By Alex Lacson
B1M Movement Launching
27 September 2018, UP Balay Kalinaw
I: Introduction
Chief Justice Sereno, mga kasama, mga kapatid, mga kapwa ko Pilipino, magandang umaga po sa inyong lahat.
Exactly 18 years ago, in year 2000, my wife and I seriously thought of migrating our family to the US or Canada, and live our lives there. That year, my older brother and his wife just sold everything they had in Negros and migrated to the US. My youngest brother and his wife, together with their 3 kids, were also applying for migration and eventually left a few years later. So my wife and I were also tempted to follow. In year 2000, the Philippine peso plummeted to its lowest level. That year, for the first time in our country’s history, the Philippine peso breached P50 against 1 US dollar. There was a lot of panic in the country. We too thought of wanting to leave, to escape. But after almost a year of talking about it, my wife and I decided against it. We decided to raise our children here, to live our lives here, in the land where God planted us.
But while we decided to stay in the country, there was this question that continues to haunt me to this day. What if the country becomes so much worse than what it was in year 2000? Paano na lang pag 20 years or 30 years later, lalong lumala ang mga problema at sitwasyon ng ating bansa?
It was in this context that I became a writer, that I decided to become a writer. I wanted to contribute, in my own little ways, using whatever small talent that I have, in building a better country for all of us, my children and your children included.
It was in that context that I wrote my first book “12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do To Help Our Country”, which to my pleasant surprise touched a raw nerve among millions of Filipinos, not only here but also abroad.
I wrote that book with the sincere belief that good citizenship, along with good leadership, is an essential part of the solution that we seek. I sincerely believe that we can only have a world-class country if we have world-class citizens in it, world-class citizens who elect world-class leaders to run the country.
I wrote my first book with the honest belief that we are a great people, that the Filipino is great and talented, that the Filipino is not inferior to the Japanese or to the SKoreans, that the Filipino is not second class to Singaporeans, or to the Taiwanese or Germans. I sincerely believe that we are as great as they are. And that we must believe in it. If they were able to build their countries great and prosperous, we too can build our Philippines to become great and prosperous.
I wrote that book because I wanted our people, especially our youth, to believe in it. Kung kaya nila, kaya din natin. Kaya din ng Pilipino.
I sincerely believed that the Filipino is capable of greatness, of extreme sacrifices, of containing and conquering himself, of subjugating his personal interest for the greater interests of the people, of sacrificing his personal good for the people’s common good.
But after 18 years since my wife and I decided not to migrate but to stay in our country, I had encountered so many disappointments.
Chief Justice Sereno asked me to speak for 15 minutes today, but 15 minutes is too short a time to tell you all my disappointments and all the problems that I see in our country.
But be that as it is, there is so much that I can tell you in 15 minutes.
So let me begin.
II: Our Country’s Problems
In Hongkong, there is a public park called the Statue Square which is full people during Sundays. These people are Filipino OFWs, Filipino domestic helpers. 30,000; 40,000 of them at any given Sunday, enjoying a day of rest from their employers. In other public parks in Hongkong, you will find several thousands more of them. You will see them sitting or squatting by the street sidewalk, or sleeping with a carton box in the corners of train stations, subway MRT stations. Around 90% of the 210,000 OFWs in HK are domestic helpers. In 2009, a newspaper columnist in HK called the Philippines “A nation of servants”, after we began to be aggressive in making our claims in the islands at the West Philippine Sea.
In 2009, the global TIME Magazine published an article entitled “A Motherless Generation”. When I read the article, it saddened me that it talked about the millions of Filipino children in our country who are growing up without their mothers by their side, because their mothers have to find work abroad.
In 2012, the Department of Education released a report showing that 1.4M students dropped out from schools that year 2012. I discovered that every year, more than 1 million of students in the public schools drop out from school, primarily due to poverty. If this is the case, how many millions of our youth today are out of school? 5M? 6M? 7M? No one is making a serious study.
In 2016, the PSA, a government agency, released a report saying that 12M Filipinos were suffering from extreme poverty. This is bigger than the whole of Singapore, which has only 5M population, bigger than the whole of Hongkong, which has only 8M population. 12M Filipinos suffering from extreme poverty is almost the size of Israel, whose population is just over 12M also.
