Economic Woes..
The Filipinos and the Philippine Government are very hard to comprehend.
· We are an agriculture economy yet people don’t want to be farmers.
· The government’s priority is agriculture development yet it is wanting in the development of agriculturists.
· The government counts on agricultural production to raise its income yet it is giving away large tracts of land to landless farmers who do not want to cultivate their lands.
· We want good education for our children so we send them to school yet when they are in school, they want to pursue careers in non-agricultural sector. Only those that cannot afford higher education are forced to remain farmers. Some who are brave enough to pursue agricultural studies are more of exceptions than the rule.
· So, we want to pursue agriculture development but our people don’t want to be farmers, hence, we end up cursing ourselves not because we failed to develop agriculture but because we did not see the gap between the government priorities and the priorities of our people.
· And since our people don’t want to be farmers they go somewhere else to seek employment in non-agriculture sector, which our government cannot provide not because it doesn’t want to but because it cannot.
· We want to upgrade the lives of our people, but when they do, they abandon their farms and settle in the cities. Afterall, they feel they no longer deserve to be called farmers.
· Those who cannot wait for the promised good life, hurry to the cities where they dream of angelic lives; only to settle in the squatter’s world and share with the rest of their flock the stink of the city life.
· I, too, am a coward. I dreamt of uprooting my parents from the harshness of farmer’s life. I struggled and won. And now, our little farm lie idle, maybe grieving for not having seen me for many years, and though I want to see her, my new life would not allow us to be together again. And that’s because I grew tall, traveled far, chased my dreams and grabbed it; while our little farm lied still, unmoving not because she doesn’t want to but because she cannot. All these years, no one dared brought her close to where most of us want to go and want to be. Poor lands
