Social and political criticisms
Rizal PHL May 17, 2013
The election is over and looking back the winners won on slogans of protecting the poor, and lifting them from poverty.
The leading senatorial lady elect candidate just did that - promising to take care of the poor. How noble and how stately promises.
But can they really do it?
Erap went for motto, "Erap para sa mahihirap" and easily won.
But poverty is a complex situation in life. The government is not equipped to solve the personal problems of citizens. The responsibility to exist and survive and be successful belongs to the individual and not government.
To pretend that the public sector leadership can solve the problem is a deception if not an outright lie. Yet many are gullible enough to believe.
If we are to solve poverty through budgets and social welfare legislature, then we simply defer the inevitable and states are ill equipped to administer dole outs and social welfare. There is simply too little resources to feed millions of hungry mouths. If at all activists hate and wants to remove politics of patronage. Ie the feudal landlord relationships, where feudal landlords dictate the lives of their fiefdom. Nothing is achieved to repair/recast the system and the whole cycle of poverty remains.
In European countries and USA, the socialist leaning of governments to fight poverty through state welfare, without corresponding productive and adaptive capabilities has resulted in financial bankruptcies of states. Their governments borrowed heavily to fund social programs: health, education and welfare, resulting in massive billions of debt that governments can not hope to pay.
Even more so, how can you not charge taxes and still finance the social welfare, and/or service the huge debts?
The other alternative/options would be to fund this from: PCSO, lotto, or contributions by contractors, lobbyists, other vested interests, and /or jueteng. And eventually, the politician would be labelled as corrupt.
Are the promises too simplistic, not well understood by those who mouthed them, or they just took the gamble.
At the end of the day, they would be unable to keep their promises and be junked later in the next election
