Growth unlabored

SECOND ONLY to China – arguably the world’s biggest economy now – which posted 7.7 percent growth in 2013, is the Philippine economy’s 7.2 percent.

“This is a remarkable turnout as the economy grew better than our expected target of six to seven percent in 2013 despite the challenges we faced during the year, particularly the disasters that struck Central and Southern Philippines in the fourth quarter,” Socio-economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan declared on January 30, 2014.

Despite the typhoon that hit the Visayas in November last year, the economy grew by 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, he added.

In no time at all, Malacañang’s loudspeaker amplified the “impressive” economic surge, thus: “A year of challenges did not deter us from impressive growth.” Hailed Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda: “(The) resilience of an economy that defied expectations, and the resilience of thousands of Filipinos, including the survivors themselves, who came together in the wake of calamities, as well as our people’s characteristic dynamism.”

Rapturously, now: “It is precisely because of these that we are confident that our countrymen will not only sustain, but accelerate the reform agenda that has led to these successes. We will not only revive and bolster the communities affected by calamities, but together, we will hasten our task of achieving lasting, inclusive growth that leaves no one behind.”

All that ecstasy at the end of January 2014. Eleven days later, on February 11, the agony of unemployment hit the national psyche. 

Malacanang’s “inclusive growth” left behind unemployed Filipinos who surged to 12.1 million during the last quarter of 2013, up by six points from the 9.6 million jobless recorded in September of that same year, a Social Weather Station survey conducted December 11-16 found.

An unemployment rate of 27.5 percent at the same time that the Philippine  economy grew by 7.2 percent. Some stark contradictions there.

What’s wrong? So a newspaper bannered President BS Aquino as asking his Cabinet. 

A ready answer from Lacierda: The increase in unemployment 4Q 2013 was “understandable” given the two natural calamities of  the 7.2-magnitude Bohol earthquake and super-typhoon “Yolanda” in Eastern Visayas – and one man-made calamity, the Zamboanga City siege.

(Numerologists may find something interesting there – 7.2 percent economic growth vis-à-vis the 7.2 magnitude Bohol earthquake.)

On one hand, despite the calamities, the economic growth of 7.2 percent was  achieved.

On the other, because of the calamities, the unemployment rate rose by 27.5 percent.

Dafuq? As netizens are wont to raise.

Yolanda and the earthquake are an alibi the working class heroes would not buy.

“The cause of the present jobs disaster in the country is not Yolanda but Noynoy. Aquino’s dependence on foreign investments and refusal to implement genuine land reform and national industrialization are disastrous for the employment situation in the country,” said Kilusang Mayo Uno Chairperson Elmer Labog in a statement.

To Bayan Secretary-General Renato Reyes Jr.: “Unemployment has been a chronic problem, existing even before the storm ravaged the country, and persisting because of the policies of the Aquino regime.”

This, even as he noted that the “areas of growth account for only eight percent of total employment, according to the government’s own statistics. Sectors such as agriculture and fisheries have consistently lagged behind.” And therefrom blamed government not having a “real program” for land reform and industrialization.

To Partido ng Manggagawa Chair Renato Magtubo: “We are more troubled with the fact that after more than three years in office, the Aquino administration has yet to understand the root cause of this chronic problem.  And it’s not about the weather…trade liberalization both in industry and agriculture, lack of industrial program, and the privatization-led growth model were to blame.”

Understanding that chronic problem and its root cause may begin with some reading of E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered:

“There is universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider "labour" or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation…”

Solving that chronic problem may begin with a totally different read. Yeah, Das Kapital lives.