The Vicious Cycle of Progress and Poverty
Posted on Friday, 8 January 2016
The Vicious
Cycle of Progress and Poverty
By Apolinario Villalobos
Poverty is a mean excuse to do things for
easy money by the weak in spirit. But the strong are ready to go hungry in the
name of ideals and principles. The exploiters use poverty in blackmailing the
unfortunates, one result of which is the dirty election due to rampant vote
buying.
Exploitation of the illiterates and
impoverished also result to virtual land grabbing because they are made to
“sell” their ancestral domains to rich real estate developers at below the decent value level. As subdivisions, golf
courses and resorts sprout, the displaced former landowners and the fortune-seekers
from other parts of the country huddle in not so far depressed areas with many
of them working as low-waged employees of the mentioned business institutions
that sprouted.
Poverty is the corner where the
impoverished are pushed to make a choice between death and survival. Also, when
the government alleges progress, poverty trails a few steps behind. Along this
line, poverty breeds animosity in a community, especially, on matters of
politics. In this regard, while some members of the community are ready to sell
their soul for a few pesos in exchange for their vote, others are steadfast in
protecting theirs which has always been viewed as a “sacred” right. Even some
of the clerics of the Catholic Church have joined the confusion by counseling
their members to accept the bribe but vote according to their conscience.
As soon as the corrupt candidates are
finally put in place, thanks to the rampant vote-buying, in no time at all,
they start to engage in schemes designed to insure the “return of their
investment”. Projects that involve infrastructures are conceived, supposedly to
carry on the “progress”…the bigger project, the better, as assurance for fat
commissions. The worst scheme is connivance with non-governmental organizations
for ghost projects. While all these things are going on, the suffering
constituents see around them towering manifestations of progress in the shadow
of which, they cringe in poverty.
Progress and poverty are the two forces
that push each other to create the never ending loop that goes round and
round…a never-ending cycle that plagues the people of the third-world countries
such as the Philippines, and the culprit are the “investors” – exploiting nations
that promise comfort in exchange for “developments”. Yet, despite the
prevailing realities of the time, the rest of third-world nations still bite
the bait.
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