In June 2018, the WB released its Poverty Assessment Report for the PH, saying that the poverty in the country has been reduced to 21.6% of our population, from 26.6 in 2005. In effect, the WB claims that only around 22M Filipinos are poor today. But WB used the measurement of $1.90 earnings per day, or P105 earnings per day today, as the basis to measure poverty in our country. Ang ibig sabihin po ba nito ay, kung kumikita ang pamilya mo ng P107 a day, hindi na kayo mahirap? Pag kumikita ba ang pamilya mo ng P200 a day, hindi ka na mahirap sa Pilipinas? Kung gamitin kaya ng World Bank ang daily minimum wage na P512 per day bilang basihan ng poverty threshold, gaano kaya kalaki ang poverty ratio sa bansa? 40%? 50? 70% or higher?
That’s why this 2018 World Report on poverty in the Phils is highly questionable, if not misleading, if not deceptive of our true poverty situation in the country. It does not tell us, in full measure, the true picture of our country’s poverty problem.
So how poor are we really as a nation? How come poverty seems to worsen in the country?
And yet, from 2010-2017, the Philippine economy grew tremendously at 6.4% per year, the 5th highest in the whole of Asia, a region of 47 countries. Our country’s economic growth, by GDP, was the 4th highest in the world at 7.2%, the 4th highest in Asia in 2016 at 6.9%, and 4th highest again in Asia in 2017, last year, at 6.7% GDP growth rate.
Our country’s national budget increased tremendously from 2010-2018. From P1.6T in 2010 to P3.7T in 2018. It was a 130% increase in our national budget in the last 8 years. The size of our national economy also increased tremendously, from $199.6B in 2010 to $371.8B in 2017. The size of our economy almost doubled. Meaning, our country generated so much more wealth in the last 7 years.
But how come the poverty in our country has remained substantially the same, if not worsened? How come the lives of the great majority of our people have not improved for the better? Where did those fantastic economic growths of the past 7 or 15 years go? Who benefitted from them?
According to Dr Cielito Habito, former NEDA Secretary during the Ramos Administration, around 80% of our country’s economic growth every year, every year, benefit only the top 40 richest families and their companies in this country. 80% every year! Perhaps this is the reason why the wealth of the 12 richest families in the Philippines tripled, tripled, in just 6 years, from 2010-2015. A study on this was published and reported in the news 2 years ago. In the meantime, the biggest and the richest corporation in our country has approximately 80% of its total employees as contractuals, paid by the minimum wage that can barely support a decent and comfortable living for a family of 5. This company, despite being the biggest and richest business corporation in the country, is a creator of poverty, because there is so much poverty within its own corporate backyard. Many big companies in the Philippines are, to be brutally frank and truthful about it, are creators of poverty. They pay their employees very low wages that can never lift out their employees’ families from poverty.
And yet our political leaders in Congress, in the Senate, and in the LGUs, most of them do not seem to be bothered or disturbed by all these. Or perhaps they really do not see these problems. Perhaps they are too preoccupied in looking for ways how to advance and protect their personal and family’s interest. In the research of Dr Ronald Mendoza, formerly of AIM but now Dean of the Ateneo SOG, as of today, 82% of the members of congress belong to political dynasties, while 79% of the leaders of LGUS like governors and mayors, belong to the same political dynasties. It is said that there are only 178 political dynasties in the country, but they have already captured 82% of the congress, and 79% of the LGU leadership positions.
It has been 18 years since my family and I decided not to migrate abroad but to stay here. My worst nightmare is happening before my eyes everyday. The country seems to be getting worse each year, despite all those fantastic economic growth data that are being reported in the news.
Our country’s political system has become highly dysfunctional, captured by a few political dynasties, that it has become extremely difficult for any ordinary Filipino, however brilliant and qualified, to win against them in any election.
Our country’s economic system, which is based on Adam Smith’s free-enterrpise capitalism, has already become one of world’s worst types of capitalism, as it is creating extreme wealth for a very few and extreme poverty for a great many.
Our present system works only for the 20% of our population, 30% at the maximum. It does not work for 70% to 80% of our people. The present system is a failure, because it has only created poverty for 70% of our people.
