agriculture and displacing millions of workers.

Our economy is not booming. It is buoyed up by OFW remittance; and our peso is getting stronger not because of the President but despite her stinking economic policy of labor exportation.

PHETZ ZANTUA (via email)