Create jobs, lower prices to ensure growth is felt by poor Filipinos

SEN. ALAN Peter Cayetano. EDWIN BACASMAS

MANILA, Philippines—To ensure that  the country’s economic  growth would be felt by poor Filipinos, a senator on  Friday offered  various proposals  such as the  use of  existing  Conditional Cash  Transfer to enact a capital lending  program.

While commending the government for achieving a 7.8 percent increase in gross domestic product, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano said the effects of this rising  economy should also be translated to improve the lives of poor families throughout the country.

The growth was the highest since President Benigno Aquino III took office in 2010,

“We praise the continuing economic growth of our country but we should ensure that the effects of a rising economy translate to a betterment of the lives of poor families throughout the country,” Cayetano said in a statement.

“Not enough Filipino families are feeling the impact of this economic growth. We must do more to create jobs, lower prices, and increase wages,” he added.

Cayetano then called on the government to provide more access to capital for the poor to start their own small businesses as a productive source of livelihood.

“By developing cooperatives with the capacity to lend capital to its members, we are enabling more Filipinos to start their own small businesses and eventually provide more employment opportunities for other Filipinos,” he said.

The government, he said, can also use the CCT to enact a capital-lending program and enable its beneficiaries to put up their own business.

“By using the Conditional Cash Transfer  program to implement a lending program, we can provide poor families with the capital to start their own businesses and create jobs with fair wages,” said Cayetano.

“In this case, we’re showing them how to ‘fish’ and stand on their own two feet instead of just giving them ‘fish’ and making them dependent on welfare,”  he further said.

Senator Serge Osmeña said the benefits of economic growth would be felt by the people if more jobs  would be created for them.

“Getting the rest of the country to benefit from economic growth, we must create more jobs. That should come from the manufacturing and tourism sectors,” Osmeña said in a text message.

“To prime that, we must focus on infrastructures and bureaucratic efficiency,’ he said.

Osmeña explained that the economic growth  posted during the first quarter of the year was boosted by election-related spending, which he said happens every three years.

“We expect more normal 6.5 percent in the last two quarters,” he said,” However, the early release of infra budget would really help boost growth  numbers in the second half.”