Aquino slams graft and corruption at customs bureau

By Christine O. Avendaño
Philippine Daily Inquirer

It’s like being slapped in the face.

This was President Benigno Aquino III’s angry reaction to the continuing corruption at the Bureau of Customs despite measures put in place by former Commissioner Angelito Alvarez and the latter’s successor, Ruffino Biazon.

Apologizing early on to those who might  be offended by what he was about to say, the President expressed his displeasure at  the horror stories of corruption involving the bureau and its personnel, in his speech at the agency’s 110th anniversary celebration Monday.

The President cited several cases, including that of the Porsche-driving Customs clerk who is now facing administrative charges for firing a gun at two students and beating them up following a traffic altercation.

“It’s a kind of mentality that he’s better than the rest, isn’t it,’’ the Chief Executive said in his speech which, he pointed out, he had rewritten  at the last minute so he could say his piece.

Malacañang has ordered the Customs clerk’s dismissal as a result of the incident.

Mr. Aquino also cited the case of someone he knew whose aide ended up waiting for almost an entire day for the release of a package at the Post Office just because he was not able to treat the employees there to merienda (snacks).

“The merienda even had a price—P2,500,’’ Mr. Aquino  said, adding that the aide ended up waiting for the package to be released at 3 p.m. even though  he got there at 9 a.m.

The President also mentioned someone whom he said had bragged that his watch was worth millions of pesos. When this person was asked what his job was, he answered that he was “one of the biggest rice and sugar smugglers in the country.’’

Mr. Aquino said that these kinds  of stories were a slap to his face.

“I can take being slapped for the sake of the country but what I find unacceptable is for the needs of the people to be slapped. They (corrupt) trample on the people who gave them the opportunity to serve them. That can’t be,” he said.

The President appealed to the customs bureau to help fix the system as he vowed to fix the state it was in.

Reflection Paper: Graft and Corruption

The news stated the deeds acted by the President Aquino in order to fight graft and corruption that existed in Philippines through passing years. It is good to know the actions he created because graft and corruption can really lead our economy into crisis. For example, if the public taxes have been kept by some authorities, what does the government used in building establishment like hospitals that can increase employment rate in Philippines? Apparently, we will surely experiencing financial crisis o the point that President Aquino may again, borrow money from the World Bank and this will surely depressed our economy.

Fighting graft and corruption is really a nice way to enhance the recent situation of our economy; but, we should bear in mind that this is not the only aspect that we must focus. It is also important to provide attention to other factor that could lead to economic crisis itself. President Aquino must learn how to use those few trusted people in the government and disseminate them the list of tasks so everyone is moving for the economic progress. Instead of focusing into a trial wherein corrupt politician needs to be sentenced, why not starting to talk with rich people as well as those well known foreign business icons to invest further here in Philippines. It is also good to enhance the tourism in Philippines since natural resources are better source of economy. This income and taxes should be used properly and in order to do it, government must have a reliable accounting which follows the principle of zero – based budgeting.

Philippines tackles high unemployment rate amid economic crisis

MANILA (Xinhua) -- Unemployment rate in the Philippines is expected to remain high in the next few months as the global economic crisis crimps business activities, analysts said.

The Philippines has one of the highest unemployment level in Southeast Asia, standing at 6.8 percent as of October 2008, according to the country's National Statistics Office.

The global economic turmoil has dampened demand in Japan, the United States and Western Europe -- large markets for Philippine export goods, services and migrant workers. As these markets contracted, so did the demand for Philippine labor.

"Workers will always be the victims in a recession," said Father Edwin Corros, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerants.

"When there's no demand for your products, how can you continue to hire people to make your products?" said Rene Cristobal, vice president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, Inc. (ECOP). Cristobal said several of ECOP's member-companies have to lay off workers as they either close shops or reduce their output.

Analysts said the most vulnerable workers are those in the export-oriented industries such as electronics and textile manufacturing. "The recession in our trading partners has hit our exports sector hard," said Philippine Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto. Philippine economic planners expect export receipts to fall this year and this doesn't bode well for workers, especially for those employed in labor-intensive manufacturing companies.

Indeed, several companies reported either laying off workers or cutting working hours as the crisis reduced demand for Philippine exports.

In Luzon, northern Philippines, Intel Corp., the first US semiconductor firm that established a facility in the Philippines, shut down its factory and retrenched 1,800 workers. In Cebu, southern Philippines, furniture maker and exporter Giardini del Sole Inc. has temporarily shut down and laid off about 250 workers as a result of the financial crisis.

The Philippine Labor Department reported that 40,000 workers were retrenched, 33,000 workers are experiencing shorter working hours while over 5,400 overseas Filipino workers were displaced because of the crisis.

Dennis Arroyo, director of national planning and policy of the National Economic and Development Authority, forecast that as much as 200,000 workers may be laid off as the crisis continues to hurt the local economy.

However, the director doesn't expect the unemployment level to hit double-digit levels which were recorded several years ago. In a paper issued last month, Josef T. Yap, president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, expect unemployment levels to stay at current levels.

"Assuming that the economy will not decelerate further in 2009, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic that the unemployment rate will not rise beyond 6.8 percent in the next few months," he said.

Recto conceded the crisis will pressure the employment situation, but he believed that the strong macroeconomic fundamentals combined with the 330-billion-peso (about 6.84 billion US dollars) stimulus package will cap the growth in unemployment rate.

For this year, despite the global recession, the Philippine GDP is expected to expand at 3.7 percent to 4.4 percent. Recto said the easing of inflation (estimated to hit 3.9 percent this year compared to last year's 9.3 percent) will boost consumption and keep the economy afloat. The stimulus package -- the bulk of which will be used to build infrastructures -- will create 800,000 new jobs.

