Why are you people saying that Philippines is “SO” poor? Wow! That’s such a big big word! We are a middle income country. Our GDP per capita is only US$500 away to be classified as an upper middle income country. We have many underconstruction infrastructures and more job opportunities for deserving people that will lift our GDP within a few years, and it’s predicted that we will be an upper middle income country by 2022 if and only if these improvements continue.
Yes there are many poor people, there are slums but only 5–10% of our capital metropolis, we have a very big population, but the majority are not poor, just 1/4 of the population. Is that how “SO POOR” means to you? You need to improve your understanding then.
1/4 of the population are poor because they chose to stay poor. Many Filipinos are happy go lucky people, they just depend and wait for help without making an effort for themselves.
- One example that makes us look poor: Filipinos who have degrees but work as domestic helpers outside. This is ridiculous for me since they waste their profession. They don’t value their profession and exhange it for a menial job that they believe gives them more money. They don’t even realize that by earning enough experiences and sacrificing for a lower wage in their profession at home “temporarily”, the work experiences can benefit them a lot to find professional work abroad and can give them a lot more money if they were just patient enough. What they do instead is they get blinded by higher salary. They don’t value their legacy and profession. This is my opinion and I hope they won’t get offended. I may not understand their situation at all because I’m not in their shoes. But we know in reality that menial jobs are poor jobs and being looked down upon even how hard they sacrifice in that menial job. They want easy money and their legacy and profession suffers forever. Imagine if a person has a degree and she works as a domestic helper to help her children get a degree, what do you think will the child think? That he’s going to get a degree just to be a domestic helper? That’s one that makes our country looks poor. But I can’t blame them if they have family because Filipinos can’t resist their family even just for a few years. They always give and give material aids without realizing that it should be opportunities that they need to give to their loved ones and not to make them their dependents forever. Too much dependency and unwise movements make the people poorer. The people represent the country. If they badly represent the country, then the country will look bad as well.
- Second Thing: People from the provinces who move to the capital because they believe that it’s greener here. To tell them frankly, the capital is not for everyone! A lot of them migrate to the capital without being prepared enough and having good investments for their life there. The ending? They build slums. And those slums are destroying the beauty of the capital. I don’t pity them. They are just being unwise and always depend on the government. They take risks without making the right efforts that will suit their situaion. People here need to move on and stop the belief that it’s only the money that matters. They must be intelligent and wise enough to grab better opportunities, not by just depending and hoping for these to come to them without using their brain and making the appropriate efforts. These people always depend on the government and they rant against them even though they didn’t make any efforts at all. To tell you, we only have 1 district in Metro Manila that has slums and that is only Tondo. The rest of Metro Manila are either first class business districts or middle class residential areas. You think that’s so poor? I know that’s not rich either. But I suggest you need to change your dictionary. We may be poor since middle class has poor and rich and even rich countries have poor people which is a shame since they are rich already but they still have them but to call us “SO POOR”? Change your dictionary please!
- Third thing: The government. Everywhere, it’s true that there is corruption. But what makes it worse in our country is the crab mentality. They don’t want others to be like them. They are afraid that we may get higher than them. That’s the worst ever thing that most Filipinos have. They are selfish. We have almost all the firsts in Asia, first airline, first mass rapid trains, first to be modernized and westernized since we had Spain and America on our back. We even inspired South Korea and Thailand before. We helped the Jews and Israelites. But what did the government do? They minimized the opportunities for people. Our firsts were turned into worst. They didn’t care about our infrastructures. And now, the countries that we helped before when we were rich are now prosperous or at least getting more prosperous than us. And what do we get from them now? INSULTS!
Law enforcements are very bad. We have established developed rules and law. But the law enforcers are incompetent, always forgiving.
In Thailand, people have lower minimum wages but their locals stay because in despite of lower wage, they don’t lack opportunities. They don’t create brain drain for their people. Then why are they prospering more than us? Because they value their legacy and professions more than money. They know how to sacrifice for a bit for better investments.
It’s the complete opposite for average Filipinos. They just want easy money. They want to jump instatly to their long term goal or final step without realizing that it requires prerequisite steps. And that’s why they’re failing. And the country fails too. Average Filipinos lack investments. When they get money, they spend it immediately, making show-offs and boasting to their families, relatives, and friends. They always want to compete over non-sense or less important things just for show-off. Have they invested their money in stocks, trades, business or direct investments, or at least earn patiently for greater opportunities, they can buy a lot more in their future. They can help their family more comfortably.
We have a brain drain in our country, that’s why the 25% of nurses worldwide are Filipinos. We have many doctors and businessmen in America. We have many Engineers and Nurses in Canada, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. We have many ITs in Japan and Singapore. Wanna know why? Another fault of the government. Instead of them practicing their profession in our country to further develop our industries, they do it in other countries because there are more opportunities there.
Filipinos in general need to learn how to wait and stop their instant illusions. Of course, they have to work hard and smart while they wait. Success is not granted overnight. It needs preliminary and prerequisite steps. You can’t just jump to the final stage or else it will ruin your dreams and education. Never rely and be dependent in instant matters.
TO SUMMARIZE THESE ALL,
It’s the people that are poor not the economy. And the Philippines as a whole is NOT SO POOR! We are middle classed. After a few years and US$500 more GDP per capita, we will be an upper middle income country. Rest assured that the improvements will not stop. As of now, we have the highest GDP growth rate in South East Asia.
We have many poor people still. In despite of only 25%, our population is 100M, so 25M are poor and the 75M people are either middle classed or rich.
Thanks to the remittances of the OFWs that help the economy of the Philippines.
Thanks to the underconstruction and approved infrastructural projects that will highly lift up our economic status. Thanks to more job opportunities, though our unemployment rate is not good with 6.9%, it’s not very bad or the worst either. France and Spain even have higher unemployment rate which are 9% & 16%.
So I’m begging you to stop this “PHILIPPINES IS SO POOR NONSENSE!” I hate the international media for just showing the negative side of our country. Use the internet, and there, you can see that we have more positive sides than negative sides. Better if you can visit us. We have 3 first-class or first-world like cities in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu.
“Don’t judge the whole country just because you see some locals with that situation.” You haven’t met all Filipinos.
We were once a Tiger, we were defeated by the Crocodiles, but now, we are rising again and slowly getting back what they took from us (shame on the past government). We are rebuilding our infrastructures and demolish slums to better improve our cities. We have improved the education system to help the youth develop their skills and critical thinking so that we can eliminate brain-drainess, the slums, and illogical planning and illusions of those happy go lucky and ambitiousless Filipinos.
I blame the ambitiousless Filipinos. I blame the illogical Filipinos. I blame the past goverment. I blame them for turning a Tiger into a defenseless Cat. But I have hopes. These negativities shall be eliminated soon enough. We just need to help each other, work together, spread love, and stop the hate, insecurities, jelousy, and insults.
It’s not only the government that requires ambitions, movements, and sacrifices. The nation as a whole needs to work together. The government is the head, so they need to inspire the nation by providing opportunities and doing good investments for the country and in return, the nation must be smart and disciplined enough for better economy.
We’ll do our best to lift up our nation to stop getting insults from other countries, especially to those countries that we helped before when we were rich who don’t know how to appreciate and learn the value of “a debt of one's inner self“.
I therefore conclude that “The Philippines has poor population but also has more middle classed and rich population. The Philippine Economy is Middle Classed. So, your statement of “SO POOR” is INAPPROPRIATE.”
Our goals as human beings are to continuously advance, remove the insecurities, stop the hateful accusations, and spread love.
No offence, just an honest opinion.
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