There is not much we can expect from the government during hard times like what we are going through. The increases in taxes due to TRAINs 1 & 2 had sent prices of all goods and services skyrocketing through the roof. And we are about to be dealt another blow due to the bombing of oil facilities in Saudi Arabia a few days ago.
Some of the gasoline companies have already announced big price increases and in a week or two prices of everything will go up again. This will go on for quite sometime as the bombed facility could not be restored overnight.
No matter how resilient we are, the economic pain will be really bad. More so that this is the rainy season when every economic activity had slowed down. In the lingo of the streets, “Mahirap ang delihensya.” It goes for everybody except the makers and sellers of rainboots, umbrellas, and the medicines for the common cold and flu.
Our usual reaction in order to cope is to roll our sleeves further up and exert more effort towards making money. At the same time is the usual tightening of our belts to save on our expenses. But we had been doing these since the beginning of time. But perhaps, as citizens, we don’t have much choice.
As had been said, there is always a positive side to anything. We might need some change in our line of thinking, or that this might be the much needed precursor for us to have a paradigm shift.
By and large, we must change our cinderella mentality. With a big chunk of our population addicted to telenovelas and dramas being blared by the mass media, it has already been ingrained among millions of our citizens that the way out from the economic mire is by meeting and marrying somebody who is rich, or by the sudden appearance of an old friend who somehow made it big somewhere and is in the mood of giving away some of his riches to childhood acquaintances.
Somewhat related is the miracle of winning the lotto jackpot, or in the casino or in jueteng, or in any other game of chance.
Yet the only way to deal with this in the short term is as stated earlier– by rolling up our sleeves and working more, and by saving on our expenses.
As to long term solutions, the ball is in the court of our government and our leaders. That is, if you still have any hope in them or in this country. For the ball had been there ever since and they never led us to some economic higher ground.**.