charity case

Browsing through the week's and last week's news I came across a PDI headline story, which amused me at first. Foreign chambers of commerce have submitted to Malacanang a joint statement ending the political killings around the country or risk losing aids and investments.

It's normal to hear business network associations giving their statement and position to anything that will surely have direct impact to the country's economy. But just you wait until the next paragraph read - a similar petition was signed by local officials of signature clothes such as Gap, Polo Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, Van Heusen, and yes, even Wal-Mart, the largest chain convenience stores in the US. Human rights violations affecting the fashion industry.

The Philippine's must have assumed such a notorious stature after being branded by Amnesty International as among one of the countries where human rights are treated as a banana peelings. The extra-judicial killings must have really taken its toll on the economy that even the big foreign apparel names ditch out their very own petition/letter.

Unresolved human rights violations, compunded with the more troublesome issue on the recent GRP-MILF peace talks and the sporadic terrorist attacks is the perfect anathema to foreign aids/investments. Working with a business support organization, I realized that just a single incident of violence could cause havoc in the international arena that embassies would then start to release travel advisories. Not just a decline in tourist statistics, incidence of conflict create a ripple effect leading to the reluctance of investors and/or aid donors.

But ironically, the presence of conflict and the perennial poverty are reasons why Philippines - Mindanao in particular - attracted so much foreign aids - it's like carrying a streamer of 'feed us, please!", a one big example of a charity case. Admittedly, the government cannot move on its own and so they need these aids from countries like Japan, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands and of course the US and A (wink wink at Borat!) to even make a slightest indicator of what socio-economic development is.

------