Possibilities

I don’t know what’s making Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo more emaciated: her disease, or the constant barrage of news announcing the country’s economic breakthroughs. The only thing she had going for her for a while was her claim that whatever was said of the quality, and quantity, of her rule, she kept the economy afloat.

That was just a claim of course. But for a while, it remained largely unchallenged. The only challenge to it in fact was a reporter asking Arroyo in her time why her vaunted growth wasn’t making the poor less poor, indeed why it was making them poorer.

Then suddenly came a spate of reports showing the Philippines to be the new miracle in Asia. Which had the virtue of originating not from government itself but from global lords of commerce. The latest of which was to say that the country had attained a 7.8 rate of growth in the first quarter, higher even than China, the perennial record holder, which had only 7.7 percent. (Of course, as a recent article in The Economist says, the seeming slower rates of growth for China—it used to boast 9-10 percent—is actually good for it, the economy showing more diversification and balance.) That’s like San Miguel winning over the Miami Heat, if only by a hair’s breadth, if only by one game.

So how would you feel if you were Arroyo? You could always stop reading the newspapers and smash your TV with a baseball bat, but you would still hear the cries of celebration piercing through the boarded shutters. Makes everything hard to swallow for reasons that owe to more than sickness.

Her camp must be dreading the coming of the State of the Nation Address.

If it hadn’t been patent before, it should be so now: There’s no keeping the economy back, it’s on a roll. Such indeed is our capacity to factor in things that we’re no longer surprised to hear that the Philippines has just grown even faster than China, however that carries all sorts of qualifications. But it is impressive, it is amazing. It’s certainly unchallengeable. The only thing to challenge it in fact is the same thing that was there to challenge Arroyo’s vaunted growth:

So how come it’s not making the poor less poor?

It’s a valid question, in spite of the fact that it was the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) that raised it in the last elections. While at this, UNA should be thankful news of this country’s record growth came three weeks after Election Day: That’s worth more than a tsunami of TV ads. Erap and Juan Ponce Enrile, if not Jejomar Binay himself, along with some of the UNA senatorial cast that came straight from Arroyo, are not exactly the best persons to complain about the poor remaining poor. They have only to look at the mirror to find the reason for it.

But the song is worth listening to, if not the singer.

The point isn’t just to raise a harvest, even if a bumper one, it is to make the people share in it, even if a modest one. “The people” being the poor, who are the majority of them. Arguably, growth won’t trickle down overnight, but the question—particularly where the divide between rich and poor is vast, or indeed where the mechanisms for distributing wealth are feeble or faulty—is not when it will happen but if it will happen at all. Growth does not necessarily lead to a trickling down. It remains to be asked if this one will.

That’s the real challenge for government. It’s already proven that pushing back corruption can impact on growth in the most dazzling ways, far more exponentially in trust earned than just in money saved. It needs to prove as well that pushing back corruption can push the precious nectar called growth down the sieve to those that most badly need it. P-Noy has three more years to go, he can leave a bigger and more lasting legacy here. He makes a dent in curbing poverty—Luiz Lula of Brazil halved it during his term—and the most reluctant president to have come to this country could very well be its best.

The problem of course is huge, the challenge daunting. The scale of poverty in this country is horrifying, and the longer it persists the harder it takes to make a dent in it. Dan Brown’s “gates of hell” isn’t just a valid, if arguably exaggerated description of Manila; it is a valid, if arguably exaggerated, description of the country. We are mired in want and destitution, hidden only by oases of wealth, of malls and cars and glitter, which draws our attention to it like deer caught in the headlights. We’ve become so inured to the gates of hell we don’t see them anymore and complain when others do.

But though daunting, pushing back poverty in this country is not hopeless. We do have some pretty bright rays of light in the horizon today.

Quite apart from P-Noy himself, we have a new head of the local Catholic Church, Chito Tagle, whose compassion for the poor is well-known, having lived what he preaches, who stands to turn his favorite institution around, from being part of the problem to being part of the solution. We have a new head of the Vatican itself, Pope Francis, whose compassion for the poor is even better known, having lived poor and breathed poor, and could turn the Church from impediment to contributor, from obstacle to catalyst. We have, well, an old head of Gawad Kalinga, Tony Meloto—he’s been there since Arroyo’s time—who has been making as much ripple in the global community as P-Noy.

All three are deeply spiritual, quite apart from religious, which counts for a great deal in this country. They bring their voice and influence to bear not just in pushing the economy forward but in radiating the wealth outward, and you wonder what we cannot do. Who knows? Maybe it’s something we’ll hear about in the Sona, spanning the chasm, bridging the gap. It’s a time of growth. It’s a time of change.

It’s a time of possibilities.