From Across the Seas By Ben Emata

Aquino Should Know Other Problems

Sending people to jail, left and right, to stop graft and corruption in the country is not the only problem that the president should know. The country has a lot of other problems even bigger than anything else. For instance a lot of people walk in the streets with empty stomach and penniless. The reason is they do not have jobs. Yes, unemployment is one of the big problems confronting everyone ever since. It has become a way of life and seemingly, nobody is surprised about it.

Presidents and other politicians come and go but for a long time the problem of unemployment remain nearly untouched. No president or lawmaker ever solved the problem despite efforts to curb such thing. This is the one that impoverished the country since unployment involves the economy and the lifestyle of people. It should be given priority to create jobs to improve the lives of families and the economy of the country.

What the government is doing right now is to export manpower to other countries. We dump the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, European and other Asian countries with people thus exposing some of them to maximum risk in some troubled countries. Syria, is having violent problem with its people and Filipinos there are certainly in grave danger. The government wanted them sent home but they refused because there is nothing they can do in our country. They prefer work even if there is danger than in our country where hunger for them and families is day-to-day happening.

This is a shame on the part of our country. Our leaders are busy in politicking and other matters that are of less importance. Pres. Aquino should know that unemployment is an old, old problem that need immediate attention. What we should do is create jobs for our people. We should also invite big investors from other countries to come over and establish their manufacturing firms here. Let foreign inventors open their shops here and exercise their professions.

If we have more investors here, jobs will be created and certainly more income for the economy. It is simple as that. Some of our leaders should go to European countries, America, the Middle East, etc. and invite big capitalists to establish their business here. We need foreigners to help us with our nation-building that unwittingly improve the lives of our people.

Another thing is to develop more agricultural ventures in the countryside. We must produce more to feed our people. It is not normal for us to import rice from Asian countries while we have vast land area that is for agriculture. We have thousands of professional agriculturists who are jobless owing to a lot of good agricultural schools in our place. What we need are investments and government support to encourage people to engage in such business. We have to give the poor farmers their right to own lands.

Our country did not move forward even an inch because some of our leaders did not think about improving it. The result is we have so many poor people that are critically in need of job and it seems nothing is done about them. We have to improve ourselves by introducing new efforts for such problem.