PRESSING
MANILA, DECEMBER 9, 2011 (STAR)
GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc - It may be Opposition leader Edcel Lagman's
duty to foul President Noynoy Aquino, but his latest act seemed more like an
assist-pass.
In the wake of Aquino's continuing high poll ratings, Lagman suggested he use
his huge popularity to improve the people's lot. Hopefully Aquino will get that
ball and shoot it.
His 72-percent approval and 74-percent trust ratings, in Pulse Asia's
November 2011 survey, can only be elating for Aquino. It comes in the midst of
political combat, when in fulfillment of campaign promise he is striving to jail
plunderers and election cheats. Aquino is perceived to have done well in
fighting corruption and criminality, and enforcing the law equally.
The approval-trust scores come right after another uplifting study. Business
optimism, the Bangko Sentral reports, is up 38.7 percent for the second straight
quarter. Monetary authorities attribute the rise to "sound macroeconomic
fundamentals," brisker spending and overseas workers' remittances, and
typhoon-free harvests during Christmas. Also, more to Aquino's credit, the start
of infrastructure works, new investments, and trade expansion.
Aquino winning streak should not lull him into complacency. The crucial issue
is still the people's basic wellbeing. He must not forget that only last
September a huge number of Filipinos complained of gloomy economic straits.
Politics and macroeconomics do not ease deprivation.
To recall, in that Social Weather Station poll, 52 percent, or 10.4 million
households, called themselves poor. Only three months before in June, the
self-rated poverty was 49 percent, or 9.8 million families.
Equally alarming, 41 percent, or 8.2 million households, said they were
hungry. Three months before the food poverty was at 36 percent, or 7.2 million
families.
Self-rated poverty was worst in Luzon (excluding Metro Manila) — a 15-point
rise to 53 percent in September, from 38 percent in June. So was hunger in Luzon
— a surge to 45 percent, from 28 percent. And this was before typhoons and
floods devastated Cagayan and Central Plains.
In short, the political and business goodwill comes amid penury.
The same Pulse Asia poll of November, in which Aquino scored high approval
and trust, rated him so-so in economic concerns. More Filipinos agreed that he
had created jobs and improved workers' pay. But less conceded that he had curbed
poverty and inflation.
The same Bangko Sentral report on business buoyancy in October also predicted
slowdown starting January 2012.
Executives fear the residual effects of the Luzon floods, and the natural
disasters in Japan and Thailand. Also dampening them are slower trade due to the
US and European financial crises, and Middle East tensions.
By the first quarter of 2012, Aquino hopefully would be through with his
political fights to reckon with jobs and food.
* * *
When US servicemen quit eight military bases in the Philippines in 1991 more
than 50,000 Amerasian children were deserted. Mostly infants and toddlers then,
the left-behinds are now young adults. A sorry lot they are. Many suffer severe
depression, says the United Philippine Amerasians. Who wouldn't, with fathers
disowning, mothers having neglected, and society discriminating against them? Of
Anglo or African progeny, skin color and hair texture quickly stigmatize them as
"GI babies." Researched by New York social worker Dr. Pete Kutschera, most live
in slums, undereducated so under- or unemployed. Some of the females work like
their moms as bargirls or housemaids; the males, steeped in petty crimes, drug
peddling and abuse.
Kutschera is putting up a Philippine Amerasian Research Center, to study
deeper the "Pan-Amerasian diaspora." Best site for it is Angeles City, Pampanga,
where 8,000 Filipino Amerasians dwell. The university town lies beside Clark
Field, once the US Air Force's largest overseas base. This week social
development Prof. Jose Maria G. Pelayo III got the Systems Plus College
Foundation to host the first facility of its kind.
The Center can take off from Kutschera's doctoral dissertation for further
research. Published recently, it is about "Stigma, Psychosocial Risk, and Core
Mental Health Symptomatology among Amerasians." Of pressing need is a study on
suicide among the abandoned generation. Who knows, the Center could foster a
sub-office for job placements or parent-offspring unifications. Better still, it
could set into motion what John A. Shade, book author of America's Forgotten
Children, wrote as far back as 1980. Said he, if the American public gets to
learn about the Amerasians' plight, it surely will demand every form of
restitution for them. (Read more in http://amerasianinstitute.org)
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2011 by PHILIPPINE
HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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