Our present system is unchristian, very very unchristian. And if you are a true Christian, you must not only be disturbed but you also ought to be angry at how unchristian our society has become. If you are a Muslim, you also ought to be disturbed and angry since our present system is not based on brotherhood or brethrenhood, but on the personal good of a few.
Truly, there’s so much that we need to change in our government, in our society.
In the past 18 years, I had encountered so many disappointments, from leaders who I supported with all of my heart, but leaders whose hearts turned out to be small hearts for our people, leaders whose hearts do not truly bleed for our people, leaders who failed to embrace our people’s problems as their own problems, leaders who failed to embrace the happiness of our people as their own happiness.
So when Chief Justice Sereno invited me to speak here today, at the launching of this new movement, it gave me a new hope, the kind of hope that brings excitement to my being. And I pray in earnest that this time around, we would do it right.
III: B1M Movement
I am glad that Chief Justice Sereno has initiated this new movement today – the B1M Movement.
I love the name of this movement – B1M – Bawat Isa Mahalaga. Truly, iisang pamilya lang tayong mga Pilipino, regardless of our religious beliefs, our ethic origins, our dialects.
Bilang iisang pamilya, we should account for each one of our people. Dapat alamin at paki alaman natin ang kalagayn ng bawat Pilipino.
- dapat paki-alaman natin ang kalagayan ng bawat OFW sa HK, sa Middle east, at sa ibang bahagi pa ng mundo. Ang pang-aabuso sa bawat OFW ay pang-aabuso sa ating lahat na mga Pilipino.
dapat paki-alaman natin ang kalagayan ng mga batang naglilimos at nagnanakaw sa kalsada - dapat paki-alaman natin ang mga 1.5M school drop out children sa mga public schools taon-taon
- dapat paki-alaman natin ang kalagayan ng mga 7M na out of school youth sa bansa
- dapat paki-alaman natin ang kalagayan ng mga millions ng contractual workers who are suffering from law pays at Endo
- dapat paki-alaman natin ang kalagayan ng mag 12M Filipinos who are suffering from extreme poverty
This is what BIM Movement is all about. This is what B1M Movement should be about.
My hope for the B1M Movement is that . . .
- may it find some or all the answers to our people’s problems
- may it find ways to create more work here for our people
- may it find ways to tame the greed of our oligarchs, our business elite
- may it find ways to reform how business is being conducted in the country, so the workers will be valued more than the capital invested, so the workers will get their fair share in the earnings of their employer companies, so the people will get their fair share in the growth of our economy
- may it find ways to tame the greed and lust for power of our political dynasties
- may it find ways to send the corrupt, especially the plunderers, to prison
- may it find ways to give genuine hope to our people, especially to our youth
But in pursuing the change we all desire, in effecting the reforms we all want to see, let us not to be tempted to use any means or method that is foul and unlawful. Mahatma Gandhi said that we must clothe our dreams with sanctity, that we should not soil it with any foul, violent or unlawful means. Gandhi said that a genuine and lasting change is the one that is born out of love and pursued with the ways and means of love. Let us therefore use the power of love, not the power of force and violence, in pursuing and effecting the change that we dream for our country.
Finally, let me just say this again. We are a great people. Never ever doubt that. The Filipino is capable of greatness, of supreme sacrifices. The Filipino is not inferior to the Japanese or SKoreans. He is not second class to Singaporeans, or to the Taiwanese or Germans. We are as great as they are. If they were able to build their countries great and prosperous, we too can build our Philippines to become great and prosperous.
We Filipinos have the power to build a Philippines where there is enough for everyone, where no one is left behind in poverty; a country where every Filipino family lives in comfort and dignity, one that can bring out the best in our people, and a country that can truly make the Filipino great and respected in the eyes of the world.
But for us to attain all of these, one thing is required of each one of us, we have to deny ourselves, and put the country first. We have to deny ourselves, and put our people first. We have to deny ourselves, and seek the common good first. We have to deny ourselves, and truly serve our people first.
Marami pong salamat, Chief Justice Sereno sa inyong puso at sa pagtatag ninyo sa B1M Movement!
Laban Pilipino! Laban Pilipinas! Laban B1M Movement!
Maraming salamat po!
