It is during the rainy season when the less fortunate really feel how it is to be so. The only people who are making money during such times are those who are fixing umbrellas, and those who are selling these along with raincoats, boots, and medicines for cough, colds, flu, fever, etc. All the rest of the general populace are miserable, particularly those who don’t have stable or regular jobs.
At such times all other businesses are down. At the very least, if they don’t temporarily close down, they scale down their operations to the barest minimum. This is the time when government should offer financial aids like giving out loans with very minimal interest, if at all. There is something to look back to like during the pandemic when some government agencies gave out loans at no interest to keep businesses going or for them to recover. It saves jobs, if not lives. Granting such loans are a lot better than giving out dole outs. The latter should be resorted to only for people who are so down they have nothing to eat or are almost there.
Can the government afford such loan programs? Yes, look at the billions and billions of money it had been allocating as part of the national budget, particularly for infrastructure projects. Everybody knows such allocations are for patronage politics, to maintain the loyalty of politicians to the topmost national leaders. Usually members of one extended family and their loyalists.
And measures should be implemented so politicians will not politicize the programs. For always, beneficiaries have to become beholden to politicians who facilitate their being chosen as such.
How can that happen? Only if the intention of achieving the human purposes of such programs are being seriously lead from the very top. Only then can it be implemented down the line to the grass roots level.
Otherwise, everything will be politics as usual.**