With each year being a mixed bag of blessings and blight, the year’s end brings with it the compulsion to take stock, to look back at opportunities missed, missteps made, and dreams given up for lack of will or resources.
Fortunately, there’s always the New Year, a blank slate on which second chances are writ large, and possibilities resurrected. Despite the limited shelf life of resolutions, we harbor relentless hope that the next 365 days will bring meaningful change, a better political climate, less excesses, more kindness, perhaps more proof of a shared humanity, a better appreciation of truth.
If we can ring in better times and excise the ills from the year just past, what would be in our wish list? Here are a few:
A bullish economy balanced with respect for workers’ rights. While global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank see a strong growth rate of 6.6-6.7 percent in 2019 for the Philippines because of robust public investments, the country also made it to the list of worst countries to work in, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Global Rights Index. The Philippines got the lowest rating of 5, as there is “no guarantee of rights” for workers despite labor laws meant to protect them, and due to “intimidation and dismissals, violence, [and] repressive laws.”
Stronger children’s rights. The Ateneo bullying incident illustrates how far the country still has to go when it comes to children’s rights. This is reflected in the Philippines’ drop to 104th spot from 96th in the latest report of international advocacy group Save the Children, which ranked 175 countries where childhood is most and least threatened as a result of poor health, malnutrition, exclusion from education, child labor, child marriage, early pregnancy, and extreme violence. The Philippines performed poorly on three different indicators: teenage childbearing, severe malnutrition and under-five mortality.
An equitable justice system. Convicted of graft, former first lady Imelda Marcos was allowed to post bail of a measly P150,000 for the hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds she stole, according to the court. Over at the Sandiganbayan, former senator Bong Revilla was acquitted of plunder, but was still asked by the court to return, with convicted plunderers Richard Cambe and Janet Lim Napoles, P124.5 million to the government. The bizarro ways of the Philippine justice system were on full, soul-crushing display this year.
A more independent foreign policy. With the President’s markedly accommodationist stance toward China’s expansionism in the West Philippine Sea, a raft of loans from and joint-exploration agreements with this new ally are raising fears, even among international observers, that the Philippines may be getting the short end of the stick, with consequences that will outlast President Duterte’s term.
Greater accountability for overstaying and unregistered foreign workers. Government records show that 115,652 foreign nationals—51,980 of them Chinese—have been issued special working permits by the Bureau of Immigration; many of the Chinese workers came to the country on tourist visas. The country’s jobless, meanwhile, stood at about 9.8 million adult Filipinos, according to a 2018 third-quarter survey by Social Weather Stations.
More women in sports, and more resources for their training. Because the country needs more women heroes and inspirations in athletics, such as weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, golfers Yuka Saso, Bianca Pagdanganan and Lois Kaye Go and skateboarder Margielyn Didal, to put the Philippines on the sports map.
A return to political sanity and civility—to the rule of law, with renewed respect for the Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights), and the urgent recognition that the country’s democratic project faces a clear and present danger in the current fancy for applying authoritarian ways to social ills. “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” to invoke that famous Churchill quote. “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government—except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…” The Philippines has tried dictatorship; it was a catastrophe. So perhaps the ultimate wish in this list should be, for all of us to finally learn from the past, and in that (frankly overdue) epiphany, find the wherewithal to get our act together. Now, there’s a New Year devoutly to be wished.