MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 25, 2014) – A Filipino youth group called Anakbayan commemorated this year’s anniversary of the EDSA 1 uprising with a rally in front of the Manila Electric Company main office in Ortigas Avenue in Pasig City protesting the spate of price hikes and galloping poverty and unemployment rates under the Aquino administration.
Vencer Crisostomo, national chairperson of Anakbayan, said recent surveys showed that up to 13 million Filipinos are currently jobless, as well as the combined P9.48/kwh MERALCO power rate hike, are natural outcomes of the President Aquino’s economic policies.
“Aquino is merely continuing the policy direction of his successors: opening up our economy to foreign plunder and exploitation at the expense of a self-sufficient manufacturing and agricultural sectors,” he said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Crisostomo explained that the policies of deregulation and privatization have in the previous decades led to the formation of monopolies in the power and oil industries. He said these monopolies, in turn, have been linked to alleged price manipulation, as in the case of the coordinated shut-down of power plants last year leading to the P4.15/kwh hike in the MERALCO generation charge.
Crisostomo also blamed the Aquino administration’s framework of ‘foreign investment-dependent growth’ for the ballooning unemployment despite increases in the country’s gross domestic product.
“The problem with relying on foreign capital is that it does not foster development in more than a few sectors of the economy,” he said, citing studies by the IBON Foundation which say that growth in the mining, construction, and BPO sectors have not led to similar growth in others.
“Also damaging are the policies passed by the government to attract foreign investments, such as the freezing of wage levels, as well as the granting of tax exemptions to foreign corporations. With more than three years under his belt, it is clear that Aquino has no intent in changing his economic direction and policies,” he added.
Crisostomo said better jobs and lower prices and a new economic framework is only possible under a new regime.
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