The Philippines is very rich but a very big chunk of the pie was amassed by a few families, the old rich and the taipans. Only a very small slice is left for the almost 80% of Filipinos to fight over. So the most important priority of the administration should be to democratize the wealth in this country.
A way to do it without resorting to undemocratic ways like seizure of assets and then distributing these to the people is to come out with laws for the wealthy to abide by that will do economic justice. One is to come up with laws requiring big companies to apportion a decent part of their profits as the share of their employees and officers. After all, it was their sweat, tears and blood that resulted in the profits. Such must be computed after some amount is set aside for future contingencies like economic contingencies or pandemics.
With that, more workers will become dedicated to, and would love with proprietary sense, their jobs.
The way things are, however, employees have to be content with wages which are far from “living” levels. That is, families can hardly live on such.
In addition, big companies must empower those working for them economically. This can be achieved by coming up with corporate policies to encourage, if not require, workers to pool their small resources for these to achieve some economic power. This can only be done by the organizing of cooperatives with the supervision of corporate officers. Because ordinary employees when left to their own designs are often irresponsible or lack the necessary brains and skills to run a business or to properly utilize the pooled capital. Many of them even would be interested or pre-occupied on how to steal the hard earned money of the group.
And give MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) the opportunity to progress by providing capital, skills and knowledge. As of now, the assistance of the government to this group which employs around 80% of Filipinos is just a joke. Recently, for these businesses to get back on their feet after being ravished by the pandemic, the government only allotted P1billion to be lent to them with interest. Why not P5B or P10B and interest free? They hire 80% of the nation’s employees. With proper and sincere support, they can end up employing a lot more.
There was nothing serious in the latest SONA (State of the Nation Address) to come up with laws and policies to implement the foregoing.
Nothing to show any appreciation of the wisdom that caring for the people means caring for the nation.**