Luz Lorenzo, regional economist of the ATR Kim Eng Securities, agrees that the consumption driving Philippine economy will be resilient this year. But such economic growth, she said, is not high enough to absorb the burgeoning labor force.

"The economy will not fall in the deep end. But neither will it be a bed of roses. Unemployment will remain a problem," she said. Migration: by need not by choice

The lack of opportunities in the Philippines will force most Filipinos to seek greener pastures abroad. Every year, around one million Filipinos go overseas, mostly forced to leave their families to provide them with a better life.

Father Corros said most of the retrenched migrant workers that the Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerants has been assisting in the past few months still prefer to work overseas instead of just staying in their own country.

"Migrating is the only option for them because they can't find jobs here," he said, adding that "we go back to the same problem. They go abroad because it's difficult to look for jobs here."

The Philippines is one of the world's biggest labor exporters, with 10 percent of its over 80 million population living abroad. Migration has long been part of the Philippine government's strategy to solve the unemployment problem.

This policy started in the 1970s when then Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, faced with huge levels of foreign debt and the oil crisis, sent construction workers to the Middle East. This was done to rein in the rising unemployment levels and avoid growing social unrest. Thirty years later, Filipinos continue to leave in droves -- working as entertainers, domestic helpers, nurses, caregivers, seafarers and programmers.

The global crisis may have slowed businesses and even retrenched more than 5,000 Filipino migrant workers but analysts and government officials believed that there will be demand for Philippine labor abroad.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo directed the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to aggressively market Filipino labor and expertise abroad.

This kind of policy has long been criticized by migrant rights advocates, explaining that migration, although it brought in the much needed remittances, also caused social problems. Numerous migrant workers have been physically and sexually abused and have to endure exploitative working conditions.

The separation also breaks family ties and hurt the children who were left behind by their parents. What is needed, they said, is for the government to develop an economy that will provide decent jobs and will make migration a choice, not a necessity, for most of the country's labor force.

The current global economic crisis, however, doesn't offer such option. The country's economic managers said one of the factors that will support the consumption-driven economy is the steady inflow of remittances. Labor deployment will therefore remain a key government policy.

"We see a steady labor demand in the Middle East, Australia and elsewhere which are responding to the crisis by embarking on infrastructure projects with their own stimulus packages," Recto said in last week's economic briefing.

Analysts said most Filipinos in the United States -- one of the top destination countries for Filipino migrants -- will keep their jobs as they're usually employed in the recession-proof healthcare sectors. Industrialized economies with aging populations will continue to seek cheap, English-proficient and skilled nurses and caregivers from countries like the Philippines.

The Philippines is one of the world's biggest exporters of health care workers. Every year, over 8,000 Filipino nurses and 14, 000 caregivers were deployed. Outsourcing industry offers new jobs

There are some bright spots in the domestic labor market. The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is expected to remain bullish. BPO revenues are forecasted to grow by 20 percent to 30 percent this year and companies expected to hire 100,000 new workers.

"A lot of companies are under a lot of pressure to cut cost so I think it will accelerate outsourcing," said Alfredo Ayala, CEO of LiveIt Solutions, Inc., the holding company for Ayala Corporation's investments in business process outsourcing.

Call centers will remain the biggest revenue earner and employer in the BPO sector. But BPO executives believe that the growing demand for the high-value non-voice outsourcing sectors such as animation, software development and back office will offer opportunities to the country's programmers, graphic designers and accountants.

"Right now, we're really leading in the contact center sector. But now we're trying to change that. We're trying to expand to the higher value non-voice services," said Ma. Cristina Coronel, president of the Philippine Software Industry Association.

Job openings, however, will not necessarily translate into full- time employment. BPOs offer a lot of perks and benefits to its employees but very few are qualified to work in the industry. To solve this problem, BPOs are offering workshops and scholarships to expand its talent pool.

Dennis Posadas, deputy executive director of the Philippine Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering, said that as far as outsourcing in the information technology sector is concerned, very few are qualified to take the jobs because many are not adequately trained. "We still need to improve basic education in our pubic schools. They need to emphasize on science and math education," he said.

Reflection Paper: Unemployment

With the global economic crisis we experience now a days the global recession has been visibly seen specially to those country which consider a third world like Philippines in order two cope up and maintain the stability of business company regardless of its industry, owners or entrepreneurs opt the decrease their manpower. As a result there is a consistent increase in statistic of unemployment rate. This problem has been experiencing by lots of us especially to those people who cannot obtain any professional or white collar job. With all of these, the bottom line poverty will surely exist just like a cycle, if poverty occurs there only few people who cannot obtain proper Education even know it is our birthright. Bear in mind that if a country cannot be able to produce some people who have enough knowledge in dealing with economic needs our manpower as well as its productivity will placed at risk. And Because this government must take an immediate action.

Since it is a cycle the only way to resolve the problem is to break the chain. How? First, they must focus on the internal aspect of government itself. The right authority must learn how to utilize the country’s own resources in terms of money machinery power and so forth with all the small budget we have try to place, small businesses where in newly graduate as well as those people who were not be able to obtained bachelors of degree main gain lots of benefits. Instead of removing those individuals who work on various company or even lowering their wages just to compensate with the scarcity, why not scheduled there working time so that everyone can serve in this particular company, hence enhancing its productivity.

In addition, government must allow individuals who have desired to work overseas. In this way to obtain money enough or to resolve financial crisis more over the position that they should occupied if ever they decided to work here in Philippine setting will be given, to those aspirant job applicants.